Talk:The Wizard (1989 film)

Initial text
anon deleted text cut'n'pasted from http://www.loogslair.net/vgame/wizard.txt. Mikkalai 06:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Final Round Scores
Since Super Mario Bros 3 was drawn as a new prototype game in this movie, it is reasonable to accept that scores used in this tournament wouldn't reflect the scoring system that would be found on our good ole' commercially found version.

Specifically, in this kind of tournament (as happens in real life), special tournament editions of games can be licenced and created with special scoring and gameplay.

The idea of only using specific levels from the game in a tournament is not far fetched at all... and would definately explain the supposed mis-naming of the levels.

-Jon

jon@jonivy.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.174.33.110 (talk) 10:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, but the world map used for the game is the exact same map as in the NES release. This means that either the programmers added an extra level and moved World 1-2 to World 1-3 (which is pretty unlikely) or they just skipped World 1-2 and figured nobody would notice (which is far more plausible).

SeahawkTim (talk) 23:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Ninja Gaiden
Incidentally, the level he was playing was the very first level of the game, so getting through the first part without taking a hit isn't much of an accomplishment.

This seems to ignore the first sentence, which indicates that Jimmy's already completed the entire game and is playing through it again, from the first level.

"[...]it's his second time through and he hasn't even taken a hit yet!"

I'm going to remove it.

68.9.205.10 17:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

''Many people (including movie critic Roger Ebert) blasted this movie for the scene where Sam plays Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as he says he was on level three but they cut to him on the first level. However, what these people didn’t notice was that Sam said he "almost beat MechaTurtle", so it's possible he might have died and started over.''

i really doubt roger ebert blasted the movie for THAT reason, since the man has time and time again proclaim his lack of knowledge about videogames and his lack of interest in them in general.'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.115.132 (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

---

5/16/06

Although Ebert had plenty of other more important issues with the movie, he does mention the fact with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the final paragraph of the review on his site. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19891215/REVIEWS/912150304/1023

Added by wil2197 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wil2197 (talk • contribs) 01:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Beta Game?
I think it'd possible that Super Mario Bros. 3 could've been a beta tested game, where some of the rules were changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.179.196.128 (talk) 03:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Score of 50,000 on Double Dragons.
I deleted the following: "(In actual fact, a score of 50,000 in that game is not impressive for someone who is a master at video games. However, it is presumably his first time playing this game.) "

I am new to Wikipedia so I don't know if this really constitutes a violation of neutral POV but I don't think this aside has anything to add to the article. Do we have a "master of video games" who can provide some support for this claim? Presumably this was posted by someone who has gotten higher than 50,000 on Double Dragons and considers themselves a video game master who can speak for all video game masters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AJarvis (talk • contribs) 01:01, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the movie implies that this is something insanely difficult to do. In fact, anyone who has played a video game could probably reach that mark easily.  Still, a lot of that info probably doesn't need to be there.  I think I'll trim it a bit.  --UsaSatsui 07:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm new as well, though I grew up playing the NES from age 5 in 1985 so I can confirm it's legit, it just takes focus. 50,000 points in Double Dragon for NES is fairly possible and somewhat difficult. The easiest method was using the repeated 'headbutt' on oppenets as it rewarded the highest points per attack though getting to approximately Level 4 was required as it was dictated by the number of enemies which to beat up. 7/6/06 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.103.5.35 (talk) 21:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

This article …
… is one of the most spectacularly dorky ones in all Wikipedia! Contratulations, I love it! Mstroeck 21:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

"Game Errors" and Trivia
Okay, I cleaned out a LOT of the "game errors". Most of them are just boring. Some don't take into account that the movie probably isn't showing every second of the game (so it doesn't take him 5 seconds to beat the "high score", it takes 10 minutes...and they cut out 9 minutes 55 seconds). And some are just audio sync mistakes. And some were STILL copyvio from another list of these mistakes (the guy who made that list is a friend of mine, for the record. He took that list down, in part because parts of it kept showing up here).

A lot of the trivia I got rid of too.

I left the ones I felt were at least interesting, that were clear-cut errors or that I could check out myself and see were truly mistakes (I own all the games mentioned in the movie except Ninja Gaiden). To keep the list from growing out of control again, new additions should probably be posted on the talk page first, then added in later. Just a thought.

--UsaSatsui 08:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

''
 * * One of the more obvious errors is that despite the fact that the unveiling of Super Mario Bros. 3'' to the public occured for the final round of Video Armageddon, Haley shouts to Jimmy to use the warp whistle despite the fact that she couldn't possibly know what the item was or what its effects were. It is possible that the whistles were eluded to in a "Power Magazine" that Haley got for Jimmy earlier in the movie, but nothing points to this officially.


 * Not convinced about the validity of this one. I can see her saying that without knowing just what it is, expecially if you have that annoying announcer jabbering about it.  --UsaSatsui 00:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * * There were difficulties synchronizing the film speed with the video games, due to the differences in speed. Film runs at 24 frames/second, and the games ran at 60 frames/second.
 * This used to be 30 frames per second, someone changed it to 60 frames per second. I'm pretty sure 30 is the right number, but I'm not sure.  I'm pulling it out until it gets a source anyways.  UsaSatsui 11:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * 30 full frames/sec, 60 interlaced frames/sec. so the screen was 60Hz 85.149.120.16 11:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Autism
I have a son with Autism. There is no known cause of Autism. you can be born with it, or have it become apparent, later on. Jimmy may have had some Autistic tendencies earlier in life (how would we know, this is just a movie) and the death of his sister made him regress and become worse. My son is high functioning, unless your a trained autism professional, you'd have no idea he was autistic. However, something tramatizing can set them back. And Jimmy's actions, etc, are of those of a child on the Autism Spectrum. Especially the obssession with video games, the concentration he puts towards them .. very common in Autistic persons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.72.0 (talk) 20:54, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there a source to prove Jimmy is autistic? One part of the article claims he is, and another says his symptoms are autistic like.--Iamstillhiro1112 19:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * He's certainly not autistic. He wasn't born that way, it happened after his sister drowned in the river (he wasn't supposed to be down there, so he blamed himself, I guess). Possiby PTSD?  I'll change it later.  --UsaSatsui 23:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I would just leave out him having a condition name and mention that he had a tramatic experience.--Iamstillhiro1112 23:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * There. I went with "emotionally disturbed", that's what's on the back of the DVD box. --UsaSatsui 10:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I removed that last autism reference. I still don't think this resembles autism. I remember him being quiet but I don't remember anything else that makes me think of autism. I know autistic people myself.--Iamstillhiro1112 00:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * He was also withdrawn and spent most of his time either "off in his own world" or building things. Maybe that's where the refrence came from.  --UsaSatsui 07:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Error
This shows the actors were not playing the games themselves, but most likely all the TVs were hooked up to the same NES and someone was playing them off-screen. Uhh.....it would make more sense that the game was recorded to a VCR and the TVs were running the playback. I've changed the statement to reflect this. -- Jelly Soup 10:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Major rewrite as of 9/6/07
I reworked things again. It was getting pretty ugly. The trivia/game errors sections are gone, reworked into the article. Let's try and keep it that way. This article tends to attract bad trivia for some reason.

Here's what still needs to be worked on, any help would be awesome:


 * Some more specifics. How much was the prize money, for instance?
 * An image. The old one was deleted for some reason.  We could use a good image for this article, maybe two.
 * Sources. Any cites on the film's status in video game culture?  I'm just inferring.
 * Fact-check. Did I get all the featured games?  I know others were shown or mentioned, but they really only focused on a couple.  If I missed any, please add.
 * More info! Why did the people who made this thing really screw up the video game stuff?  Things like that could be helpful.

I think we can at least get this up to Good article status with a little work (featured is probably a pipe dream, though). So let's do what we can. And keep the crap out of it. I'm watching. *glare* --UsaSatsui 22:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

When he's building things, he's "building the stage" where SMB3 is played.
Watch it and see, especially the first time. Thanks to two anonymous sources who don't want to ba named. SashaNein 20:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Is Reception Accurate?
The article uses RottenTomatoes as evidence that the movie was not well received. How is this accurate? RottenTomatoes did not exist in 1989 when the movie was released, so anything on that site would not indicate how well received it "was", but how it is being interpreted many years later. I don't think it's fair to count reviews that occurred 20 years later to be representative of its initial reception. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.202.102.162 (talk) 01:45, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed, of course... --< Nicht Nein! (talk) 21:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

the reception pararaph was changed by trolls, I remember this movie being called a cult classic in the article (which it actually is) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.47.168.7 (talk) 23:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Also the current article is inconsistent on the reception of this film. It states both "Despite receiving consistently negative reviews" and "The film received lukewarm reviews from critics." These can't both be true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:17F0:8DD0:6113:F95E:2285:FFE6 (talk) 20:41, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Latest revision
 I'm good with that. --UsaSatsui (talk) 22:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

James Rolfe
Wait a minute... Jimmy is played by "James Rolfe". However, the links link to the Canadian composer James Rolfe who was born in 1961. So, they are most likely wrong. But who is it? Should we delete the link, is he the AVGN James Rolfe or is he a completely different actor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.74.183 (talk) 01:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Film was not the North American introduction to SMB3
In fact, it was playable on Playchoice 10 several months before the movie came out. I don't have a source to back this up, only my recollection of playing it once in the Summer of 1989 at a Wal-mart. Anyone else back me up here? :P — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.183.108.200 (talk) 00:37, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

CAST!!!
== 'CAST THE CAST WHERE IS THE CAST SECTION WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT WHERE'S THE CAST? WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT THE CASSSSST WHERE IS IT! ANSWER WHERE IS THE CAST WHERE IS IT — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.219.235.2 (talk) 05:40, 6 February 2015 (UTC) ' ==

It's right where it should be. Chill out!Robbmonster (talk) 05:29, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

'Production' section
It seems to me much of the 'production' section is dedicated to finding error with the depiction of the games shown in the film rather than the making of the film itself.

"The Taito arcade game Top Speed (known as Full Throttle in its originating region of Japan) is featured twice in the film, but is called out incorrectly as F-1 Dream. Jimmy is seen playing the game when the trio cons the three redneck teens out of $20. The camera pulls out to show he is in fact playing on an F-1 Dream arcade cabinet, to which Haley then says "470,000 and climbing on F-1 Dream." F-1 Dream was made by Capcom and is an entirely different game than what was show in the movie. F-1 Dream is more akin to Rare's top-down game R.C. Pro-Am (also featured in the film), whereas Top Speed is a behind-the-car racer similar to Sega's OutRun. However, although the games were made by different companies, they were both imported and distributed in the United States by Romstar. It's possible that Romstar had the parts for both available and they either just cobbled the two together to give the production team something to feature, or that the production team requested the more eye-catching Top Speed to be placed into the more eye-catch cabinet of F-1 Dream. Top Speed was again featured later on in the film during the montage in Reno, however its cabinet is not shown and the title is not mentioned. "

Not only is most of this paragraph utterly irrelevant to the film and of most people who wish to know something about it - outside of some obsessive gaming trainspotters - but by the end of the paragraph it goes into pure speculation, beginning with 'it's possible...', always a bad sign.

I do not feel experienced enough in my editing to clean it up, but I feel someone should. As it stands now, only the first and final two paragraphs of the production section are relevant to the film itself, the rest being speculative trivia and inconsistencies in the games depicted. My suggestion would be these middle paragraphs be severely shortened or removed completely.Robbmonster (talk) 05:36, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Theatrical re-release
This film deserves a theatrical re-release for its 35th anniversary next year with the original run time of 2.5 hours. Nate-Dawg921 (talk) 22:15, 27 September 2023 (UTC)