Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2022 December 17

= December 17 =

Doctor Who - 11th Doctor aging
In the Doctor Who christmas episode and the Eleventh Doctor's final story The Time of the Doctor, how come he became an old man in 300 years and more but still looked young in 200 years between The God Complex and The Impossible Astronant/The Wedding of River Song? 86.27.66.60 (talk) 20:11, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * What does the show itself have to say about it? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:28, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * You tell me. 86.27.66.60 (talk) 02:02, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Best Picture Oscar no longer for successful films?
In 2003, the highest-grossing film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the Academy Award for Best Picture, five years after Titanic also achieved both. But since then, it seems that no best picture winner was even in the top 10 of highest-grossing films. Some were not that far apart like The King's Speech. But most best pictures since then failed that mark by magnitudes, the current title holder CODA (2021 film) being the most extreme example with only $1.6 million at the box office. Has something changed in the Academy since then, or in film-making, or are these just random effects...? --KnightMove (talk) 20:49, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The Academy members vote on what they believe to be the best picture of the year. There's no requirement that it be a blockbuster moneymaker. If it were, films like Star Wars would have won. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:46, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If the Academy Award voters considered box office receipts, it would destroy the credibility of the awards. CODA is a great movie, by the way. I am married to a deaf woman and we both loved it. Cullen328 (talk) 23:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If anything, being a box office behemoth would have decreased one's chances of getting the Oscar in the past (due to Academy snootiness). So Disney was not repeatedly robbed, despite having the highest-grossing films of 1937 (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), 1940 (Pinocchio), 1942 (Bambi), 1946 (Song of the South???), 1950 (Cinderella) and 1955 (Lady and the Tramp). Clarityfiend (talk) 04:22, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Blazing Saddles, the top grosser in 1974, definitely was robbed. (I guess The Godfather Part II made them an offer they couldn't refuse.) The Academy just doesn't like comedies much. The only ones I see in Academy Award for Best Picture are from the 1930s: It Happened One Night and You Can't Take It with You. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:32, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @all: Indeed box office success is no criterion for Oscars. But as audiences usually prefer good films over bad films, some overlap between box office success and accolades seem feasible. Academy snootiness I won't deny - but at least, they gave the main award to the most successful film twice within 6 years. And LOTR:ROTK even had clear weaknesses as a film. So, something seems to have been different in those years. But what? --KnightMove (talk) 07:59, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * argumentum ad populum --Error (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Missing the point --KnightMove (talk) 01:07, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * It almost looks like the tastes of the Academy and the general public have diverged. But quoting from our article List of highest-grossing films:
 * Prior to 2000, only seven film series had grossed over $1 billion at the box office: James Bond,[89] Star Wars,[90] Indiana Jones,[91] Rocky,[92][93][94] Batman,[95] Jurassic Park,[96] and Star Trek.[97] Since the turn of the century, that number has increased to over eighty (not including one-off hits such as Titanic and Zootopia).[98] This is partly due to inflation and market growth, but it is also due to Hollywood's adoption of the franchise model: films that have built-in brand recognition such as being based on a well-known literary source or an established character. The methodology is based on the concept that films associated with things audiences are already familiar with can be more effectively marketed to them, and as such are known as "pre-sold" films within the industry.
 * So the box office hits got somewhat dominated by franchises, which are usually not the most original films. Just copy the characters, write a similar plot and you get the next box office success. That's not what the Academy likes.
 * BTW, I think those awards for LOTR:ROTK can be interpreted as a reward for the entire series of three, which isn't really a series, but more a single 9-hour film that happened to be released in three segments. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:36, 18 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Walt Disney received a totally unique and highly distinctive Oscar statue for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, with a main Oscar statue lined up next to seven miniature Oscar statues. I took a photo of it on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, which you can see on the bottom shelf of the display case. I could be wrong, but I believe that this is the only customized Oscar trophy ever issued. Cullen328 (talk) 07:13, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The list of Academy Honorary Awards mentions what physical object served as the trophy, and there is some more information here. Edgar Bergen received a wooden statuette with a movable mouth; this blog post has a few pictures of it. The trophies given for the Academy Juvenile Awards were mini-sized versions of the regular Oscar statuette. Shells-shells (talk) 04:28, 27 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't believe all the Disney films mentioned by Clarityfiend were the highest grossing films of their years at the time. As the source cited says, "Complications in determining accurate box-office totals include the fact that many films have had multiple releases (such as Disney animated feature films) ...." All of those Disney films had re-releases during the era when ticket prices were much higher and box office grosses were more accurately compiled, thus enabling them to take the lead among the films of their original respective years. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:15, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone remember any of the late but pre-match betting odds to win the World Cup?
After the semifinals ended obviously (does the 3rd place game change things much? I noticed Argentina pays less today than yesterday (cause Argentina's semifinalist won the bronze game?)). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:10, 17 December 2022 (UTC)