Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. MelanieN (talk) 00:50, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut[edit]

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Do we need to have an article for Donnie Darko and for Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut? They are the same movie. Also, worth noting, one user is responsible for the majority of the article content and edits(85% of the edits) - possibly because all other users are on the Donnie Darko article? Kellymoat (talk) 12:28, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut had its own international release, its own budget, its own theatrical release poster, its own screening at an international film festival. It has its own pages on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and Box Office Mojo, and two different home media releases (10 years apart). Its production and release were reported on by the likes of USA Today, The Guardian, Indiewire, AlterNet, and various other sources. Reviews at the time came from Roger Ebert, the BBC, The Village Voice, plus others. In all of these sources, it's the director's cut that's the primary subject, not the original film. This all suggests to me that the director's cut is notable (independent of the original film), meets WP:GNG, and that therefore this article should be kept.

Also, this article is bigger in terms of raw byte count and almost as big in terms of prose than the article on the original film, so I don't see how it could easily be merged. It's also a good article (not that that should make it in any way above reproach). Additionally, I fail to see how having just one user being responsible for the majority of the article content and edits speaks to the subject's notability. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 13:12, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Donnie Darko. Sorry but no, director's cuts are not "new" movies, they are just a variation of the original. This article is a lot of verbose padding that could be condensed to a paragraph at the actual movie article. ValarianB (talk) 13:29, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how being "a variation of the original" precludes a subject from meeting either WP:GNG or WP:NFILM when there are sufficient sources on it. I've explained above why I think the article meets the GNG – which part of the argument do you disagree with? Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 14:27, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For starters, GNG doesn't apply when there are separate guidelines for the subject type - such as movies and music.

But, more importantly, we aren't talking about a sequel like Rocky and Rocky II. Nor are we talking about a remake like Halloween(1978) and Halloween (2007). We are talking about the same film with a couple minutes of additional footage that wasn't used the first time and some of the previous footage being shifted around to different parts of the movie. In music we call that a "remix". They don't get separate articles. They get a paragraph or two in the original.Kellymoat (talk) 16:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

From the lead of WP:NFILM: "For the majority of topics related to film, the criteria established at the general notability guideline is sufficient to follow." Later on in the guideline, it describes the subsequent criteria as being "additional" to the GNG. I'm not seeing anywhere where it says that they supersede or replace the GNG, or that it any way "doesn't apply". I also can't see anywhere where it says that director's cuts "don't get separate articles". I'm not hearing any policy-based reason that the article should be deleted. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 09:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've dropped a note at the Film Project about this AfD. Lugnuts ^{Precious bodily fluids} 15:03, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep why the hell would we what to give our readers less information by a merge? Trout time! Moxy (talk) 16:13, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a stand-alone article because there is ample information about this distinct cut. As A Thousand Doors said, this version of the film has its own Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and Box Office Mojo web pages. Not all director's cuts are equal in substance. Some may warrant a single sentence in the main film article's "Home media" section. Some may warrant a stand-alone section within the main film article. Some may be substantial enough for their own article. This article is detailed and well-sourced to warrant standing alone. I see no reason for deletion. A case could be made for merging, but I would not favor that due to the level of good detail and would not mind seeing a similar approach to other directors' cuts if there is a similar abundance in coverage (e.g., Kingdom of Heaven). The only thing I would suggest is stronger clarification throughout in establishing that this is a director's cut that followed the initial theatrical cut. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Sometimes the level of detail justifies a sub-article because it would overwhelm the main article. It is not unusal for soundtracks to be spun off into their own sub-article (see La La Land (soundtrack) for example) despite being only a single component of the film. Another example that springs to mind is Versions of Blade Runner. Clearly in this case merging the articles would result in half the article discussing a different version of the film. Having two separate articles seems like a more organic and less confusing way of dealing with the topic. Betty Logan (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or Keep The Director's cut is notable on its own (several of its own reception bits), and the added content here does have a home on WP, so deletion of contributions makes zero sense nor is appropriate. The question becomes if the director's cut should have been spun of the main article due to size issues, and to that, I don't think there was a size issue that required this spinout, so this should be merged back into that article, having a new H2 section for the direction's cut. It doesn't hurt to keep the separate article but it really works better merged. --MASEM (t) 01:31, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If the articles were merged they would only be about 60k, and most GA/FA film articles fall in the 50-100k range so there isn't a size issue IMO. The issue is more structural: the content clearly can't be squeezed into a single section in the main article, so we'd end up with effectively two articles spliced together: a section for the plot and the section for the alterations to the plot; a section for the original release and a section for the second release; a section for the original reception and a section for the special edition reception and so on. It would be a confusing mash-up. The current solution looks much cleaner to me. Betty Logan (talk) 13:34, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And this is a problem how? Many of the details of the director's cut extend from ideas off the released film, so that with the director's cut section immediately following the released version, there's narrative flow. Having it separate, you have to reintroduce those ideas to some extent as to create a comprehensive article (eg one that stands along from the release). I really don't see this as an issue against a merge. --MASEM (t) 15:28, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The background section can be scrubbed, but everything else is distinct from the main article. Are you advocating condensing the information in the article into a single section per Titanic_(1997_film)#3D_conversion? It seems to me that approach would result in a substantial loss of relevant content and I am reluctant to pare down a GA rated article to single section in another article. Or are you advocating folding in each section, so we'd have the plot changes in the plot section, the reception information in the reception section and so on? I can't support a "merge" unless I know precisely what that entails. Betty Logan (talk) 15:58, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per section, that is "Plot" would have the base plot, and then a "director's cut changes" subsection. This is a format I used at The Stanley Parable for example --MASEM (t) 21:44, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the Director's Cut is the notable subject, and is also a good article - would you rather that we delete/merge/redirect Donnie Darko?Kellymoat (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep That's a false dichotomy. They can both be notable. It would be very weird to delete/merge/redirect a film's page in favour of a later version of itself, but it would also be strange to take a GA-class article about that version and shoehorn it into the main article, if it would make it excessively long, or disjointed, or for other reasons would be unhelpful to our readers. There's no premium on Wikipedia's article count so we should arrange the information as best suits them. In this case, two articles seem more helpful than one. Mortee (talk) 00:04, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 23:55, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 23:55, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.