Talk:Paul W. S. Anderson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Paul W. S. Anderson article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ] (If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
	This article is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.

It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality.

	This article is supported by WikiProject North East England, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to North East England on Wikipedia. For further information or to participate, you can visit the Project page.	North East England Portal
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale
High	This article has been rated as high-Importance on the importance scale.

== You have zero perspective ==

This entry is one of Wikipedia's more laughable (and that's up against some pretty stiff competition). Could Internet nerd anguish be more prominent in this article? At best the nerds should get one brief paragraph describing their wailing. This isn't a very important director/producer, his movies are just translations of moronic video games, and people who get riled up about him should consider shooting themselves in the face. Just pathetic.

• You're biased. I find this article to be extremely fair. Paul Anderson has alienated himself from his intended fanbase and has been heavily criticised for this. His Resident Evil adaptations do have little to do with the origional games- infact all they share is the names- and his origional characters and plots are inferior to the origional games.

The Resident Evil films had been in the pipeline for years before Anderson released his offensive let downs, and fans of the games- which are just an important a medium as films and literature these days- were particularly looking forward to it. That he not only ruined this for them, but did it again is sourly dissapointing. I for one, support every word of this article. It is informative, fair and accurate. To change it would be prejudiced and wrong. Paul W. S. Anderson takes GREAT potential and destroys it. And I am not a nerd. You obviously do not know what you are talking about and should shoot yourself in the face. Just iPathetic. Nazi!

Contents 1 Following: Nerd Rage 2 "Backlash" versus Facts 3 Man with the Football 4 Fiona Apple? 5 Fangoria 6 LHA 7 Does it make sense? 8 Criticism 9 Jovovich 10 A photgraph 11 Attended Royal Grammar School, Newcastle 12 A web-site?

[edit] Following: Nerd Rage

"This just slates everything the man has ever done... And while I'm no fan, I think this whole thing should be rewritten to be just a little less biased. -Psychodonovan"

Yeah, I get what you mean, although I tried for it not to come off that way. The approach I took was that, basically, you can't talk about the guy and not bring up the fact that he's suffering a massive backlash from the people his movies are consciously aimed at. That's not bias or opinion, it's what's going on. The amount of flack the guy cops on a daily basis from everyone from webmasters to semi-literate forum trolls is effectively the only reason anyone bothers talking about him at all, so it should be a central fixture in an article about him. I made sure to use as many quotes and references as I could in the hopes that it would come accross like an article about the people that attack him and why, rather than another Anderson-bashfest (which we have enough of), and also made sure to point out as often as possible that the bad feelings are pretty much restricted to online forums. I'll do a rewrite in a minute and see how that goes. -Colonelcraud

[edit] "Backlash" versus Facts

I question the need for a "Fan Backlash" section which dwarfs the rest of the content of the article. I see no need to include diatribes by Harry Knowles or any other one person for that matter. --Feitclub 20:54, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree. It's twice the size of the rest of the content, so much for a balanced neutral point of view. I'd say keep the section but it needs to be much more concise. I'm not also sure what substantiation of "massive backlash" comes from, I can only see Knowles and two others mentioned and again, this it the opinion of those people and hardly encyclopedic. DamienG 19:23, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Maybe move the bulk of that section to the Harry Knowles article, which has almost nothing in it? Or is completely irrelevant? Mayb we need a new category, "Internet-reviled Directors." Nah, that would include every director of the past fifty years. --feitclub 18:45, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Paul Anderson sucks. He deserves as much criticism as he can get. Can we make it a bit more NPOV? Sure but I think the section should stay. It is quote informative. --Arm

In comparison to George Lucas Paul Anderson is extremely under-appreciated. As an altogether movie-maker (producer, screen-writer, director) he is much more talented and his movies do not suffer from a similar lack in focus from which many video-game based movies suffer. Consider the first Mortal Kombat vs. MK: Annihialation. Even from a neutral point of view it's clear that Anderson's movie had better direction and over-all focus. The Fan back-lash section should be shortened due to SEVERE POV-ISSUES.

I still think his movies are terrible. Thus, I support the fan backlash section. Arm 13:57, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

The backlash section is perhaps important--but at the moment it is rather poorly written (comma rules?) and most of it is superfluous. It could be shorted a LOT without significant changes to the amount of actual information presented. Also, more links to fan discussions of Paul Anderson's work might make the "statement" nature of the backlash section more founded in actuality, rather than a percieved editorial slant. --CLR, 18:55 AST, Sept 4

Haha, I'm surprised its still so long. I don't like Anderson that much either, but I seem to appreciate him a lil' better sometimes when I see the sequels made from his movies by other directors. And I think it is generally agreed that Mortal Kombat is still the best video game adaptation today, after all. The Backlash section could definately be more concise, and rewritten to sound a lot less bias, and I think it needs a little more defense to "balance" it out. The first half seems focused on Harry Knowles practically, and it can be cut to be narrowed down ... particularly, we can get more relevant sentences from the quotes (because Knowles quotes seem to hate Anderson with a passion, they don't contribute to being unbias criticism). So like, we should probably mention that he doesn't like Anderson, but pull up the "why's" of his quotes only, or so, possibly. The last half of the Fan Backlash article isn't too badly written though (though it can still be shortened)... if the first half can come off around like that, it'd be an improvement. Shadowolf 20:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Whilst not being in anyway a fan of Paul Anderson, i have edited the fan backlash section, dividing it into soldier, resident evil and alien vs preditor. Previously it was a very large bulk of text, with added images, hopefully it should be simpler to read. Chadwholovedme 13:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there a way to stop 14 year olds from writting in this page?. Ive seen a lot of angsty comments and even a clear POV against Anderson. I cant think of many people who actually care for how this or that videogame is portrayed in the big screen but rather computer game players, most of them are around that age.

Heh, well, first off, don't assume video game players are all angsty 14 year olds; video game players come from all ages, and while it is probably true the only people who would care are the game players, their opinions are important when dealing with a franchise. Of course, you're right - this article is filled with PoV (which would violate WP:NPOV), which you can see that a lot of people in the Discussion has noticed for quite some time. I seem to notice the PoV is coming from both sides (his defenders and detractors)...

So anyway, I have been attempting a start at a clean-up:

• Some of it can't really be cleaned up as of yet... in cleaning up, I've also noticed how many lines like "Anderson is hated so much that..." or so exist, as if speaking for the majority of us here. The bias is filled with Weasel words (WP:WEASEL) (as in, there are LOTS of "his fans say this; his critics say that" with no sources ... it reaches its peak in the final paragraph of the "Other Disputes" section). I've added citation tags to such areas. If they can't be sourced, I'd recommend removing it.
• I signifantly shortened the Soldier section... it was filled with more Harry Knowles quotes and opinions of Anderson in general than about Soldier specifically. I've left what I felt contributes to Soldier. While Knowles' dislike of Anderson seems interesting to know, they don't contribute much to the Anderson article (other than that we now know how much Knowles himself dislikes Anderson). Try to keep things short and necessary. The two quotes I've left could even be shortened to remove their last few lines (since they're just bashing him; not even criticizing his works), heh, but I've decided to leave 'em.
• Also moved things around - for example, a section about the April Fool's joke with Lord of the Rings was under Resident Evil, which was again, off-topic. I removed lines from that paragraph as well, which had original research (WP:OR). I'm being more lenient on a couple of other lines, asking for citations for now (though a couple seem blended in with Weasel Words). Some of these lines of original research, include, but are NOT limited to:

• "Upon simple analysis of the footage that does contain additional gore it is obvious that CGI blood was essentially painted onto the existing blood-free shots." (Aliens vs Predator section)
• "However, this was confined to online discussion forums. The majority of moviegoers had no opinions of Anderson one way or the other." (Soldier section)

• Lastly, there seems to be a big emphasis on how the majority of Anderson's criticism spawns from the online community. That's fine, but proof of such a claim is needed (after all, the Resident Evil film article mentions Ebert's response even; which could be used to contradict such a statement). I understand how hard this could be to source though (but not impossible), and I'm not denying it's truth (to an extent as compared to that one line I pointed out above), but part of me also feels this statement gives little relevance (or an excuse of not hearing the opinions) to other sources like the press, TV/radio/magazine critics, and such.

All in all, I've added A LOT of Citation tags... but there is just that many lines that need sourcing. I hope you don't feel like I'm just nitpicking or trying to defend Anderson or whatever; the article just feels biased in contrast to Wiki's policies from PoV, which in turn has spawned Original Research and Weasel Words, as well as other possible violations. Let's try to keep things factual here, everyone. Any opinions about him must be sourced (of notability). Yes, it may seem hard to bring up opinions that reflect a majority of fans in some non-notable internet message board; but there is ALWAYS some kind of professional writer speaking out for the fans (film critics, video game critics, etc). That said, let's keep workin' at this article, guys. ;) Shadowolf 00:03, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the page has improved a lot, when i first read it there were quotes by Harry Knowles (??) and rants that pretty much didnt had another source rather than forums or gamer websites. It still needs some work on it though.

[edit] Man with the Football

Does anyone know anything about this movie? Anderson is apparently set to direct and as far as I can tell it is not based on any video-game. All the info I've seen comes from IMDb and it isn't a lot.

[edit] Fiona Apple?

I just edited a sentence at the end linking this Anderson romantically with Fiona Apple. However, both the Apple page and the Paul Thomas Anderson page list that as being the correct link. Can anyone confirm which is correct?

• It's the other Paul Anderson. I've removed the sentence. -- MisterHand 20:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fangoria

"However, this is not the first, yet alone the most ludicrous hoax concerning Anderson that was widely believed. Shortly before the release of the first Resident Evil movie, issue #211 of Fangoria magazine, received a bogus interview, in which Anderson "explained" that his version of Resident Evil was based on an old screenplay he wrote, titled The Undead. Even though this "interview" looked completely ridiculous and fake, many people believed it and still do to this day."

Can we get any excerpts or claims made in this article so we can see for ourselves? Schrodinger82 01:15, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LHA

The guy seems to get a lot of stick about his films, I personally think Event Horizon is superb and one of my favourite films of all time. He seems to get a hell of a lot of unfair bashing..

• I agree. Resident Evil is still my favorite VG-movie (user:HannuMakinen)

• Event Horizon is a good movie, but it's his only one. And isn't that because he DIDN'T write it?

Then just tell me what is so frickin' wrong about RE? And don't hit me with that it has nothing to do with the games-crap either. If you find the plot to be illogical, then you shouldn't watch sci-fi. If you have problem with the acting, watch a SW film that was directed by George Lucas. There is absolutely nothing wrong with RE or its sequel and the only reason fans get their panties in a bunch over them is because they felt it was too detached from the game. Well, the main-plot is both is essentially the same, so I fail to see how the films' would be any worse. TheHande 10:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Listen, and do so carefully. Paul W. S. God-damn Anderson promised the fans a movie that would be close to the games (Which he claimed to be a 'huge fan' of). Instead, we get an zombie bloodbath. Now, this wouldn't be too terribly bad if it was a GOOD movie, and wasnt hyped to be a faithful adaptation of anything other then his opnions of a series he clearly hasnt played.. But we wind up with a movie that cant be looked at as anything more then a B grade action flick. What he did include from the games was so akwardly integrated that it would have been better just to leave it the hell out. It always will baffle me as to how its cheaper to use a lab like the one shown in the movie then use the dark, dreary streets of Racoon City. Why not the Spencer Mansion? It might've been cheaper to green screen the whole damn thing in the Mansion and follow an actual plot.

And dont even get me started on his little fiasco with Nemesis..

Look, I don't give this shit about "close to the games". You're getting worked up for nothing. From what I read the only difference between Nemesis between the movie and the games was that in the games he had tenticles. Yeah, ooh scary, c'mon, fucking tenticles! Nemesis had great cinematic presence from the minute you hear his thumping footsteps, I went to see Apocalypse in a theatre and everyone in the room loved it. I also fail to see how the film is any worse from the game which has an equally simple and non-sensical plot. The fact of the matter remains that Resident Evil was a brilliant audio-visual experience and RE:Apocalypse an okay action-film. The only reasons fans get worked up because they feel that there's something sacred about a game where you spend hour after hour blasting through zombies. And for the record, the game isn't terrifying, it's just fucking frustrating -TheHande 22:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The movies weren't scary, they weren't well directed, and for that matter werent even related to the games. If he would've just cut the crap and actually called it something other then Resident Evil, then there wouldn't be a problem. The only thing that the movies had to do with ANY of the games were Nemesis, Jill, and Carlos. (The latter two weren't even really the same, aside from apperance and name.) Come to think of it, the games MUST be 'fucking frustrating', since there's been 5 in the main series, 5 spin offs, 4 books, 2 comic books, a line of action figures for every one of the games, a port for every one of the games to the Gamecube and to top off an otherwise enjoyable franchise, Paul W. S. Anderson. Now, I fully understand you mistaking the movies for what the games were like if they were 'fucking frustrating' to you, and you played 10 minuets of Gun Survivor. But from a movie that had the same quality of voice acting as the original 1996 release of RE:1, he could've done a bit better. I'll cut him a bit of slack with some of the things he did, like adding in a character or two (Its pretty much a tradition to do that with new interpertations.) or making it a bit more action oriented.. But what he did is like McDonalds telling you 'Sorry, we dont serve food. We're a library.' when you go to the drive through. You are the target audience for the movies though. (People who haven't played the games, hated them, or otherwise haqvent been associated with the games proper.) Heres a question, and its a simple one. Do you think people are pissed off about the numerous fucking differences between the games and movies? 66.90.150.37 Mr.Bluegrime

• There's alot of prejudice on here! Jesus! Just because you can't play a game doesn't mean it's stupid. Nobody's calling anybody anything for not playing games even though those people are arguably more stupid than those who can play. I thought EVERYBODY in this age knew that any sort of prejudice is wrong, Naziesque and just plain ignorant.
  

I hang out in a tattoo shop alot and the other day this guy came in who had "White Pride" tattooed in massive letters across his stomach - he apparently hates "pakis". This is as amoral and retarded as having "Non-gamer Pride" or anything like that tattooed to you etc... Drop the My-lack-of-empathy-lead-me-to-hate issues and try to enjoy your life.
More on topic, indipendent of their relationship to the games, The Resident Evil movies are crap movies! Same with AVP. I get the feeling when I watch Paul Anderson movies that he's always trying for a massive comercial hit that'll boost him to fame and fortune. I think I said it earlier but I'm saying it again now: Paul Anderson's foremost crime is that he takes great potential film ideas and makes very average movies out of them, thus spoiling fantastic origional ideas. What makes that worse is that, once the movies are released there's no going back; no second chance to make something that justifies the origional idea. In other words, it's a terrible waste.

[edit] Does it make sense?

"What many people do not realize, is that the decision to make Resident Evil different from the games was made by Constantin Film and Capcom and by Anderson - he simply did what he wanted and didnt follow instructions that were given to him by his employers."

• Does this make sense? Did Anderson follow the instructions of his employers or not? This seems to be saying both.

[edit] Criticism

I removed all the redundance encompassed in the ridiculously long criticism section and instead I refer to the pages of the films themselves. This page was nearly ready to be renamed Criticism directed at Paul W. S. Anderson. Let's try to make a better article. I'm personally tired of all this pointless bashing. -TheHande 16:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Jesus H. God-damn Christ! You removed the entire section that was being argued over? Instead of just moving them to a seperate page, or making one, YOU REMOVED EVERY FUCKING POINT AGAINST HIM! Pointless bashing is one thing (Like saying he's a nazi for making Soldier.) but there is (Or WAS) valid criticism against him. Once again, i'll ask. Do you think people have gotten pissed off at him for his various films? (If so, then it belongs here.)

This is an encyclopedia, not aintcoolnews. Believe or not, not every one here is 14 or interested if he got a video game story right or wrong.

• No. Seemingly most people here are hatefull pricks who like to vent their Nazi rage on imaginary "14 year old gamers".

• Hrm. Listen, and do so carefully. It dosent matter if you agree with whats said or not, if enough people (And theres alot of them.) that they represent a notable major/minority, then it's Wikipedia's job to report it. -Durandal- 23:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• And Wikipedia is reporting it. The article is now fairly balanced, but the Criticisms section is still too large considering that it represents the opinions of a small but vocal group of online haters. Megakelvin 14:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• I think the critisism is much too prominant in the article itself. We may have some vocal pendantics being critical of him but I have not noticed the same level of vitrol directed against Paul W.S. Anderson that Uwe Boll has. I rather like his movies, he makes very average action movies with a good visual touch is not a great story or any innovation. They're a decent 90 min commercial distraction.

Now this article reads like a stumbling and badly-written apologetic press release. Like if Darren Lamb had written it or something. Is it really necessary to have hissy fits because your favorite director is being criticised? Is it necessary to claim that he's being "harassed" when the more correct term would be "criticised"? Just because you like or dislike something doesn't mean the opposing viewpoint is "a small faction of 'haters'", and to suggest so is absolutely childish (it was my argument tactic of choice in junior high, for example). This whole NPOV thing is crap, because you are just assuming that any POV that isn't your POV is biased. If Paul Anderson makes a video game movie, and he decides to take it in a wildly different direction, then fine, whatever, he has the right to do it. But, if it draws massive ammounts of criticism, it deserves to be noted on the page about him. You can't just delete criticism and claim "harassment". This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a press kit. Magicflyinlemur 08:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jovovich

He's still engaged to Mila Jovovich.--80.4.169.22 16:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A photgraph

The article could really use one... -TheHande 20:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attended Royal Grammar School, Newcastle

Paul W. S. Anderson is listed as having attended the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle in that school's list of Notable Alumni. Anderson's article here mentions he was born in Newcastle, but it doesn't cite sources. It doesn't mention that he attended the RGS. It would be helpful if someone could flesh out the biography to state that he attended RGS, and cite a source for it. Otherwise, Anderson may eventually get removed from the list of Notable Alumni. Thanks! --Jdlh | Talk 20:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A web-site?

Along with the photograph issue I'm really stunned that no-one seems to be able to provide a link to his production company Impact Pictures. Or is it more of a team than a company (on the RE:A commentary he and Bolt said "we are Impact Films")? Reason I'm asking is because we have zero info on Anderson's non-VG films. Nobody's made a page for Shopping and the ones for Soldier and Event Horizon don't diserve many hoorahs. Can anyone at all help with this? -TheHande 17:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)