Talk:Sahara (2005 film)

Profits?

The tone of this article is way too upbeat about how much money it made, I'd be really surprised if the movie had managed to break even, the studio typically only keeps 55% of box office earnings, totalling about $66 million and I doubt they made $64 million on dvd sales and rentals, plus there's also production costs, which are not mentioned. Sapoguapo 20:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

That simply is part of the story of this film that it was a hit and made a good profit. It was a gamble that was made and worked.

Merger

No way to a merger... WestJet

It just wont't fit and the topics in the article about the book are just about the gold mine.... anonyamous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.10.106.59 (talk • contribs)

Overtones of racism?

So I just watched Sahara and I'm shocked that no one had any issues with all the white guys shooting and beating the black guys. It wasn't until practically the final scene when one black guy got to poison a white guy. As for the rest of the movie - whitey was ruling. Seriously, I went on imdb and here expecting to see posts of this nature. Perhaps I'm too PC...

The whole subplot with the Confederate ironclad seems to have been added for the film (though I have not read the book). It strikes me as angling for the USA's considerable white-racist audience, while not doing anything so overt that mainstream audiences would be put off. --GwydionM 21:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

No the ironclad subplot is not added for the movie, in fact it's much more important in the book, without spoiling it, in the movie it's the reason he goes to Mali to begin with. In the book however, while it is a very important sub-plot, Pitt goes to Mali, and is lost in the desrt long before he is even aware of the confederate ship. In fact he first hears about it in the desert from a crazy old explorer named Clive Cussler (he often makes minor appearances in his books). Magu 07:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Hold your horses! Didn't Penelope Cruz's character and her colleague got out there specifically to help black people due to the "plague" (actually the toxins)? best, Sunil060902 (talk) 10:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

You are correct, they did. Their first appearnaces in the movie are in Mali. Magu (talk) 03:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

the main bad guy was white —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.245.247.26 (talk) 04:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Allegations of racism about this movie is preposterous. The main bad guy was indeed white, the good guys who save Dirk, Al, and Eva at the end are all black, and Admiral Sandecker has a black CIA agent as an ally.TH1980 (talk) 23:05, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Solar Energy Plant

Is the solar energy plant a real facility somewhere? You know like Arecibo Observatory in James Bond's GoldenEye. Some place bad guys use it to do some bad things. But it's pointless to built one only for filming a movie. Also it doesn't look like a CGI product to me. Maybe some CGI effect was used to make it to serve some purpose such as Dirk said, no outgoing transmission lines. Anyway somebody knows if it's a real solar power station of somewhere? --Mato Rei 04:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I watched a bonus feature about the green screen stuff used for that scene.--Playstationdude (talk) 20:54, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Directer Breck Eisner points out in the DVD commentary that most of the exterior of the plant is CGI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TH1980 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Famous Places

I believe there are several famous places in this movie needed to be introduced. Great Mosque of Djenné for example is one of those. Also the city of Tuaregs and the ruin city where helicopter chased the Avions Voisin look like some famous places, though I have no idea what they are. Anyone can help? --Mato Rei 04:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The credits say it uses Spain and Morocco for locations. DJ Barney (talk) 19:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Error's section questions

Hi all I want to bring up some concerns I have about teh errors section, specifically:

There were ocean-going Ironclad warships from 1859, but these were conventional design. The Texas's sister-ship the CSS Virginia was blown up when Norfolk, Virginia fell to Union forces, not being seaworthy enough to enter the ocean.

I fail to see how this is an "error". Like almost any fictional book it is not intended to be an accurate account of history, but is the above comment at all relative? The ship was never claimed to be ocean worthy in the book. I think ultimately that is why it ends up in Africa instead of it's actual destination. I think Cussler relied on an *anything could happen* approach as he often does and many writers do.

Jefferson Davis did not regard the fall of Richmond as the end of the Confederacy. Had a ship been able to escape with a fortune in gold, he would have sent it to another Confederate port, or possibly to Mexico, an ally while ruled by Emperor Maximilian.

Wether it was perceived as the end of the confederacy or not, the ship was not by any means intending to go to Africa. In the book, it was under orders to go to the Bahamas to rebunker with coal, and then proceed to any neutral port it could get to. If unable, it was to sink using charges that the crew had pre-placed to sink the ship and destroy the archives it carried. The crew lived to make it to Africa, I won't spoil the rest. Magu 08:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• I have also been thinking about it for a while. Many fictional works alter real things but are based on or inspired by them in the first place. It's like some sort of adaption to the reality. So I think we should find a proper word or words instead of the title of section Errors. What will you call it? If the section is merged with Trivia, I think it could also be a solution. --Mato Rei 04:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• I agree. The section header of "errors" is misplaced given that this is a work of fiction and doesn't even purport to be in anyway historically accurate. Either merge it with the trivia section, call it something like "Historical Discrepencies" or just delete it. (I'm not sure the section is relevant, period.) croll 15:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
• I agree too. "Shara" is an Indiana Jones-type action/adventure flick (but minus the supernatural elements). The historical background is entirely fictitious and therefore does not warrant an errors list.TH1980 (talk) 02:01, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Budget Items

I think it would be very informative if the budget information, obtainable from the LA Times article, was listed to detail exactly how big budget films end up costing what they do. Not only here, but the same info should be repeated in the general article(s) on the American film industry that exist elsewhere in Wikipedia. RoyBatty42 21:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the article makes a rather big deal if the financial losses. Maybe it's just because I like the film, but something about it isn't very encyclopaedic. I suspect weasel words. See this article, "This should not be confused with instances when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success; see Hollywood accounting". To add to the problems the verifying links now link to non-existent LA Times articles, apart from one of the links. Could they be in archive.org ? DJ Barney (talk) 20:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I would safely say that it is encyclopedic (and has been included in most recent movie FA, Ran), the only thing that this article needs is better organization; please note that how well a movie does financially has nothing to do with how good it is by any artistic, critical or popular measure. There are more than enough examples of this phenomena. The movie was a financial flop, and numerous articles (and lawsuits) have sprung up over it and made the papers repeatedly. --Bobak (talk) 22:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

questions

what is the name of the song that is played while the boat is cruising up the Niger river? What type of boat is it?--Connor401 17:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Citation number 4 is broken now, as the LA times doesn't keep its links working —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.220.162 (talk) 23:20, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Answers

Ever heard of IMDb? They have all that stuff on there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ErichSturmovik (talk • contribs) 21:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Film/Novel comparison section?

Would it be worthwhile to add a section that compared the movie and novel together, especially since this is only the second (and best, in my opinion) film adaptation of a Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novel?TH1980 (talk) 23:08, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

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Use of the term "box office bomb" is subjective.

The lead originally describe this film as a "box office bomb" a term I would argue doesn't apply here. The "box office bomb" doesn't simply mean any film that fails to make back it's budget (or turn a profit) at the box office, but rather refers to films that make significantly less then their budget, generally in the 6 or 7 digit range (or less). Film earning over $100 million are not generally called box office bombs by the general public even if their budget was so high that it fails to even make back it's budget. The term "financial failure" effectively explains how it failed to make back it's budget but without the subjective implication that it was a "total failure". For a lot of films, earning over a $100 million would be huge financial success. The term "box office bomb" also carriers with it implies that the public really hated the film when that may not be the case. Films can be financial failures for all sorts of reason not just quality, and the opposite is equally true. Now if someone can provide a source for a relevant notable publication that describes the film as a box office bomb then we can quote that publican in the article (examples: "Variety described the film as box office bomb." or "Many publications,including New York Times and Entertainment Weekly describe the film as box office bomb. --Notcharliechaplin (talk) 21:28, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't object to changing the terminology, but some of your wording is not encyclopedic. Describing the budget as "extremely high" and using words such as "despite" is WP:EDITORIALIZING, and discouraged. Also, you cannot really state the film was a financial failure to its high budget; it can just as easily be said that the film lost money because it underperformed (it didn't even finish in the top 40 of 2005). It is better to just state it lost money. Betty Logan (talk) 21:51, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

While I won't object to your new rewording since it does address "box office bomb" subjectivity issue, I came up with the former wording from the sentence in the article that states "Due to its huge costs—including a $160 million production budget and $61 million in distribution expenses—its box-office take amounted to barely half of its expenses.". Which, while maybe others will disagree, seems to be saying to me "even though it made over $100 million dollars at the box office, it failed to make even half-it's budget back due to production and distribution high cost.". So it's not really original research exactly but rather more subjective opinion as to whether to view it's box office vs it's production budget as surprising or not, which I'll agree should be avoided. --Notcharliechaplin (talk) 22:42, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I think that is poorly worded so I have slightly altered the phrasing. It is not obvious whether this is a film that badly under-performed (like Heaven's Gate) or a film that performed well but simply cost too much to make (like Cleopatra). Betty Logan (talk) 23:02, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

"Sarah movie" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Sarah movie. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 10#Sarah movie until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 20:36, 10 July 2021 (UTC)