Talk:Death Race (2008 film)/Archive 1

Headlines

• New Death Is More Homage
• The Cars of Death Race
• The Cars of Death Race: Part Two

Headlines. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Clean Up

I am starting this section to see if this article can be improved. I edited the "Cast" section as I feel that people's fates in the movie should not be in that section. It is a little too F&F: Tokyo Drift, in my own opinion.

Feel free to post ideas or changes under this section. BlackScreaminMachine (talk) 18:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Inspiration of movie/game

Does this movie remind anyone else of Carmageddon? I don't know if the game was inspired a little bit by the 1975 version or if the new movie borrows a little of the new game (titled Carmageddon:Death Race). wow, i just read the first paragraph of the link, the game was inspired by the 1975 film. Nevermind then lol. DrakeKobra (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Anderson's definitely going for a videogame-satire, though. The cars may have all these bells and whistles, but the drivers' aren't allowed to use them until they drive over these markings on the ground. I never realized how ridiculous that mechanic is until I saw it in live action. Whew! Kalaong (talk) 02:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

This movie sounds like a carbon copy of the game Deathtrack from the mid 90s —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.36.80 (talk) 02:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about you but this movie reminds me of TWISTED METAL. Just add a Clown with a Ice Cream Truck, and a couple strange racers and it would be TWISTED METAL in Race form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.248.129 (talk) 06:47, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you consider that the boss was a pimped tanker truck(calypso in Twisted Metal), one of the racers was Grimm and he had numerous skulls on his car and body(Mr.Grimm from Twisted Metal), and there was like 2 more racers with names and cars similar to those of the Twisted Metal genre. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.153.221.210 (talk) 15:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Look up Steve Jackson Games & "Car Wars" it predates video games and probably you too —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.49.126 (talk) 22:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Great advert!

Did you guys lift the "Premise" section directly from promotional material? Great job, wikipedos! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.244.14.50 (talk) 21:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Novice editors have a tendency to provide copyrighted text like this. I've restored an older revision. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 15:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Movie Not Related to Full Auto

Removing the part that says: "Death Race also seems to share many similar traits to Full Auto and it's sequel, Full Auto 2: Battlelines (PS3 and PSP only), like the racing of cars with weapons on them, only without armored plated titanium plates to protect the entire vehicle, and unlike the two games (which took place in a fictional city, Meridian City), the movie is based off in a large prison with numerous deadly hazards." As the movie is a remake of the original; the original has the large prison and vehicles with weapons. And this seems to be original research.Dmcman (talk) 07:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it's OR and doesn't belong. However, the original does not feature a large prison at all; it was simply a transcontinental road race that granted points for running people down. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 12:41, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Removed Easter Egg Section

Removed the Easter Egg section for now since the only item in it was the mention of the Biohazard symbol which had nothing to do with Resident Evil in this film. 68.55.125.227 (talk) 20:41, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks appropriate- I can't imagine what the film would have to do with the R-E series. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Reviews

Needs to be redone it was completely incorrect it was quoting a 90 where its rating was a 41 on metacritic for example. Thanks :) --Link287 (talk) 01:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Add tables

You know what it needs? Tables, just like in the Fast and The Furious saga, add it, except like vehicle names, fate in film, and cause of death. I wish I could add it, but I'm very lazy right now. 70.45.160.124 (talk) 01:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Plot

Quite a few grammatical errors: "see's" for example.

Needs cleaning up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.167.221.3 (talk) 23:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The entire article needs a re-write by someone who really knows how to write. The article reads as a seventh grade "book report" as it is now.

Some problems I have with the article are: Coach kills Hennessey NOT because she tampered with the car (she's always done that) but because the movie itself requires her to be killed. Saying Coach kills Hennessey for any reason is OR. The article should simply refer to the fact that Coach detonates the bomb. The plot of the movie is so contrived that Hennessey must create the instrument of her own demise. She's in a secure room, behind bullet proof glass that not even the missiles of the cars can attack her. She can kill the inmates' guns, so for her to die, she must create a weapon that cant be switched off, and is mobile enough to work its way into her office. That's important. IF she could have been killed sooner, by anyone, she would have been.

There are also smaller plot points that misdirect the viewer's attention, red herrings that go no where and add nothing to the movie.

This movie is almost a carbon copy of the original, much like Escape from LA was nearly a line by line remake of Escape from New York. That's also important. This movie is superior to the original by today's standards, but the original shows more imagination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.49.126 (talk) 23:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

WTF? It is NOTHING like the original, in the original, the racers kill pedestrians, and get points for it, they have no weapons, only thier cars, and they are professional drivers not convicts. I can only conclude you are an idiot 86.144.129.231 (talk) 05:54, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you do that then? But keep it under 700 words. Darrenhusted (talk) 23:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Prequel vs. remake

Because the "prequel" people are so insistent, I've tried looking for sources referring to this as a prequel of the 1975 movie as opposed to a remake. Unfortunately the only two I've found are both fansites so we can't use them. My understanding is that the director makes some comments about this on the DVD commentaries but I'm not sure if we can use a primary source like that outside of the plot summary (does anyone more well versed in the MOS and guidelines know for sure). And unfortunately the only sites I found that discussed the commentary were the aforementioned fansites. So does anyone have a source we can use for to settle the remake vs. prequel issue? I'd be happy to rephrase it to something that includes both words since there's plenty of sources calling it a remake if I could just find one verifiable one that speaks to the prequel side of the argument. Millahnna (mouse)talk 19:36, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Well I finally managed to find one source at Dread Central but I can't really figure out what to do with it. The sentence that uses the term prequel reads:

"Death Race is more or less a remake prequel to Death Race 2000. "

No slash between the words, but I still interpret that as a combination of both. And they don't mention the commentary at all (some comments on the article do discuss the issue but we can't use those). Every other article the site has still refers to this movie as a remake and upcoming direct-to-video flick as a prequel. So I guess my original question still stands; can we use a primary source outside of the plot and if so how in the heck do I go about it. Millahnna (mouse)talk 20:43, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The film is better classified on the surface as a remake of the original film. There are 257 news results for "death race" "jason statham" remake, where there are 27 news results for prequel in place of remake. This ComingSoon.net article does say, "For those who are unaware, Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race is not a remake, but a reinventing or homage of the 1975 David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone cult classic Death Race 2000... Paul saw his film almost as a prequel if anything; almost the genesis of the Death Race." The director's intent can be mentioned so the "prequel" label can be lightly applied, but it is more a remake than anything else. Erik (talk | contribs) 11:50, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I think for the sake of identifying a genre for the film, I'd stick with remake. But, as Erik points out it would be good to indicate that the director sees the film more as a prequel' to the original one. The only other option, I say, would be to remove the genre classification altogether from the lead sentence and just indicate later what Anderson thinks.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:24, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the input Bignole. Right now the lead does pretty much follow Erik's take on that. But if we want to go with your other option we could remove this sentence from the lead:

The film is a remake of the 1975 film Death Race 2000, based on Ib Melchior's short story "The Racer", and stars Jason Statham in the lead role.

And then change the opening to something like this:

Death Race is a 2008 science-fiction-action film produced, written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson and starring Jason Statham. Though referred to as a remake of the 1975 film Death Race 2000, based on Ib Melchior's short story "The Racer", in reviews and marketing materials, director Paul W.S. Anderson stated in DVD commentary that the film was a prequel.

Personally I think the inclusion of the short story mention comes out a little weird there. I'm not sure it's necessary since the story is linked in the 1975 film's article. But it could be smoothed over; I'm inclined to make it a parenthetical myself. Thoughts? Millahnna (mouse)talk 04:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The lead wouldn't flow too well with the second sentence talking about whether it's a remake or prequel (also, the lead shouldn't introduce new information that's not covered in the rest of the article). The statement would work if there was either a section or a few sentences maybe within production that briefly touch on the interpretation (reliably sourced of course). It can be stated that the director called it a prequel in the commentary, just make sure that is mentioned instead of just sourcing the commentary. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

So am I interpreting you correctly; since I can't find many reliable sources (Erik's comingsoon.net link above is the only thing I've found so far that even mentions it in a way that makes any sense) I can just mention that Anderson notes it in the commentary? I'm inclined to go with a sentence or two in production since there's not a lot of hard info out there I can use to develop a whole section on the matter (too bad, it'd be a cool section to add under the circumstances). Millahnna (mouse)talk 05:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, say something like "In the DVD commentary, Anderson stated he considered the film a prequel..." (best to go with his exact wording). Covering the prequel vs. remake would be helpful within the production section, maybe even mentioning if it was marketed one way or the other. That would be great to have a section devoted to it, but sources definitely are hard to come by. We need to start pressuring film magazines and sites to write about topics like this, solely for us to be able to cite them in Wikipedia articles! --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Gotcha. I think I might try to pull in the quote from comingsoon.net that Erik noted, as well. Since I don't have access to the commentary and can't quote Anderson's words directly, that quote speaks to the sort of nebulous nature of the idea that the film is a prequel but without introducing any original research. If no one beats me to it (I should be able to play with it over next few days) and no one else comments in some way to the contrary, I'll try to work something on this angle and restructure the lead like I did in my example above. Millahnna (mouse)talk 06:18, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

OK I took a whack at adding the material. You can see the sum total of my changes in this diff. To sum up I adjusted the lead as noted above, added a note including the comingsoon.net ref and quote in the production section (ref also used in lead), and made a final note in the Home media release section about Anderson's thoughts in the commentary. I'm not very experienced with refs so I'd appreciate any double checking y'all can provide. Thanks again for the help. Millahnna (mouse)talk 08:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

"commercial success"?

The lead section says "The film received generally negative reviews from critics, but was a commercial success, making $75,677,515 worldwide." If the film cost $45m to make, and ~50% of the box office earnings stay with theatres[1], then $75m wouldn't be enough to break even. Maybe DVD sales and other supplementary sources of income were sufficiently high to make the film a success, but if so the article needs to cite sources that say so. Eljayess (talk) 19:49, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Beginners make simple assumptions based only on the figures. The rule of thumb is as you say twice the production budget to maybe break even but there are so many other factors such as costs of prints and advertising, and that doesn't begin to address Hollywood accounting. You basically cannot ever make claims about a film being a success, you must always at least have a source that makes that claim. -- 109.77.157.139 (talk) 23:31, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Contradiction

In the Section "Similarities to the original" the last point says:

• In both films there is an authoritarian tyrant: Mr. President (original) and Hennesey (remake) who get killed by Frankenstein at the end.[29] Both their deaths involve a bomb; in the original Frankenstein planned to kill the president with a grenade while in the remake Ames sends Hennesey the explosive she planned to kill him with before his last race. Ultimately it is Coach who detonates it in revenge for tampering with his car.

This is a contradiction. The first sentence states that there is a similarity, because the tyrant is killed by Frankenstein, but the last sentence clearly says that Hennesey is not killed by Frankenstein (she is killed by Coach. Therefore the first sentence is wrong. Additionally it says that in the original "Frankenstein planned to kill the president with grenade". I have not seen the original, but according to the wiki article Frankenstein killed the President by ramming the podium with his car. As this point was to show a similarity between the two movies, the whole point becomes ridiculous. I will therefore edit the point, as the point is untrue and the the only similarity is the fact that the tyrant is killed at all. --92.224.50.151 (talk) 16:26, 7 January 2011 (UTC)