Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2017 September 11

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September 11

Freckled Beatles

Did any of the Beatles have freckles? Barney the Dinah Shore (talk) 10:12, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

There are thousands of high-quality detailed photos of the Beatles as a group and individually (being John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr, as well as early members Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe). Is there some help you need locating such pictures to inspect them for yourself? --Jayron32 12:46, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Someone on this thread thought that Harrison had them, fwiw. Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:29, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

No. They did not. While most photos are professional, with makeup and touch-up, the Beatles were the most popular people on Earth at the time. (See More popular than Jesus.) They had thousands of photos taken of them that were not done with makeup or touchup. Other than a few moles and old-age spots, none of them have freckles. George Harrison did have a somewhat splotchy complexion when he was working on his lands at Friar Park. You can speculate that he might have had temporary sun freckles at the time. He certainly did not have freckles before or after that time. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:54, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Graphics

What kind of graphics is this one? Looks like it has CG animation tint, and I suspect some CG post-production of live action. Brandmeister^talk 16:58, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

That vid is an hour and 24 minutes long with multiple ads. I'm not watching all that. Give us a time index to see what you mean. StuRat (talk) 17:05, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Any time where people are shown (e.g. 6:00), just rewind. Brandmeister^talk 17:24, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

The only animation I see around then is possibly the display on the TV set (because filming a TV directly often looks bad). Everything else appears to be live action. It does look jerky, but that's probably due to the low frame rate on Youtube. StuRat (talk) 18:15, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Per StuRat, I don't see any computer animation, computer graphics, or anything else except live-action footage. I went to 6:00 as you suggested, and it's a live-action shot of a group of men and a dead opossum wrapped in a blanket. --Jayron32 18:57, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

At 41:30, a hundred or so freaky beasts (mutant possum?) surround and descend upon a group of regular people. Those definitely aren't trained monsters or Muppets. Not sure what makes them move, but it's something semi-fancy. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:46, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. That's definitely bad computer animation. First, it uses the typical trick of blurry (some of which may be Youtube's fault), fast moving objects to not allow you to focus on them and see the details. Then there's the lack of correct physics. It looks like they were running forward down the face of a cliff, which would result in them plummeting and making a big splat on the bottom. They would need to back down slowly, digging in claws to keep from falling. Perhaps they are supposed to somehow magically resist the effects of gravity, but then they could just float down, couldn't they ? Then they seem to have gone for quantity over quality. It's cheaper to duplicate an effect many times than to perfect it. The only part where the beasts look like they could be puppets is where the last one bares it's fangs at the door. If they have a puppet, that shot would be easier to film live than to animate. StuRat (talk) 21:13, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

It's bad if you judge it by good movie standards, but this is a bad movie and the FX suck accordingly. By fitting in, they don't make the acting, camerawork or sound stand out. Everything's equally crappy and everyone's more or less happy. It's the Sharknado way. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:50, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

IMDb lists 58 visual effects crew. The names make me think it was a Middle Eastern company. Many seem to have worked on Tales of Halloween, Mansour and Big Ass Spider! InedibleHulk (talk) 20:34, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Lavalantula pops up a lot, too. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:39, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

The company is ICE Animations. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:45, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Ratings

Someone asked what a rating of 2.5 / 4 means. Presumably it means two and a half "stars" of a possible four. In short, it's only slightly better than mediocre. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:30, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I didn't exactly ask what it meant, just what the hell. A five-point system is perfect just the way it is, and those who like half-points can bump it up to ten. If you need to mix decimals and fractions, that's a sign of a poor but not terrible scale (2 out of 5). It's a bit different when working with averages, like IMDb does, but even then, would it kill them to use percentages? InedibleHulk (talk) 17:26, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Faster visual recognition with a small number of stars. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:32, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

It's not a small number if halves are included. It's eight. Eight has no middle, so it's useless for truly mediocre films. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:35, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Too many stars slow visual recognition. Leonard Maltin's guide uses a four-star system. Some reviewers use a five-star system. Rotten Tomatoes uses a percentage because it has many reviewers being averaged. Of course, you could go with the old Siskel-Ebert standard, which is basically "Yes" or "No". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:07, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Everything in the world with an appreciable quality is either very low, low, medium, high or very high. This can be divided into low-medium-high and yes-no, but not into three stars, nine fractions and a turkey. When you get that complicated, you need to start explaining your score with words, and that defeats the purpose of info at a glance. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Yet it seems to work for most everyone - except maybe those of us who "over-analyze". :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

The words work (if they're honest), but the numbers make people think 6.1 is worse than 7.8. This leads to very sad fans. If we'd just said both movies are "OK", nobody would have had to waste valuable time crying over nothing. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:25, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Two and a half stars out of a possible four is a perfectly clear visual. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:35, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Fine, fine. But I'll still hate it forever. Have you seen the movie yet? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:14, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

No. And that's only half of it. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:21, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

I give the movie 2 and a half kittens. StuRat (talk) 03:11, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

That's some damn fine metacriticism. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:50, 13 September 2017 (UTC)