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Archive 1

Cleaning up "Style," etc.

I think that the section on style needs to be cleaned up, as it's awkward and uneven. I'm taking a shot at it now. I'm getting some information from the commentary on the Criterion disc, how should this be cited as a source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack4640 (talk • contribs) 18:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


Top Importance

Critically regarded as one of the best films of all time, IMDB top 250 number 7, up there with casablanca Andman8 23:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Guns

{{Spoiler}}

The film actually ends with a very somber scene of the villagers going back to work as the remaining samurai stand in front of the graves of those killed in the battle with the bandits. The last words ring true of Kurosawa's world view by having the venerable father figure samurai commenting, "Again we have lost." This brings to the forefront the idea that even happy endings are only happy for a few.

THe last line is actually "The farmers are the real winners" or something close to that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.146.59.114 (talk) 20:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

It may also be helpful to note that one of the underlying themes of Kurosawa is that of gun control and in this film it appears by having the master swordsman shot from offscreen by the bandits. Perhaps too in-depth but a poignant reminder of the power of the gun.

Incidentally, on the topic of guns, I believe that each of the samurai who died was shot. --Anon 20 July 2004

Re your first paragraph - I revised the article to reflect the schizo conclusion. Ellsworth 17:18, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I doubt that "gun control" was an issue for Kurosawa; it seems too contemporary a concern. I always looked at it as the encroachment of technology helping to bring about an end to the medieval samurai ways. Gamaliel 20:52, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Indeed all four samurai were killed by a gun. It is also interesting to note that we see each of them fall before we hear the gunshot. I have never read whether Kurosawa did this on purpose or it was just a product of the equipment of the time.MarnetteD | Talk 01:20, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It wouldn't have anything to do with the equipment of the time. Ever hear the saying, "You never hear the shot that kills you"? Sound travels slower than bullets, so the time lag between the death of the character and the sound of the shot would indicate extreme range. In this way, Kurosawa would be doing it "on purpose" but it's a realistic touch, not an artistic flourish.Akahige719 20:07, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
If you can name one other film from this or any other time period where the sound comes a full 2-3 seconds after the body falls I might give what you say some credence Akahige719. At no point in this movie are any of the bandits who are firing the guns the requisite distance away to allow for this to be a real time recording. Further research since my last entry has turned up the fact that most of the sound in the outdoor scenes in Kurosawa's movies made in the 50's was postsynched in the studio so this was a purposeful touch on his part and an interesting choice it is.MarnetteD | Talk 06:18, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Not only did Kyuzo fall before the sound of the shot, so did the two bandits who attempted to desert. It looks utterly ridiculous. B00P 05:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
The Criterion rerelease (Sept. 5, 2006) of the film has remastered the soundtrack. They have moved the sound of the gunshots to matchup with the visuals of the bodies being hit by the bullets. This applies to both the original mono track and the new Dolby 2.0 track. I am noting this so that any wikipedian who has only experienced the film in its new form will understand why the discussion in this section has occurred. MarnetteD | Talk 14:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, do we know how Gorobei dies? I seem to remember that he is brought back on a kind of bamboo stretcher, but we don't see his death. Andropod (talk) 14:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Although it is not shown onscreen a gunshot is heard which Kambei and others hear. They then run to the spot where Gorobei was posted and we see him on the stretcher. You could, possibly, make a case that since we didn't see it it did not occur, but, I think that you would be hard pressed to find many who viewed the film who did not think that Gorobei had been shot. MarnetteD | Talk 19:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, people, like it says at the top of this page ...

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Seven Samurai article.
This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.

So please, let's drop this ... Happy Editing! —72.75.72.63 (talk · contribs) 20:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Legacy of the movie

It seems a bit odd that this section contains more about The Three Amigos effect on movies than The Seven Samurai's. I don't know about removing it outright so I thought that I would ask the editor(s) for this page what they think. MarnetteD | Talk 18:16, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's only 2 sentences, don't think it's a big deal if it stays. Gamaliel 20:24, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for responding Gamaliel. It helps me to learn the ways of Wikipedia and I appreciated the time you took. MarnetteD | Talk 18:05, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Surely there are better article references on the internet than the ones posted? The Bright Lights one is just terrible - it's mostly an appreciation of Mifune's rear end and a parade of tired cliches (critics are carping, we hear) that manages to say little about the film that you couldn't glean from reading your Netflix envelope. And Roger Ebert -- a man whose critical vocabularly consists of "thumbs"? I wouldn't presume to delete them, but just through the magic of google, I've found better short articles.

On a slightly different note, the Boston Phoenix also has some reasonably informed criticism of the film's place in the canon that provides useful counterpoint:

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/movies/documents/02413162.htm

--Idl1975 15:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


What do people think about this film's legacy vis a vis Star Wars? Bklynpeter (talk) 22:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Actual ending

I was nonplussed by the text: the movie does not end in celebration. The villagers return to their rice fields; one village man is playing his flute in a rice-planting rhythm; the village women are stooping to plant rice in rhythm. The surviving Samurai survey the scene and prepare to leave to village.

What I remember in the ending is that the villagers and Samurai are returning to their peacetime lives.

The villagers: I was also surprised to see no mention of just how weathy the villagers are: "Beans! Rice! Noodles!" exclaim one Samurai. Then the villagers expose the armor and swords which they have retained from previous raids (no explanation of how this wealth came into their hands).

Ancheta Wis 23:36, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

A major point of the ending is that the samurai have no "peacetime lives". They are soldiers without an army, and when there is no enemy, there is no place in the village for them. As for the rest, it's explained in the dialog (especially Kikuchiyu's speech about how its the armies and warriors who make the farmers' lives so miserable). The villagers are not wealthy; they have managed to hide some of what they have, so they are not quite as impoverished as they appear to be. They got the armor by stripping it off the bodies of dead or dying soldiers. ManoaChild 21:14, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
Not just soldiers, but samurai. I believe this is meant to show that the bandits attacking the villagers are also samurai who have chosen to go bad during a time of peace as opposed to good, the path followed by the eponymous seven. Parthepan 15:42, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

A Internet search on "A Bug's Life" and "Seven Samurai" yields large amounts of people and organizations making the connection between the two movies. Probably the most reputable source is out at IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120623/usercomments?start=20


Pixar on their site mentions the inspiration for "A Bug's Life" was the Aesop tale "The Ant and the Grasshopper" http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/abl/tale_pop1.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.240.177 (talk) 04:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Info on various edited and restored versions of the film

I attempted to correct what the original length of the film was when it premiered in Japan and what the length of the film was shown in edited versions on UK, US, and other international markets. ?The actual length of the original complete version has been listed at 206m, 107m, and 208m on various sites. Since the Criterion's website list their supposedly uncut DVD version at 207m, I figure 107m to be the correct running of the uncut version. --67.101.146.141 01:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

(the) title

Why "The Seven Samurai"? The poster has no "the"; I've rarely if ever heard it mentioned with "the". --Anton Sherwood 03:11, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I have heard it a few times, but I've mostly heard it as "Seven Samurai". I say we should move the article. After all, the most reliable source, IMDb, lists it as Seven Samurai. Or we could move it to Shichinin no samurai, the Japanese title. ~ Kumar 14:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
No, it's far too mainstream and well-known for that. I have definitely heard of it as "The Seven Samurai", and the Japanese title could be translated as either. Perhaps "Seven Samurai" is just an informal contraction of "The Seven Samurai"? Still, it seems to be more common than what I'm implying is the proper English title. And if it's not common, nor academically correct ("Shichinin no Samurai" is the only real title, and I've already laid out my reasons for not using that), it should be chucked out. elvenscout742 23:18, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Translations are never perfect. A specific difficulty we are dealing with here is that the definate article pretty much doesn't exist in Japanese. The result is that different constructions "sound" right in the two languages. English-speakers are more comfortable with an article than without.

Shichinin no Samurai is not an option. This is English Wikipedia. The first objective is to make it as easy as possible to find the article (and to recognise the references to it). Quibbles over whether there should be a "The" in the title are quite secondary. Does it really matter? B00P 06:52, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The IMDB says it was known as Seven Samurai in the UK and The Seven Samurai in the US. Therefore either is correct and there is no need to move it as long as the alternate title redirects here. -- Samuel Wantman 07:00, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
You know, I think you may be right. The article should stay where it is, methinks. BOOP: noone was seriously arguing that it should be moved to Shichinin no Samurai - even though that is the proper name, not any of the various English translations of it. Seven Samurai is not the "correct" title, and Wikipedia policy says we should not edit articles in favour (favor, anyone?) of any particular regional variants within English. elvenscout742 13:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
IMDb isn't infallible. Has anyone ever seen an advertisement, marquee, video box with "The"? —Tamfang 17:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm an American who has never heard of it being called "Seven Samurai" since I first saw "The Seven Samurai" 35 years ago, that is, until this conversation. -- Samuel Wantman 04:14, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
This superb film was on Turner Classic Movies cable station early this morning. It was listed on the Comcast on screen cable guide, on the TCM up next title card and the TCM lead in title card without the The. Does anyone have Donald Richie's book on Kurosawa's films to tell us how it is listed their?User:MarnetteD | Talk 04:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I own Donald Richie's book, The Films of Akira Kurosawa, which lists it as "Seven Samurai." I also own the Criterion Collection DVD of the movie which lists the title as "Seven Samurai" in several places on the box and on the menu. Personally, I've always heard it referred to as such, but maybe variants occur across regions.
Not to mention that Criterion tends to research things thoroughly and they colaborated with a lot of leading Japanese film scholars. They're a much more reliable a source than the IMDb. Plus you could put "the" in front of any and every Japanese film title, so I'd say a good rule to go by is if you can get away with not using it, don't use it. I'm in favour of removing the the. I'd also argue that this is moderately important with Seven Samurai being [one of] the greatest Japanese film of all time it sets a precedent in the naming coventions of Japanese film articles, especially those that don't have proper English release titles. --Doctor Sunshine 10:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Japanese title

Following Paris By Night's edit, I now see ???? as the title in the infobox, with Seven Samurai in small font beneath it (Firefox, Win XP). I expect I'm not the only one. As this is the English Wikipedia, should this be reverted back to just the plain old English title? --duncan 16:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

if you see ???? instead of Japanese characters it is because you didn't installed yet the Windows Japanese fonts (just use the "Control Panel", select "Linguistics and regionals options" and tick the "install files for the Eastern languages"). Many users have already installed these fonts, and have no problem reading them, since there are required to browse Japanese websites. However users who don't have these fonts can use the UNICODE trancoder bot to output the UNICODE version of the Japanese title. By "real" title, i mean i used the real title instead of the Americanized or English (often roughly) translated one, which is not legitimate as many users already knows. Being an English encyclopedia doesn't mean this wikipedia has to be Englishcentrist and considers that the English version title of a foreign work, (including Japanese movies)) is the real title, which would result in a biaised, non-encyclopedic and totally false view. Shichinin no samurai is an accurate romanization of the kanji original title (which is not true for every Japanese romanized titles as this language is old and complex), but i used the original kanji title which is actually the most faithful and neutral title of this work. The same way that using the original theatrical poster (here it's Japanese) as the picture in a movie infobox is the more legitimate, instead of using an American/UK/Australian /Canadian DVD cover. Movie articles are not about the English version of a work, nor about the English video version of it but about the work itself. That's why i used the "real" title and the "real" poster on each Kurosawa films and i've done the same in other movie articles i've worked. Except on Derzu Uzala because this one was first released in USSR, so logically the original poster is the soviet release, and the real title is the one written in Russian (not in Japanese which was released later). I just try to be rational and neutral, (Descartes legacy) that's it. The wikipedia policy about movie infobox template is clear, and says that we have to use the original title and style, which includes foreign languages (be it Russian, Chinese, Spanish, French, English or Japanese). However, as i know the majority of users of the English wikipedia are anglophone i used the most common English title for a foreign work as an alternate (or local) title written in small characters under the original title. For the same reason i understand that the article titles are mostly English version titles and not always original title, because of a practical use. That's why i left the English title name and rewrote the intro sentence as: "The Seven Samurai" is the English title for "Shichini no Samurai" (plus original kanji characters between brackets), a Japanese movie by Akira Kurosawa." instead of the usual claim: "The Seven Samurai" is a film of Akira Kurosawa which is false and, unrespectful and ethnocentrist. My opinion is an encyclopedia must be informative and neutral not localized (biased). Thanks. Paris By Night 21:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
"The wikipedia policy about movie infobox template is clear, and says that we have to use the original title and style, which includes foreign languages" - where does it say that? not here or here. You've certainly argued your point well, but I don't see any references to Wiki policies that back you up. Found WP:MOS-JP which seems to imply your way is correct. Although "In a narrative article, provide the Japanese script for the subject of that article when first introducing it (ideally in the first line of the article). Do not repeat the Japanese for that term in the article." By having the kanji in both the article's first sentence and the infobox, are we not therefore repeating it? --duncan 06:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
"I don't see any references to Wiki policies that back you up", maybe this is because you didn't searched the right place: since actually the Template talk:Infobox Film/Syntax Guide clearly says that for the: Film Name (Variable: name) "Use: the full name of the film including punctuation and style." which means the actual use of the Japanese style is legitimate. "Do not repeat the Japanese for that term in the article" simply means: do not write the film's title with its Japanese characters everytime you refer to it in the article body (it does not includes the romaji, exemple, here "Shichinin no samurai" can be used several time in the body of the article instead of "Seven Samurai"), which is not the case here as you can see since it is only used in the first line and in the infobox. As long as the infobox is not part of "the body of the article" (since it is template), which the sentence you quoted was about, its unique use in the infobox template cannot be considered a repetition. Paris By Night 14:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I'll agree with you on the use in the infobox, but I don't see how "Use: the full name of the film including punctuation and style." equals "...says that we have to use the original title and style, which includes foreign languages". Not worth disagreeing over though, as I've already agreed it's fine in the infobox. --duncan 17:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
how do you understand it then? Paris By Night 03:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm in favour of dropping the kanji from the infobox. It's in the intro and on the poster already, having it and the english title at the top of the infobox is redundant and it looks cluttered. --Doctor Sunshine 11:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The Magnificent Seven

"Director John Sturges later took the film and updated it to the Old West, and released it as The Magnificent Seven. The remake was acclaimed as a faithful and successful transfer of the film's general premise and Kurosawa was himself pleased with the end result."

Really, what's the source?

"Kurosawa himself was somewhat ambiguous in his opinion of the film. In 1980 he was quoted in People magazine as saying that 'Gunmen are not samurai'. While not an endorsement, neither is this statement a condemnation of Sturges' film. Studio publicity claims that Kurosawa had sent a katana sword to Sturges shortly after the film's release, expressing his appreciation of the film. There are reasons to doubt this story: the same publicists also claim that Seven Samurai won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1955, even though it didn't; the award went to Samurai, aka Miyamoto Musashi (though Seven Samurai was nominated in the following year's awards - for Art Direction and Costume Design), and years later executive producer Walter Mirisch recalled that the gift was a Kabuki doll." [1]

"In 1960, John Sturges turned this film around with a remake that became The Magnificent Seven, an American classic that Kurosawa had some critical reservations about and received no compensation or screen credit for." [2]

--duncan 10:32, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. Watch the opening credits to Magnificent Seven again. Kurosawa is very clearly given credit for the basis of the story. I don't know about compensation, though. Did Lucas compensate him when he based Star Wars on The Hidden Fortress?
P.S. The article should remain "The Seven Samurai", not "Seven Samurai", for readability purposes. The two names are functionally identical. FWIW, the VHS copy I have says "The" on it, as do the subtitles on the opening credit. As someone above has said, this wikipedia discussion page is the only place I've ever seen it titled without the opening "The". -Kasreyn 12:20, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
In support of a claim that Kurosawa got screen credit, you cite a page at IMDb whose only mention of Kurosawa specifies that he's "uncredited". Huh? —Tamfang 01:04, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
No. I cite the film itself, I only linked to imdb because I foolishly assumed they would have it right. Thank you for pointing out that imdb has the credits wrong. (I can't understand it, usually their quality is quite good.) But the film very clearly credits Kurosawa at the end of the opening credits, which imdb fails to mention. I'd give you the exact wording but I don't own a copy of the Magnificent Seven any more. If I remember correctly, it's something like "based on The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa". -Kasreyn 01:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I too recently saw the (not so) Magnificent Seven and also was surprised to see the mention of the Seven Samurai in the opening credits. I don't remember the wording. It may have been added to a re-release -- Samuel Wantman 11:40, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

My main quibble is with the unsubstantiated claim that Kurosawa was "pleased with the end result". Also given that two of the Magnificent Seven's own screenwriters (Walter Bernstein and Walter Newman) were uncredited due to blacklisting, I find it unlikely they'd have credited the screenwriters of the Seven Samurai, and I suspect the IMDB is correct. --duncan 17:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The opening credits state "This film is based on the Japanese film 'Seven Samurai',Toho Company Ltd". No mention of Kurosawa specifically. The screenplay is credited to Walter Roberts. Yomangani 16:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I believed this is a later addition following the settling of the lawsuit filed by Kurosawa against the maker of the Magnificent Seven. I saw the Magnificent Seven when it was first shown in US theaters, and I am fairly certain I did not see the mentioning of Seven Samurai.Jack01:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

IMDB rating

I don't know if this is a recent change to the Infobox_film template, but is listing an IMDB rating of the film a good idea? Given that this will change on a very frequent basis, it would be like listing current temperature against a city's profile. In fact, since this change was made, the number of votes (although not the rating) has gone from 41865 to 41931. If the info is to be accurate, someone's going to have to update this frequently. --duncan 17:34, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Screenshots

Umm....Just wondering, but are you sure that last section should be called "Screenshots"? I mean it's a movie, not a video game.64.111.156.148 01:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

It's shown on screens, isn't it? —Tamfang 02:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Leone?

The article asserts stylistic similarity between Seven Samurai and Once Upon a Time in the West. Would like to know the source for this assertion as it makes no sense whatsoever to me. The films are highly dissimilar in style.24.33.28.52 17:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I know Google is no point, but people seem to disagree Hohenberg 17:59, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is one of the most popular and influential Japanese films ever made. Released in 1954, this rip-snorting action-adventure epic about a sixteenth-century farm community led by a band of samurai warriors defending itself against a marauding army, sparked not only an American remake, The Magnificent Seven (1960), but went on to influence a score of other westerns, particularly those of Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) and Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West).

(from http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=2&eid=24&section=essay) Hohenberg 18:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but do note that that is not an argument for similarity or a comparison, merely a flat assertation. Also, "went on to influence" is a pretty broad statement. This movie has influenced everything from stem to stern; what is particular about its relationship to OUATIW other than that Leone admired Kurosawa?24.33.28.52 06:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand that quote to say that Seven Samurai influenced those filmmakers, and that those filmmakers made these particular films. Whether there's a direct influence from Seven Samurai to those films mentioned-- other than the obvious Magnificent Seven, and Leone's remake of Yojimbo as Fistful of Dollars-- would be subject for a film analysis.
Here's another sentence in the article that troubles me: The Seven Samurai is arguably the most famous non-English language film of all time.
Now, I'm as big a Kurosawa fan, and particulary Seven Samurai fan, as the next guy, but "most famous non-English language film of all time?" Says who? More "famous" than... Godzilla?... Rashomon?... Ikiru?... Battleship Potemkin?... Grande Illusion?... Rules of the Game?... M?... Metropolis?... Seems like an awfully subjective statement to make without a source. -- Rizzleboffin 18:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Criterion succession box deletion

There's a discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films#Criterion Collection infoboxes and, to a lesser extent, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive62#Criterion Collection infoboxes regarding the deletion of the Criterion succession boxes. --Doctor Sunshine 08:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was PAGE MOVED per discussion below. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

The Seven Samurai → Seven Samurai — The Seven Samurai → Seven Samurai —(Discuss)— Seven Samurai is the more common name as per WP:NC(CN). The "The" usage gets about 200,000 Google hits where Seven Samurai alone gets over a million (a wide enough margin to cover the fact that The Seven Samurai would be included in those results too). Plus the definitive Criterion Collection DVD, the production of which involved no less than six leading Japanese film scholars, opts for the dropping the The. Doctor Sunshine 00:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

Discussion

Add any additional comments:
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Incomplete page move

Unfortunately the only part of the work that was doine was the page move. It looks as though none of the redirects were fixed. I know that it isn't easy to do this when you have an article like this one that will have many pages linked to it but it is a part of the job per the instructions on moving a page so a note to any wikipedians that encounter this films links on other pages, please help by changing the linke to Seven Samurai from The Seven Samurai and thanks ahead of time for fixing these redirects. MarnetteD | Talk 16:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Notebooks

I was watching the special features for this film on it's criterion edition and they said after Kurosawa's death, they found six notebooks written about this film before it was produced. Anyone want to edit that into the trivia section? Faustus Tacitus 20:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

extended edition

In The Magnificent Seven commentary, about 22-23m in, they mention a 4-hour version of Seven Samurai! -- Sy / (talk) 21:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

They commentary is just mentioning a rough figure wherein they are rounding up. There has never been a version longer than the 3 1/2 hour one. I have found it interesting that many DVD commentaries contain inaccuracies. In older films like this one it is often just faulty memory. MarnetteD | Talk 21:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Action Scene Unrelated to Main Plot...mentioning James Bond

Paragraph in question:

Film critic Roger Ebert mentions in his review that the sequence introducing the leader Kambei (in which the samurai shaves off his symbolic hairstyle in order to pose as a priest to rescue a boy from a kidnapper) could be the origin of the practice, now common in action movies (particularly James Bond films), of introducing the main hero with an undertaking unrelated to the main plot.

The reference to James Bond films was removed and called "unsourced and irrelevant". Really? The fact that Seven Samurai pioneered this technique and it has since been used in all 21 James Bond films is irrelevant? I don't think so. KyuzoGator (talk) 21:17, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The wording of the statement is that it "could be" the origin of the practice. Wikipedia does not deal in speculation. It is important to note that Ebert "does not" mention the Bond films in his review and your edit made it look as though he did. Next the SS is not be the first film that this style of storytelling ever occurred in. To mention this here wou would need a verifiable source stating that the writers of the Bond films were copying the SS on purpose, otherwise this is just your opinion. This is not discounting your interpretation of this but wikipedia requires more before this kind of edit can stay. Be aware that there are other venues on the internet where your interprestation can be expressed. MarnetteD | Talk 22:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
You are reading far too deeply into what I wrote. Seven Samurai pioneered the storytelling technique (if it wasn't the first, it was certainly among the first) of introducing the main character with an action scene that is unrelated to the main plot of the film. This was already in the article. All I did was provide the most common and identifiable example of this technique in modern action movies, which is the James Bond films. I never intended to imply that Ebert said anything about the Bond films, although I can see where it could be taken that way. Perhaps an additional sentence at the end that makes a clearer distinction between Ebert's quote and the Bond films. I contend that mentioning the Bond movies here is indeed encyclopedic and not just my mere interpretation or POV opinion (or a shameless plug). KyuzoGator (talk) 19:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Structural Innovations

This section of the article claims that the film 'was among the first films to use the now-common plot element of the recruiting and gathering of heroes into a team to accomplish a specific goal,' going on then to mention the film adaptation of 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.' I find this to be a very stupid example. The 'League' film is, of course, based on the graphic novels of the same name which are very heavily based on works of literature, not film. Whether or not author Alan Moore has ever seen this film should hold no credence to the gathering of said literary heroes for the graphic novel and subsequent film. Moore was most likely influenced by literary examples of a gathering of heroes like Jason and his Argonauts, but certainly not 'Seven Samurai.' Granted, the article references the 'League' film, which is a different entity altogether, but I highly doubt that, given the quality of the film, it was influenced at all by Kurosawa's masterpiece. I doubt the director of 'Blade' and 'Death Machine' has even seen a Kurosawa film, let alone know who the man was. 129.12.237.219 (talk) 18:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Gunslingers

I believe "gunslingers" is more appropriate than "cowboys." The term cowboy has been a catch-all for many decades and its meaning has been polluted. The gunfighters depicted in The Magnificent Seven have little or nothing to do with herding cattle. In fact, the character played by Robert Vaughn appears to be from some city, or perhaps a riverboat gambler.

The theme all of the seven have in common is not that they herd cattle (assuming any of them do) but that they are proficient in gunfighting. The term "gunslinger" is a term unique to the Old West as it describes a person who carries his firearm in a holster and "slings" it into action. I doubt this can be confused with any other timeperiod or culture. Also, the term "Old West" is prefaced here so, again, there should be no confusion.-- ZincOrbie (talk) 13:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

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