Talk:Universal Monsters/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

moderated discussion

I'm going to attempt some moderation here.

NJZombie and StarTrekker, could one/both of you state as briefly as humanly possible what you believe is the ONE most important or crucial edit you're suggesting, along with the minimum number of necessary sources you think best support that edit? (No need to include any explanation for me; I do not need to understand the content dispute.) Valereee (talk) 19:20, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Adding a history section which details 1) how the 1930s began an era of sound horror for Universal, 2) how the studio began to cross over their popular series, and 3) how the after the end of the initial film series the studio has continued to merchandised and market the monster characters in all kinds of media and products.★Trekker (talk) 20:31, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

While I do think your thoughts on this are well intentioned, I'd suggest against it because you will not find the material you are hunting for. What you are asking for part 1 and 2 is exactly what I intended to do when I first came to re-writing this article. I found very little backing them up Mainly because they are so loosely connected even as their on namesake series. Take a look at The Invisible Man (film series) or Dracula (Universal film series). Even those films are connected extremely vaguely in terms of characters and narrative. Film production in the past is not as documented as it has been in the later years so finding the how and why things were done in that form came up relatively uneventful when I expanded upon House of Frankenstein. They literally just announced the film and what character would or would not be included. That was all I was able to muster up. I appreciate you guys trying to make this work, but if you have read these individual articles, you are looking for material that is currently non-existent. Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:49, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to have egg on my face with this, but on further research (apologies for reading the above, but it is relevant to anyone just reading this conversation as well), this book seems to have a wealth of filling in the gaps we are trying to adapt here @StarTrekker. here. I'll try to write something up in a draft and see what you guys think. Andrzejbanas (talk) 21:18, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

The only crucial edit I felt was necessary, I made, and that was clarifying that it is indeed a media franchise. I think the article could use some cleanup, or even a rewrite, showing more examples of products and places the brand has been used but the sources would depend on how many items were added. NJZombie (talk) 20:46, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Proposal

So @NJZombie: and @StarTrekker: and @Valereee: and anyone else interested, using the source I found above, I've tried to create something that I think could pass as satisfying for the lot of us. It needs work and copy-editing, but I think it is a good start in how we can actually get some meat and potatoes into this article. I've started a draft of it User:Andrzejbanas/sandbox/Universal Monsters here. I don't think this is complete or final or anything, but feel confident it addresses the issues we've had. I'm genuinely glad we all stuck it through with this article, as I don't know when I would have found this article otherwise that has really addressed many of our concerns. Thoughts? Andrzejbanas (talk) 23:05, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

If you're talking about adding this into the existing article, go ahead. You don't need anybody's approval to add additional sourced information. Once again though, I don't feel it needs to be a separate or new article. It really has nothing to do with my only concern, which is stated clearly above. NJZombie (talk) 00:00, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh i'm aware, I'm happy to add it, I'm just curious if it's assisting in what we are doing. With this information, I feel like, its less likely it needs a separate entity that works out. Also, as I was accused to WP:OWN, I feel like it would benefit us everyone to discuss before I make more bold edits. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:02, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

"Holy..." is what I have to say about this. The Universal Classic Monsters is a franchise, and is called as much by various reliable sources. In addition to the fact that the movies were retroactively given the label by Universal Pictures (and released various media which should also be included in this article), it's also worth noting that any time there is a remake/reboot/reimagining of one of the studio's monster characters all of the sources note that they are characters from the Universal Monsters franchise. The "Universal Horror" brand (which they started with another series of home video releases) is entirely separate.--DisneyMetalhead (talk) 01:21, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Hey DisneyMetalHead, I've written a draft here with some new sources I've found regarding this. If you or anyone else could weigh in on it, I think that would be great. User:Andrzejbanas/sandbox/Universal Monsters. Andrzejbanas (talk) 03:50, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

So its been a few days and outside NJZombie and Valereee, no body has really seemed to comment on the addition I was suggesting. I'm going to try and fine tune it a bit and see if we can include the information we want/need for it. I just hope everyone respects that I am trying to reach out to people and am not taking ownership of this article when I make bold changes. If we don't communicate, I'm not sure what I can do to make sure people's issues are addressed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 00:23, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

It's fine to be bold. I don't see anyone here saying bold>revert>discuss = ownership. What I see is people saying bold>revert>sealion until everyone else has given up in frustration = ownership. Valereee (talk) 11:38, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't really want to get into debates about that as I don't think I can say anything here that will make anyone disagree with a pre-conceived notion. If there is no further discussion about the content of the page, I'll try to add some of it later today. Andrzejbanas (talk) 12:55, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Haven't hard from many of you, but I've expanded the article with new information that should clarify some details. Hope this satisfies people. Andrzejbanas (talk) 22:42, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I think much has been improved, but I think a move to the shorter name Universal Monsters would be good.★Trekker (talk) 23:00, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words! I'm not sure if it's so long that it requires a re-name and maybe would prefer it to still have the "Classic" in the title. Most of the home video line adopts the term "Classic" when they get their official branding, so I think not including it would nearly be as wild as dropping the term "Universal". Andrzejbanas (talk) 11:24, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

@Andrzejbanas: you referred to me various times in this thread, but didn't tag me correctly.--DisneyMetalhead (talk) 01:56, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the article looks much better than it did with just minimal paragraphs. That being said, I believe it could use a great deal of expansion (detailing the monsters and who played them for example). Why? The franchise is noteworthy for a number of situation, including the iconic status of the various characters.--DisneyMetalhead (talk) 02:10, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

You are really obsessed with cast and crew. This would be fine but as established by the prose, the Univeral Classics Monsters is not a typical "franchise". It only became one on home video and as evidenced by the article by multiple sources, it only became promoted as one in the 1990s. It's not about an ongoing plot. WP:INDISCRIMINATE, so an long lasting cast and crew that just lists them is not what Wikipedia is for. Andrzejbanas (talk) 11:57, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Not nearly as obsessed as you are with insisting that the franchise only began with a 1990s era home video release, which remains untrue. With a simple Google search, I've found products using Universal Monsters being used well before the video release you keep bringing up. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Remco toys released figures that clearly note them Official Universal Movie Monsters, one of the many name variants of Universal Monsters that have been used for decades now. Merchandising, using the Universal Monsters name, began back in the 1960s which can clearly be seen in items such as this and this. There may have been a licensing boom in the 1990s but it did not suddenly begin then. NJZombie (talk) 20:23, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

@Andrzejbanas: Genuine question -- Why are you combative towards other editors? I am not "obsessed" with anything. Rather, it seems like you have preferences that you believe override a formatting standard which every other contributor is trying to point out to you. As pointed out by @NJZombie: the franchise did not begin in the 1990s, but regardless of its date -- it is an established and well-known film franchise at this point with various media.

My initial comment was that you had referenced me various times in your thread but never with the correct formatting/spelling -- so I was not pinged to your proposal conversations.

DisneyMetalhead (talk) 08:33, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

The information I've gathered may not have caught up with marketing, but the article no longer states its just a home video line with new information I've dug up. While those images do make good points, how do we move forward to get an actual "start" date? If we don't have some written sources, I don't know if we can cite what could be very well be a bootleg lunch box. Andrzejbanas (talk) 12:31, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

“I don't know if we can cite what could be very well be a bootleg lunch box.”

This could be the most sea lion quote yet! NJZombie (talk) 22:51, 17 August 2024 (UTC)