New Enhancement: Film Franchises

Ideas to improve Criticker and new feature requests, as well as announcements about new enhancements.
mpowell
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Re: New Enhancement: Film Franchises

Post by mpowell »

Yes, Kritikos is right. Two films can make up a valid franchise, if they're connected to each other, such as a sequel.

BadCosmonaut
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Re: New Enhancement: Film Franchises

Post by BadCosmonaut »

I've noticed two possible bugs, one regarding adding a movie to a new franchise, and one regarding adding a movie to an existing franchise.

1. New franchise:

If I go to a movie page (for a movie that is not yet in a franchise), then press "Help us fix incorrect or missing information" then select franchise to make a new franchise, after I make a new franchise this way, the chart under the "last modified by..." field can show missing or incorrect information.

For example, I made a new franchise for The Human Centipede. In the chart under the "last modified by..." field, it doesn't list my change:

[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

Another example, I made a new franchise for Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995). The chart there is just blank:

[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

Free Willy is another example of this.

2. Existing franchise:

The second bug is if I add a movie to an existing franchise, the "last modified by..." field doesn't show my name, nor does it list me in the chart below. See Free Willy 2, 3, and Escape from Pirate's Cove as an example of this bug. I added them to the existing Free Willy franchise, but it didn't update the "last modified by..." field or the chart below.

I realize it may be intended that updating the franchise not update the "last modified by..." field or the chart below, but if that's the case, then it's still a bug to make the field be blank as in bug 1 and/or to show the user's name at all after creating a new franchise.

mpowell
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Re: New Enhancement: Film Franchises

Post by mpowell »

Thanks for reporting this -- we'll take a look soon!

BadCosmonaut
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Re: New Enhancement: Film Franchises

Post by BadCosmonaut »

I've always understood a franchise to include only movies in the same canon (as a general rule). Like the current Star Wars franchise would have only entries that Disney has said are canon to the original and new movies.

I mention this because the current franchise for the three new Planet of the Apes movies looks like this:

[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

It shows the three new movies, the 2001 stand alone movie, the original 5 movies, plus the extras and original TV show. That's at least 3 separate canons. Should all of these be in the same franchise?

I'm not sure wikipedia is the best guide to follow regarding what is a franchise. It won't have that kind of information for lesser known series. I would recommend IMDB Connections (follows/followed by) to determine what should come under a franchise. For example, the separate canons mentioned above would look like this:

Old movie series -
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

Remake (based on this, the remake would not have a franchise since it's a stand alone movie) -
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

New movie series -
[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

So that would mean 2 separate franchises plus the 2001 stand alone movie wouldn't have one.

If we do it like this, the remaining question would be what to do about the extras like documentaries. I'm less concerned about these, but they would either be included in the franchise of the canon they belong to, or just excluded.

I would exclude them since they aren't really canon to the story and because for larger franchises there could be tens of documentaries about something. Like where to draw the line between whether a documentary should be included in a franchise? Only include making of documentaries? Official makings of vs unofficial that were made later on? Seems easier to just not decide any of this and exclude them.

mpowell
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Re: New Enhancement: Film Franchises

Post by mpowell »

Yes, there is definitely room for improvement in the new(-ish) Franchise functionality, and you've brought up some good concerns.

Our franchise moderation capabilities are still a little limited, but we plan on building them out soon, so that we can address some of the problem's you're mentioning. We agree, for example, that there should be multiple Planet of the Apes franchises.

Thanks for the notes!

BadCosmonaut
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Re: New Enhancement: Film Franchises

Post by BadCosmonaut »

The purpose of my recommendation wasn't to make up a definition for myself. It was to suggest that there should be guidelines as to what does or doesn't qualify as a franchise on this site, since right now people are kind of just adding whatever. My recommendation is to follow IMDB's follows/followed by under the connections tab as the general rule, but to allow exceptions on a case by case basis if someone makes a good argument for it. It's a clear, easy standard to follow with the possibility of exceptions when needed.

It's fine if they decide to go with another suggestion, but if so I'd like to know what the guidelines are for it. If they go with the mainstream, catch all definition, then my follow up question would be what is the definition of that exactly concerning what all should and shouldn't be included in a franchise. If they copy FilmAffinity, I'd have the same question - how is it done there since I don't use that site. Looking at their Star Wars page, it looks like they do it how I suggested: including canon movies only as a general rule, and excluding extras. But I could be misunderstanding what you meant, which is the whole point of my suggestion which is basically to just suggest clear guidelines.

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