Talk:Reaction to Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

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Probably a good idea for now, can see it just being merged back in in a few years though...depending how wiki policy on keeping all useful information or not develops.....changed the ref style in a few places. Also, should this have a quick summary of what Expelled is, or is the link to the main article enough? Restepc (talk) 09:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

"A few years"? I doubt if anybody will care who said what six months from now. After that time frame it is is really only the general themes of what all the reviews, taken as a whole, that has any significance. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Hrafn, you must have missed the Dembski [memo:

When future intellectual historians describe the key events that led to the fall of 'Darwin's Wall,' Ben Stein's Expelled will top the list.

You see, according to Dr Dr Reverned Dr, this movie is going to change the world as we know it. In the future that is. Angry Christian (talk) 18:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

What? ID is going to change the world again? I still haven't gotten the furniture straight from the last dozen times they changed it (or at least announced that they had). Does Dawkins know he's going to be "first against the wall when the revolution comes"? Why did they spend all this time in super-secret ID-labs doing super-secret ID-research that they can't tell anybody about, if all they needed was a boring economist with a host of Lord Privy Seals (or should that be Lords Privy Seal)? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

"What? ID is going to change the world again?" Dude, looks like you missed the Behe memo too:

"When future intellectual historians list the books that toppled Darwin's theory, The Design of Life will be at the top"

I'll see if I can get you added to the memo list. Angry Christian (talk) 19:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

No. That was the last world-change -- which was why the furniture wasn't straight -- it'd only just come back from being fumigated for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] box office

Should it be mentioned that expelled was the #10 film two weeks after it was released? Saksjn (talk) 19:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Where are you seeing this? Do you have a source? I've been watching box office mojo but they don't have today's or yesterday's numbers yet. Angry Christian (talk) 19:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Apropos the box office results, I'm surprised that gross revenue is not going down faster. And that it is still being shown on over 1000 screens. Does anyone have any insights into the film distribution business? For example, do cinemas pay the same fee for all films, or are some films cheaper to show than others? And if so, is there any way of finding out if this film is being made available at a lower than usual cost to motivate cinemas to keep it running? Just wondering... --RenniePet (talk) 21:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's another site that tracks box office results. [1] Strangely, it has a different result for last Friday, and no results for Saturday or Sunday. The last three days show the film as rank = 11. --RenniePet (talk) 21:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Rennie, from what I have read I believe the theater and film split the gross dollars. That split is negotiated. The percentage might change meaning the first couple of weeks the film company gets the lion's share and later they get much less. That's why we pay $9 for a hot dog. Best I can estimate, weekday showings are probably averaging 4-5 people so I would suspect we'll see a significant drop off in number of theaters after this weekend. All this is pure speculation on my part of course. Angry Christian (talk) 21:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

According to Box Office Mojo the numbers of theaters either has or is about to change substantially. See more here. Oh, and yeah, I changed my name Midnight Gardener (talk) 22:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It was at #10 according to yahoo a week or two ago. Saksjn (talk) 01:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Latest figures, for Monday, 5 May, are $100 per screen. Does that mean tomorrow, Thursday, is its last day? --RenniePet (talk) 10:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Answering myself, it's only gone down to 402 theaters. [2] But surely this will be its last week? --RenniePet (talk) 09:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Movies tend to draw down a bit slower than that, actually. I can easily see a situation where the film is still in a dozen theaters or so late-June, early-July. But there are some huge blockbusters that are going to push a lot of movies out of theaters in the coming weeks. Mahalo. --Ali'i 13:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Now down to 210 theaters for its fifth week. [3] --RenniePet (talk) 10:40, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] They have to have expected this, right?

I mean the entire point of the film is that creationist ideas are not tolerated when used in any serious forum, such as education, documentary, or film. If the film actually performed well it would negate that premise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 02:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

the implication is that they are "not tolerated" even though they have a point. The possibility that they may be rejected simply because they don't have a point doesn't seem to have occurred to them. They went and made a whole movie instead of just sitting down to honestly thinking this over for five minutes. And Wikipedia goes and throws pages of text at the topic. That's not right. This "movie" may deserve one article as a pop culture item / internet phenomenon, but certainly not an article series. dab (𒁳) 17:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The reason the film has so much written about it on Wikipedia is that this is something that people are interested in, and is associated with numerous controversies. The main article has ballooned as people come by and add their two cents. At its peak, the article was getting 20,000 hits a day. This is much more than the number of hits at the FA-rated intelligent design article. It has served the purpose of Wikipedia well, in providing something topical that people were interested in, and allowing them to edit it. Some fraction of those editors will be retained for the long haul to help build the encyclopedia. The lawsuits and the efforts to use it to spearhead assorted legislation, as well as flushing out amazing quotes such as Stein's repeated claim that "science leads to killing people", mean that this film has higher visibility than it would otherwise. In a reasonable sensible world, this poorly made and widely panned piece of junk would disappear quickly without a trace and would have a two paragraph article on Wikipedia. However, that is not the world we live in.--Filll (talk) 13:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Scientific American notes the significance of this film, and its connection to Academic Freedom bills is part of its wider cultural and legal impact, with constitutional implications. Pretending it isn't happening isn't going to make it go away, and the film promoters don't need a valid point. They just need to preach to the choir and stir them up into action. .. dave souza, talk 22:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Ya I'm pretty sure they expected this... we all did. By the way... its a ID film, not a creationist film. And yes, the film defines the difference. Saksjn (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Since we have numerous sources that state ID=creationism, and you claim the film defines the difference, perhaps you would care to produce a source that describes this difference, as laid out by the film?--Filll (talk) 14:00, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Media coverage of the film has been dedicated to debunking it, and that makes finding a good source difficult, but I'll look. Saksjn (talk) 14:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

ID proponents have attempted such "defin[ing] the difference" in the past -- these attempts have invariably involved an unreasonably narrow definition of what "creationism" is, to the extent that these definitions can be shown to exclude certain, explicitly creationist, positions. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Guys, this has nothing to do with the article. Nightscream (talk) 19:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Nightscream: discussion of claims made by the movie, and their accuracy, is clearly relevant. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 01:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It's relavent. Saksjn (talk) 16:32, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

I see this was tagged for a merge back to the parent article. I support folding this back into that article and spinning out something less controversial, like the People presented in the film or Promotion sections. Odd nature (talk) 21:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I don't think there's a need for a separate article here. Terraxos (talk) 02:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem is bloat. Re-adding the whole thing makes the main article soooooo looooong. Maybe if this article could be chopped down in size (without destroying the overall meaning), it could be re-added, but for now I think it's just to unwieldy. Mahalo. --Ali'i 13:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)