Talk:Epic film

The Sound of Music

I know that some people would not agree that the Sound of Music belongs in the epic film category; however, its budget and its recognition both critically, among fans, and in the montage at the Oscars I believe deserves a spot on the list. -Fbv65edel 16:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The Lion King and Finding Nemo are epics? This is embarassing. Mandel

You will notice, Mandel, that I said they share characteristics with what is widely perceived to be the epic film style. --ExtraordinaryMan 22:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The Lion King, maybe, but I don't see how Nemo qualifies. They travel a great distance, but the events of the filsm basically only affect the main characters. It doesn't have the epic scope. Ace of Sevens 12:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Added a few pictures of "epic films" to the section.

Also, does "The Da Vinci Code" really qualify as an epic? --ExtraordinaryMan 22:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems every damn movie that ever had a wide shot is now an epic. I'm deleting the entire list. Ace of Sevens 18:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It's been resurrected at List of epic films. I am getting closer and closer to listing that for AfD. Morgan Wick 23:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

A lot of the older films definitely belong on the list as epics. But in regards to the newer films, we seem to be using too broad of a defintion. Are "The Matrix" films and "The Da Vinci Code" really epics. --ExtraordinaryMan 13:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Cartoons are epics? I think this article is up to Wiki standards. The Muppet Movie is certainly an epic. Redrum Frank (talk) 06:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Sources

I'm concerned that this page lacks sources for describing epic films. As I can understand that the terminology is used, I believe such sources exist, but they should be referenced. Here's some I found:

http://www.filmsite.org/epicsfilms.html http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-6829-8A8EB97-391C90BC-prod5 http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/movies/epics/epics.html

But I'm concerned that they lack enough substance to merit inclusion in this article, so I'm wondering if anybody has some print sources? Films are a serious subject so there must be something somewhere, right? FrozenPurpleCube 04:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Spoof

I removed this: "A film parodying the epic film genre was released in 2007 under the title, Epic Movie. The film spoofed such epics as Nacho Libre, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Snakes on a Plane, X-Men, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Cribs, and Borat." I don't think this has any place in the article, plus Snakes on a Plane and Cribs are hardly place emphasis on human drama on a grand scale. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.202.94.76 (talk) 18:31, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Titanic?

old woman tells of her obviously insanely romanticised and idealised memory, of being an average girl on a cruise, meeting The Great Romeo and having something of an affair with him on the ship. then the ship crashes and sinks, he dies, she's saved. how the hell is that an epic film? it's just a mental porn movie for women, with the usual extremely thin and completely unrealistic plot.· Lygophile has spoken 15:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

James Cameron's film has been considered an epic in countless critic's reviews and by the general public. It was voted by the American Film Institute as the 6th Greatest Epic film of all time. Titanic is an epic film, whether you agree with me or not.Pat 18:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Titanic is clearly not an epic, regardless of if bozos at AFI think it is. Nor is it a great film, in fact it wasn't even a good one, state of the art fx notwithstanding. It IS long, and about a famous event...that doesn't make it an epic. One might as well call West Side Story an epic due to it's length and important subject matter. I'm not about to remove the movie from this section as it will merely start an edit war which I won't win...but for anyone interested in so-called "epic" films, this shouldn't be classified as one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.125.228.36 (talk) 14:45, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight movie the "Crime epics" Is that the section does not need to take place?--Olağan Şüpheli (talk) 17:07, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Is Goodfellas Really An Epic??

I think this article has its heart in the right place, but it needs to be more consistent as to what is and isn't an epic. The first paragraph under "Genre Characteristics" provides an excellent definition of epic film. The following is a key part of the definition: "the central conflict of the film is usually seen as having far-reaching effects, often changing the course of history." By that standard, Gone With the Wind, Cleopatra, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and The Ten Commandments are all epics.

However, it's difficult for me to see how any of the crime films described as "epics" meet this threshold. Certainly, there is nothing epic about The Departed, however fine it may be as a piece of cinema. And as for Goodfellas -- I love that movie, but in no way is it epic! The major exception that I would recognize is the Godfather series, because it sets organized crime in a sweeping historical narrative, and in that sense has an epic scope.

I think the existing text about crime films under "Genre Characteristics" is a good statement of the pros & cons of defining a special subgenre of crime epic. If the additional section about "Crime Epics" is going to remain in this article, it should certainly be tightened up to eliminate the decidedly non-epic examples. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thuvan Dihn (talk • contribs) 03:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Correct, Goodfellas is no more an "epic" than "Titanic"...see above discussion. I think there should be a major reexamination of this genre of film. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.125.228.36 (talk) 14:47, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Chinese Epics

I'm disappointed to see a lack of Chinese cinema mentioned within this article, regarding what qualifies as an epic. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Hero; Red Cliff; House of Flying Daggers for starters are some pretty big films that are known to be wuxia epics, differing greatly from wuxia films of the past. Yet for some reason, there isn't a section mentioned here?--ThePhantasos (talk) 20:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Relevance

I fail to see how this "topic" merits its own entry. Whether or not a movie is "epic," seems to me to be entirely determined by marketing, budget, and public perception. The first and third of these factors are unquantifiable, and all three are external to the actual content of the film. I agree with Thuvan Dihn that this is a noble attempt but the question of what is and is not an "epic" film is so wholly subjective as to make futile any attempt at classification.

It seems every damn movie that ever had a wide shot is now an epic.

At this point in our cultural history "epic" is more of an adjective than a genre. Hisotterness (talk) 21:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Is Harry Potter really epic??

According to me, one of the criteria for epic films is that they have to be big budget films. The Harry Potter films have never struck to me as being big-budget. In fact, most of the box office success of HP is due to the popularity of the books. If they really are big-budget, then the effort put into film-making is very poor (especially with the special effects). In that case, can the HP films be really considered as epic? Even the Oscar record of HP films is very poor. 59.184.149.66 (talk) 12:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Although epic films are often big budget, that is not what makes them epic. Nor is it the Oscar count. It is the scale of the film which makes it an epic. The more people on screen, the more locations, the longer the time frame and the longer the running time are all factors. Admittedly, it usually takes a lot of cash to get all that on the screen. I don't think that the earlier Harry Potter films are epic but Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 do have epic qualities. The fate of the (make-believe) world is at stake, enourmous cast, loads of locations and, taken together, the run-time is over 4.5 hours. Btw, it cost $250 million to make. Stanley Oliver (talk) 12:59, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

"The Harry Potter films have never struck to me as being big-budget" - The cheapest movie was $100,000,000 and the most expensive was $250,000,000 (Half Blood Prince) - So yes. Big budget. --188.223.69.30 (talk) 03:18, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Too difficult to define

This article is rubbish. Too much subjective inclusions and too many exclusions. That's just my personal opinion. So Original research in this article must be a serious issue. It needs a lot so work and a lots of changes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.156.28.86 (talk) 17:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed; it's almost as if some people think that the term "epic" means a great film. Obviously not the case if you have ever sat through epics like The Greatest Story Ever Told, Heaven's Gate (film) or The Postman (film). Conversely, many of the films included in this article, e.g. Full Metal Jacket, Heat (1995 film), Goodfellas and L.A. Confidential (film) are not epics, great films though they might be. None of the Wiki articles on those films refer to them as an epic. This article needs to be re-worked. Stanley Oliver (talk) 14:03, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Epic? Yay or nay? --70.181.69.222 (talk) 02:06, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

oh hell yes. i was shocked when i saw it was not on the list :O — Preceding unsigned comment added by WichitaQ (talk • contribs) 02:22, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The battle scene sandwiched in the middle is definitely epic. The beginning and end I would not call epic. It's not clear to me if the movie is epic or not though. I'd lean towards yes, I suppose. Jason Quinn (talk) 01:21, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Due to the enormous difficulty in defining this genre, lots of films were cut in a massive purge of the article. Not sure if this was in the old version or not.--WickerGuy (talk) 03:06, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Recent mass deletions

Editor Andrzejbanas has recently started a series of mass deletions from the article without discussion - partly because he ascribes to a narrow definition of the term epic, but also (and more disturbingly) as a way to make a WP:POINT in a content dispute on the 2001: A Space Odyssey article. This is IMHO a serious breach of ethics and civility, and I've restored his removals. Since he believes this needs to be discussed, I've created this section just for that - as the same standards he expects to apply to other editors also apply to him. So - stop edit-warring and discuss it, pal. MikeWazowski (talk) 15:11, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

No, I clean genre articles all the time. See the list of horror films and whatnot for example. Don't revert uncited material. Uncited material is to be deleted.

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information...

–Jimmy Wales

Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Per recent edit summaries from the edit-warrior in regards to citations from a contested source, i.e. Allrovi, he claims that "WP:FILM considers it a reliable source" - however, since this is a discussion about genres, I think it's relevant to point to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Archive 37#AllRovi (again), where the consensus seems to be that while Allmovie is fine for reporting factual content, genres can be subjective. This discussion offers something similar. Someone needs to take a step back and think before continuing. MikeWazowski (talk) 21:45, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Having a source is still better than no citation at all. As I've stated on the 2001 page, several of the definitions of the genre from similar sources online, I was making it easy by using one. If you are uncomfortable with this, be bold and provide expanded cited material. I'm just making it simple and not with incorrect information. If you need more weight in my direction, you can at least adress the quote above and stop littering my wall with accusations of vandalism. Andrzejbanas (talk) 21:55, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

As people are reverting me, without following up on discussion on the talk page and accusing me vandalism (which I still don't understand) than I'll be reverting this page in 3 days if there is no discussion. Any revert after that will be considered vandalism. Andrzejbanas (talk) 11:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

If material is uncited and Andrzejbanas is removing it, restoring it is incorrect. If you want that information in, source it, otherwise Andrze is correct to remove it. Claims that he is doing so to support his personal stance are somewhat rendered moot when you require that uncited information there to support your personal stance. As for 2001, a quick check shows neitehr IMDb nor Allrovi are calling it epic so where is the term coming from? Darkwarriorblake (talk) 14:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Because genre is so subjective, this is exactly why any examples should be sourced. Any examples which are not should be removed until sources can be found, and any future unsourced additions should be removed immediately. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:01, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

It is subjective but you should at least find some basic definition. If there is none at all and it's not clear whether someone up their own. Andrzejbanas (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Per this edit, it seems that my edits will not confuse people and have people editing this article at random. If there is no further argument, I'll be editing it tomorrow. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Category, not genre

I cannot help but feel the word here is "category", not "genre." So-called epic films fall into many genres (see my points on this talk page: Talk:2001: A Space Odyssey). It is not a genre that is taught, at least not when I was in film school, it is not a genre that is defined beyond length and scope. The films 2001, Doctor Zhivago, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings have nothing in common beyond length (Star Wars isn't even a true Science Fiction film, but is a mythic adventure that just happens to take place in space). There have been a couple of directors who seem to have been unable to make a film shorter than 3 days long--I mean hours--such as David Lean, but Ryan's Daughter is a romance, while Lawrence of Arabia is a faux biographal adventure story. Genre has, traditionally, meant that there are specific elements which must be included for the film to meet the genre's criteria (screwball comedy has very different elements from any other sort of comedy, and if those elements aren't there, it's not a screwball comedy, but just a comedy, or another sort of comedy). I think we should seriously consider substituting the much less specific term "category" for "genre" here. I'm obviously not going to do it before we discuss it here, of course. I would argue that AFI and AMC use the term "epic genre" for their own purposes, and some of those films on their lists appear on true genre lists as well. And we certainly don't have to adopt their policy which, in the case of AMC, is at least partly for the convenience of their audience when making viewing choices, and should not be construed as a true defining of the term "epic."--TEHodson 21:17, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I think we are dealing with a slippery word around which there is no real clarity in the larger world. In the world of print literature, epic is more frequently spoken of as a "genre", and some folks in the world of film have inherited that usage and others have not. I think there's just no real consistency to how its really used in the film world. As I have noted on the Talk page of Space Odyssey we have the pair of words "romance" and "romantic" and the pair of words "comedy" and "comical" but only one word "epic" with no corresponding "epicish" or "epicic" (Ugh!) which leads to a lot of confusion.

In literature, the genre of epic is usually associated with heroic deeds and/or a heroic journey in some fashion, in which the hero's deeds will effect the fate of a people or nation. Classically, it was only a genre of narrative poetry. Disregarding the limitation to poetry, in this sense Star Wars, Lord of the Rings Lawrence of Arabia and Space Odyssey all qualify, though Zhivago would be borderline. (The fate of Russia doesn't really hinge on the deeds of Dr. Z).

I think the article should reflect that fact that it is sometimes used as a genre and other times is more a declaration of style rather than substance.

Incidentally, most of David Lean's earlier works prior to River Kwai actually are relatively brief. (Blithe Spirit in only 96 minutes.)--WickerGuy (talk) 22:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Funny; it's usually baby filmmakers who fall so in love with their footage and/or ideas that they can't edit the damn things. Do we see his work as evolving or devolving?--TEHodson 22:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I guess that would depend on to what degree Lean got less lean (Ugh!) due to change in subject matter and/or due to more money to work with. Personally, I think Arabia and Zhivago work at their given length (but take a water-bottle with you into Arabia), but Ryan's Daughter desperately needed to be much shorter, done in the style of his earlier work like Great Expectations. The one constant is that Alec Guiness seems to be in just about every other David Lean movie.--WickerGuy (talk) 23:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

...whether he should have been or not. (P.S. I hung out in the bluebell field and the little building used in Ryan's Daughter a few years ago, shown to me by my host, who was on the crew. He said Lean and Mills were nightmares.)--TEHodson 23:57, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Mills, too? That's a bit disappointing?--WickerGuy (talk) 00:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

PS. IMO, Guinness should not at all have been in Passage to India and he did a similar ethnic type only a tad better in Arabia. He was just terrific in Kwai and Zhivago.--WickerGuy (talk) 01:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Revisions

In light of the above comments I have revised the main body of the article. However, I think we should be stricter in the list of films concluded, and find places where someone has referred to them as epics. I removed the Narnia films from the list of fantasy films. Yeah, kinda, sorta, but hardly anyone has called them epics. (Ironically, they have more epic content than epic style as opposed to some other examples which are the other way around.)--WickerGuy (talk) 04:03, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems you're attached to this article, but as far as I can tell, it is really all OR; it's an essay about someone's point of view about epics, about which films count as epics, what epics consist of, but it's all subjective. If it were up to me, I'd reduce this to a brief definition that more or less says: "Epic" is a word often used to describe films longer than 2 hours, often because they include mythic content." I'm not about to fight for something that few will agree with (based on this talk page, there are plenty of people who think this is an encyclopedic subject, but I really don't); I think I'll just leave you to it.--TEHodson 04:48, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't even know about this article till a couple of weeks ago, and I utterly agree it just reeks of OR (which I have perpetuated but did not originate), especially the problematic listings of specific films. I think all the stuff on subgenres could be easily discarded entirely(!!) and we could just leave in the characteristics, and maybe mention a few films that AFI mentions as being in more than one genre. It could be replaced with more material on the history of epic film as described in say a book like "The Epic Film: Myth and History (Cinema and Society) by Derek Elley"

My changes were both meant to remove a lot of repetition, and to make it a bit more focused.--WickerGuy (talk) 04:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't study the revision history enough to know who originated what. I'd gut the article, myself, were I feeling up to it, but I'm in a turned-off-of-Wikipedia frame of mind right now and am just maintaining articles I am invested in, rather than doing much copy-editing or writing of new ones. I will support you, though, if you want to reduce the article to what can be properly sourced and if you refrain from doing any more OR (by support I mean come and back you up if after a major rewrite you get attacked). Do you have the book you mentioned? And maybe I'll come back and deal with it later, but I'm working on my own writing at the moment and really shouldn't be spending time here right now. I will copy-edit your rewrite if you like--that's my specialty round here.--TEHodson 08:00, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Um, it's not a list?

The title of this article is 'List of Epic Films'. But it doesn't contain a list. Seems sort of misleading 60.242.167.154 (talk) 14:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Um maybe you got there from a redirect, but it's not the main title of the article. There used to be a list as part of the article, but it's been removed.--WickerGuy (talk) 15:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

WorldCat Genres

Hello, I'm working with OCLC, and we are algorithmically generating data about different Genres, like notable Authors, Book, Movies, Subjects, Characters and Places. We have determined that this Wikipedia page has a close affintity to our detected Genere of epic-films. It might be useful to look at [1] for more information. Thanks. Maximilianklein (talk) 23:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. Dana boomer (talk) 18:18, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Move for deletion

Article serves zero purpose, the term is difficult to define-- everyone's opinion of "epic" is different. 72.16.17.161 (talk) 17:10, 11 July 2014 (UTC) [Not a constuctive edit? Bite me, wikipedia.]

A definition not being straightforward does not mean there is no way to write a Wikipedia article about it. Amazon.com and WorldCat.org show books written about epic films. I'm sure that in a dream article, we would have a section that discusses different ways to define a film as an epic. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 20:14, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

"Epic"

The usage of Epic (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is under discussion, see [[talk:epic poetry] -- 70.51.46.146 (talk) 05:55, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The merits of this article

As it is right now, epic film is ... rather problematic at the very least, to put it mildly. It has a lot of text but little real content. Yes, “epic” is an adjective which can be applied to “film”, I do not dispute that. However, if “epic film” really is a genre, such as Western (genre) is, then there must be some clear criteria by which it is defined. Although many film titles are given as examples (e.g. “such as”), a clear definition can not be found anywhere. There is one question which has to be asked:

What makes a film epic?

Or to put it differently, why are epic films epic, and other films not? As long as this important question remains unanswered, this article seems destined to remain not really informative, and Wikipedia might be better off without it. Michael! (talk) 18:41, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Agree, this article is an embarrassment to the encyclopedia. Eric ^talk 03:24, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of creating an epic list that will soon be important, can you help me out? 2600:6C5A:407F:4027:4873:1825:12DE:B6C3 (talk) 00:41, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Removed entire “subgenres” section

Per WP:NOR, I've been bold and decided to remove the “subgenres” section entirely. “This section needs additional citations for verification.” and “This section possibly contains original research.” template messages have been in place since 2015, but several editors have been pointed this out years earlier, here on this talk page (see above); here is just an example:

[...] I utterly agree it just reeks of OR [...] (WickerGuy (talk) 04:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC))

The contents are arbitrary; it is unclear if there really exist any subgenres of epic film; no sources at all are cited for this anyway. The “subgenres” section had a grand total of one reference:

Gone with the Wind has been described as the archetypal romantic epic.

The source cited is some kind of online movie review about Australia (2008 film); unfortunately the statement referenced does not appear in it. Taking everything together, I believe there is no good reason to maintain this apparent original research and many reasons to have it removed, which I've done; it ought to be uncontroversial. Michael! (talk) 19:25, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

References

This category is a mess

I have raised an issue at Category:American epic films concerning the load of films labeled as "epic". Anyone care to come with an opinion? (I'm positing this here due to the software telling me that cattalkspace is usually not watched.) Thankful for cooperation, thankful for Wikipedia, Gaioa (click to talk) 21:18, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of creating an epic list that will soon be important, can you help me out? 2600:6C5A:407F:4027:4873:1825:12DE:B6C3 (talk) 00:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)