Well, I know you guys don't generally consider this a source to be automatically trusted, but it was in the trivia section for this movie on IMDb. According to my observations, what mistakes they make are usually regarding minor cast members or birthdates or various details like that. They're usually right when it comes to trivial items like behind the scenes details. I know because I'm an IMDb user myself. Still and all, I guess it's reasonable to be dubious, but I think the sensible thing is to assume a source is right until proven wrong.
Thanks, Garrett. We can't use most info from IMDb as it's user generated and there's no way to back it up. If we were to assume a source like IMDb is correct until proven otherwise, we'd have all kinds of rumors all over the wiki, and we'd obviously like to avoid that.
Thanks, Brad. I just watched the "Tale" featurette and it's not there. So if you say it was in those special features, that's good enough for me, as I'm probably not going to sit through the commentary right away.
Yeah, we definitely can't believe IMDb unless backed, and Garrett, we've seen enough insane and false claims in trivia, and definitely not just mistakes regarding minor cast members and birthdates. It's cropped up in countless discussions on past talk pages here (such as this one, about a false identification they still have for Follow That Bird), and it's even on the policy page. IMDb info can only be used when we know for a fact that it's verified by screen credits or bios and the like (and just don't have the time to pull it out ourselves, or it matches with other, non-user contributed sites). I've struggled for years with IMDb, from claims that people are dead who aren't, that John Cena voiced Dave the Barbarian (one of many claims from a banned user here, who also tried to claim Frank Oz was slated to direct Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and cast Miss Piggy as Charlie's mother), the claim still there that George Lucas is in Follow That Bird, false voice info on "The Jungle Book" (I managed to get it removed but screengrabbed as classic insanity, basically a wish list, including both performers *and* characters who weren't in the movie at all but were in the book; one of the claims was that Virginia McKenna voiced Mowgli's wolf "mother," a non-speaking part, because she was in Born Free and I guess the user wished she had been involved in Jungle Book), claiming that the reason that Harvard graduate Jay Ward had table reads for his cartoons was that he was "functionally illiterate." And these are just the big whoppers, not the casual credit misreadings resulting in false or duplicate entries, omissions, gender swaps (actors identified as actresses or vice versa), mistaken character attributions, and so on. (In its own way, IMDb can be worse than Wikipedia since there's no way to see who actually contributed what, and many entries violate their own rules, like revealing aliases and identities in mystery films which aren't needed as part of character names, or more recently confusing things by adding trailer announcers as part of the actual cast, and on and on).
You keep a very sharp point on your pencil, don't you Andrew? That's quite a handful of mistakes you've kept track of. Well, if all that is the case, then you're right. I never knew about Virginia McKenna being listed as having voiced the mother wolf in "The Jungle Book", but if it really was once, that's pathetic. She didn't even say anything in the whole movie. I confess I had for a while bought the rumor that Oz was in consideration to direct "...Chocolate Factory" before I learned the truth, although for the record, I don't think IMDb started it, just believed it. At any rate, someone ought to listen to the commentary to confirm the fact I submitted.
Yeah, that was the larger point. IMDb *doesn't* really start anything, they take what's submitted, and a lot of it is junk, and it's much more work to remove something (that was just the tip of the iceberg). And that includes every element of IMDb just about (the big exception is IMDb resumes, since those *are* only the domain of the person, or that person's agent/representation; sometimes the resumes have even contradicted or included info not on IMDb). IMDb staff mostly keeps the site running, promotion, etc., they have no staff to actually *watch* anything or do independent research (and to get any errors fixed, one either has to submit multiple corrections over the course of *years*, or to bring it up on the forum specifically to the attention of someone to correct it, and then only after a long record of unsuccessful efforts; I speak from decades of experience, now mostly abandoned as too much work). That's all been mentioned here before, and the reason for the policy. We'll check the commentary when we can, but just remember, please, Garrett, never again add something like this with IMDb as the one and only source (same with Wikipedia).
Hi Garrett! I can't help but notice that in a few of your edits, you've been putting periods outside of the quotation marks. However, according to the style guide, they're actually supposed to be inside the quotation marks. It's not a big deal, but I'd figured I'd let you know.
