Talk:Spy Game/Archive 1

copyvio

An anon said this was plagiarized from Mr. Pitt's webpage. It does appear, at least in part, in verbatim at http://www.bradpittnow.com/movies/spy_game/brad_pitt_spy_game.php. I see nothing in talk about permission to use, etc.

Mikereichold 00:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

That is an unofficial fansite and the author may well have copied the text from Wikipedia. GagHalfrunt 23:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism not committed by wikipedia

Dear Mikereichold, you would be pleasantly surprised to know, that I am the anon wikipedia editor who wrote the bulk of the Spy Game article and I can tell you with confidence that the site you have mentioned above is the one who has copied the Wikipedia article verbatim and NOT the other way around. I know my words and I remember my thought process as I wrote them on wikipedia after having just seen the movie for the sixth or seven time. I remember it like yesterday, especially since my memory was refreshed when I read my own words copy pasted on the site you mention above: http://www.bradpittnow.com/movies/spy_game/brad_pitt_spy_game.php

I don't know who was it that removed my hard penned article with the boring scant skeleton of a shell that is presently posted here in the article. But whoever killed my article, I request that he/she revert it back at his earliest convenience.

I reiterate, the plagiarism committed is not by wikipedia but by www.bradpittnow.com. Therefore, the editors and readers of wikipedia need not be punished for it.

The varbatim copying by www.bradpittnow.com starting from the subheading, "Movie Review", is actually a bit flattering but it's a bit saddening that they did not credit that to wikipedia.org as required by the GFDL. 193.251.135.126 20:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

That was not a copyvio: Wikipedia was plagiarized. I support user 193.251.135.126 here: the plagiarism comes from the [1] website which has copied Wikipedia verbatim. Some of my early edits regarding filming locations have been also copied verbatim. In fact, User 70.106.85.133 added "WARNING: The following is plagerized from www.bradpittnow.com" on January 26, 2006 in the Wikipedia article text. In fact, the text on this website is exactly the text of the Wikipedia article (which was the results of many gradual additions) as of January 26, 2006. Feel free to restore the "Plot details" to their earlier version. olivier 02:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

After this false call for plagiarism, which was in fact the other way round, the plot details are still less detailed than they used to be before the abusive deletion of the article's material. I am copying below the pre-deletion text, so that editors can re-include it or parts of it into to article (Revision as of January 7, 2006; by Kerowyn). olivier 17:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Plot details

{{spoilers}}

Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt), who says he is a native of Hemet, California, is a field-op with the CIA. He has been captured in China and is being tortured, after failing in his mission to rescue his British-born girlfriend from inside a Chinese prison, disguised as a doctor who has come to inocculate the prisoners against cholera. She was a social worker in Beirut and is also an ex-terrorist who blew up a Chinese-owned building in London which killed several people, including the Chinese Premier's nephew. Tom Bishop has been scheduled for execution by the Chinese within 24 hours, unless the CIA admits that Tom is their operative and was sent by them to China on a mission. The CIA is unwilling to take responsibility for Tom because they did not send him on any mission - Tom Bishop was acting alone in his attempt to free his girfriend from the Chinese.

Even though Tom has been trained extensively in trade craft by his CIA recruiter, Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), he is not a full-fledged member of the CIA but instead is an operative who is used by Nathan from time to time for individual missions. The CIA is looking for a reason to let Tom die at the hands of the Chinese, since it would be very embarrassing for the U.S. Government to admit that they had sent a spy to China, a mere week before the American President is scheduled to visit China on a trip focusing on U.S.-China trade relations. However, they realize that almost no one in the CIA seems to know much about who Tom or his background are. They then decide to contact his recruiter, Nathan Muir, to see if he can provide them with any explanation of why Tom was doing what he was doing in China but more importantly if Nathan can provide them with the smoking gun to burn Tom with. It is Muir's last day with the Agency, and he is retiring.

Nathan likes Tom a lot and tries his best to save his life. He covertly calls a journalist in Hong Kong and asks him to leak the story that a CIA operative has been captured in China. He does this so that the CIA cannot tell the Chinese that Tom is not linked to them. The story airs on CNN shortly, however, the CIA team taking care of the Tom problem, calls the FCC which (presumably) threatens CNN which causes a retraction to occur in which the reporter calls the earlier report of an American spy being captured on Chinese soil a hoax. He also says that Tom Bishop has been dead for over a year, which is untrue as well.

At this point, Nathan secretly creates an urgent operational directive from the CIA Director, forging the Director's signature (from a certificate of merit that Nathan had received from him that very day) on an order to commence Operation Dinner Out: a daring rescue mission by the U.S. Marines. Using his life's savings of $282,000 which he had been saving to retire on an island in the Bahamas, Nathan funds the bribery of Chinese officials to cut the power of the prison and its surrounding areas for thirty minutes, during which time an American rescue team on helicopters is sent in to break out Tom Bishop and his girlfriend from the Chinese prison.

The operation is a success and Nathan has succeeded in pulling this off right under the noses of the CIA. Tom Bishop and his girlfriend are airlifted to safety. While on their way inside the helicopter, Tom hears the Pilot radio in the success of the mission calling it Operation Dinner Out. When Tom hears the words Operation Dinner Out, he knows that it was Nathan who was responsible for this unbelievable rescue. He knows this because when in Beirut on a mission, where Tom had met his girlfriend, he had told Nathan that he running a smuggling scam through embassy diplomatic bags which he calls Operation Dinner Out. In the last scene, Nathan is shown leaving the CIA headquarters building for the last time in his classic Porsche 911 smiling to himself, as a phone call informs his former bosses that there has been an "incident" in China.

{{endspoiler}}

Nathan setup?

Is there any hint, that Nathan (Robert Redford) is setup by all those smirking tie-carriers (I mean the fat boss, the slim director, the aggressive little "dog", the muscled, blond, most likely long-tailed "dog"), so that Nathan pays for his incredibly cruel measure against Tom's female? Somehow the security protocols in CIA cant be so silly, that a de-facto non-CIA-agent can order that kind of attack against another country... Or is it just my paranoia? ;-) --213.54.76.246 09:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• • • Random Question***

In the movie they show a brief clip of a boat filled with 4 guys. I forgot what part of the movie it is and what the purpose of it was but I am very curious to see if anyone knows what kind of boat that is. Please leave your comments. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.5.55.54 (talk) 18:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Answer..The actual boat used was a Russian made 27 foot Volga hydrofoil with a Yak engine GAZ-53,90 from the cold war era and was purchased from Iron Wolf Imports, based in Maryland and Lithuania. The film credit went to Jonathan Frost, who personally handled the purchase in Lithuania and arranged transport using a local company, to Morocco.Jonathan cordinated the setting up and various location shoots of the boat. After filming the boat had to leave Morocco and the transport and arrangements were all handled personally by Stephen Canning. Mr Canning has provided many such props and operates a niche market internationally,providing aircraft,boats and cars to the film industry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.233.106.73 (talk) 12:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Injustice

To me, this article seems a total injustice to some of the subtlety of the film, so this weekend, if no one objects in the mean time, I am going to do an almost total re-write (I will keep large sections of the plot in tact as I think this is well written), I plan to include some in-depth character analysis, including that of some of those CIA directors (Do you remember how Troy looked at Nathan when asked the question by the director "Did you organise this exchange [of Hadley] alone?"). Leave comments and I will try try and explain what I am doing. I hope I am not treading on anyones toes here. Help plz 14:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Why so much Cantonese speech in the movie?

Actually ~90% of spoken in jail "Chinese" is Cantonese, not Mandarin. And Su Zhou is an area where Mandarin is the major language. We should mention this inconsistency in the page. Yurivict (talk) 03:45, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

New material in lead

Editor Leorojasxx added the following statement to the lead:

Spy Game is a true to life composite of many real intelligence operations. Spy Game is more real than fiction and is based on the life of intelligence operative Tom Golden, the son of an Arkansas dirt farmer. Golden was an army intelligence officer assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War. Nathan Muir was Golden’s CIA code name in Southeast Asia, and during his intelligence operations in Indochina. Golden served a distinguished career in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), The Pentagon, and the CIA. He served in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Central and South America. Tony Scott does a great job of presenting the true to life dangers faced by Intelligence Agents in the field and the bureaucratic decisions sometimes made in Washington that are driven by politics.

I reverted it as unsourced, POV, and editorializing.

Another editor named Jackmartin40 came along and added the following:

Spy Game is a true to life composite of many real intelligence operations. Spy Game is more real than fiction and is based on the life of intelligence operative Tom Golden, the son of an Arkansas dirt farmer. Golden was an army intelligence officer assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War. Nathan Muir was Golden’s CIA code name in Southeast Asia, and during his intelligence operations in Indochina. Golden served a distinguished career in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), The Pentagon, and the CIA. He served in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Central and South America. Tony Scott does a great job of presenting the true to life dangers faced by Intelligence Agents in the field and the bureaucratic decisions sometimes made in Washington that are driven by politics.

He cited to Secret Warriors, Putnam Press 1988 by Steven Emerson; PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 12/16/1990; and KNIGHT RIDDER, 12/18/1990]. I reverted with the comment "are you related to Leorojasxx?" Leorojasxx has made very few contributions to Wikipedia, and Jackmartin40 has ONLY made a few edits, all to Spy Game.

There are so many problems with the material. The style is way too casual. It editoralizes. It cites to sources all of which predate the movie. The material doesn't belong anywhere in the article, let alone in the lead.

I will revert once more, but I have to watch the number of reversions I make. Some help in this would be appreciated.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In addition to Bbb23's comments, we cannot use this text with the sources provided (the latter of which aren't really verifiable, no article/page no. cited etc) as they make no direct links to the film itself. They were published way before the film and any connection between them and the film would violate our no original research policy. Rehevkor ✉ 16:37, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted as well, clearly original research as well as being non neutrally phrased. Wikipedia doesn't directly praise things "Tony Scott does a great job of presenting..." and the idea that this film is more "real than fiction" is just silly, it is a fictional movie which is inspired by some real events and people. ---Daniel 21:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)