M

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Saturday, August 31st, 2024 3:54 PM

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Trying to update EXTREMELY inaccurate data... about a holy relic film

Alright, saddle up, because this one's kind of a clusterstorm of metadata information.

So as many people on this site are probably aware, one of the first films ever screened was the Lumiere Brothers' "The Arrival of a Train." Many people probably also believe the entry currently listed on IMDb for it does in fact correspond to that film... believe it or not, it actually doesn't.

Specifically, it refers to a REMAKE of that film that was shot and released separately in 1897. Like many of their films, the Lumiere brothers shot "The Arrival of a Train" multiple times. However, unlike those other films (where only the final version got released), all three versions of "The Arrival of a Train" were publicly released... therefore making them three seperate films.

The version most people have seen online (which is the one listed on IMDb)...
...is the third version from 1897. It's NOT the original.

And therein lies the problem. IMDb doesn't actually HAVE a page for the original "The Arrival of a Train" from 1896. It has a page corresponding to the second version, and a page corresponding to the third version from 1897 (the page most are probably familiar with), but the original film is not actually listed in the database at all. It's actually even worse than that... because rather than having two seperate entries for these two separately released films, the IMDb page for them lumps them both together as a single entry (leading to a slew of contradictory and inaccurate information listed on its page).

Obviously this doesn't follow the standards for accurate information on IMDb, so I've tried to fix that. Because all of the corresponding stills and metadata information listed on that page are from the 1897 version (not the original), naturally the first step should be to correct the release date to reflect this. I tried to do that by deleting the 1896 release dates -- since, once again, they do not correspond to the 1897 version that's listed on this site (they refer to release dates for a completely different film) -- however, IMDb has rejected that correction, stating it "doesn't meet contribution guidelines."

Considering all three versions of "The Arrival of a Train" were publicly released as seperate distinct films, it absolutely does meet submission guidelines to delete inaccurate information that corresponds to a different film than the one listed on that page. If I have to first submit the original film as a new title before I can do that, I'm happy to, but I would appreciate any help from staff in updating this inaccurate information for that title's entry on the site.

PROOF: Information from official Lumiere catalogue (scroll down)
PROOF: Even more information from official Lumiere catalogue
PROOF: Information about ANOTHER version not listed on IMDb
PROOF (First version): "L'Arrivée en gare d'un chemin de fer (Lyon républicain)" (1896)* - does not have an entry on IMDb
PROOF (Second version): "Arrivée d'un train à Perrache" (1896) - already listed on IMDb
PROOF (Third version): "L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat" (1897) - listed on IMDb with incorrect release dates

*this link incorrectly labels the video "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat," but that was not the title of the original ("La Ciotat" was the title of the third/1897 version)

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3 months ago

Hello MrFargo,

You can submit the corrections/updates and deletions using the online Update Form, you can find instructions in our Help Articles.