Talk:Blue Thunder

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Vice City[edit]

In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, they have a mini game where you use an Apache-like helicopter to hunt criminals down, this mini game is called brown thunder, is there any source of this being related to this movie? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.232.154.222 (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More info[edit]

Misc. details and trivia, some of which could be used in the article to flesh it out a bit: [1], [2] Motor 08:31, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)

The Victim has Two Forms of Death[edit]

It would be absolutely fantastic if someone could add an image of the helicopter, perhaps from the box of this model kit, [3] or this DVD cover. [4] The movie poster keeps the cat in the bag. -Ashley Pomeroy 20:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trivia[edit]

I might be wrong, but the Sega arcade game Thunder Blade, which has been ported to Sega MasterSystem and Genesis (See Super Thunder Blade article), as well as several gaming computers of the time, seems to be highly inspired from the Blue Thunder movie, especially for the main helicoper. I assume Sega didn't get the rights for the Blue Thunder name and thus changed the name to Thunder Blade to keep some similarities without getting into legal troubles. Does anyone have some source or opinion on this? PhMajerus 12:37, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looping[edit]

So, can a helicopter fly a looping? Maikel (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently yes, but I'd still appreciate it if someone competent could put in a sentence or two about how difficult it is, and whether the stunt could be pulled of with an actual Gazelle or MD500 helicopter. Thanks. Maikel (talk) 10:27, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Realism[edit]

Quote: A caption at the beginning of the Blue Thunder movie states that all the high-tech-equipment features of the helicopter are real and were actually used by the military at the time. -- I would appreciate it if someone could put in a few sentences elaborating this claim. Maikel (talk) 10:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can make out the "silent flight mode" is the only technology that this movie made up entirely. Maikel (talk) 20:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At that time there had already been a lot of research into more quiet engines and blades, but it wasn't until 2010 that efficient sound-reducing rotor wing tips have become commercially available. --MikeZ (talk) 16:37, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

JAFO[edit]

The article says that the Blue Thunder TV show explained the JAFO acronym as "Just Another Frustrating Observer". I remember that as "Frustrated", not "Frustrating". I do not have access to a recording of the show to confirm or disprove my memory. I hope some Blue Thunder fan will check on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.124.146.181 (talk) 05:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

External links[edit]

A recent deletion appears to take out useful sources. Comments? Bzuk (talk) 00:13, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The links removed, and reasons:

Blue Thunder unofficial home page

Fansite. See WP:ELNO, #11.

Blue Thunder movie page on gregdonner.org

Fansite/personal page with affiliate ads. See WP:ELNO, #1, 5, 11, (and possibly 4).

Blue Thunder page on rotaryaction.com

Nothing much beyond what's in the article, except a bunch of pictures and some affiliate ads. See WP:ELNO, #1, 5, 11.

Blue Thunder review on videovista.net

A review, and affiliate ads. See WP:ELNO, #1, 11. Maybe WP:ELNEVER?

John Badham on Blue Thunder at Trailers From Hell

See WP:ELNO, #1, 4, 5, 11. More than likely WP:ELNEVER, too.

This stuff is non-encyclopedic and really doesn't add anything to the article. If these are gonna stay, I'm gonna put my affiliate ad links in here, too.

The more I think about it, the more it seems the IMDB link to the video game doesn't belong here, either.

The thing is, I just hate seeing Wikipedia played for commercial gain and I fight it tooth and nail because it just isn't right. These need to be cleaned up--they make the article look like a MySpace page.

Notification template added. Anyone else have any thoughts? — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 04:16, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Waaaaay too literal a reading of external links attributes, and with this type of notion and interpretation, nothing would be ever linked, although there is obviously material that the "fans" have collected over the years that applies directly to the movie and does not exist in any other source. Let's wait till the editors who were involved in the submission, chime in before any more action. BRD means Bold-Revert-Discuss, not slap a tag on it. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 12:21, 18 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Too literal a reading in your opinion. In my opinion, however, the list of links attached to many articles is waaaaay too much. There was a pile of links attached to Neopets, Reverse proxy and Penis enlargement, too, and these links were added to promote personal or fan sites or to make money for someone. Wikipedia is not a directory, nor is it a collection of links (see WP:NOTDIRECTORY). Many (most?) External Links sections add nothing encyclopedic to the article and only serve as a source of free advertising or free CPM revenue for someone else. Just because a "fan" collected something doesn't mean it should be included here.

The presence of excessive/unnecessary links would likely prevent an article from passing a GA or FA examination, and that's what we should be striving for. If readers want more, they'll check Google, Bing, Baidu, Yahoo, etc. There are standards, policies, and guidelines for including information here; if the rules should be changed, campaign to change them. In the meantime, though, they shouldn't be ignored.

I place the {{Linkfarm}} template where it's needed, to stimulate discussion. If the editors who added the links are associated in any way with the linked sites, they have a conflict of interest and shouldn't be promoting them here, anyway. I hope that's not the case because, if it is, we have a bigger adminstrative problem to deal with. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 14:27, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First, please remember to assume good faith. Secondly, your comment If these are gonna stay, I'm gonna put my affiliate ad links in here, too could easily be considered a declaration of intent to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. Thirdly, the statement Nothing much beyond what's in the article, except a bunch of pictures demonstrates exactly why that link was there - for the pictures. Removing it does a disservice to the readers. Please remember that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and that (quite to the conntrary to your "they shouldn't be ignored" comment) Ignore All Rules is not just a policy, it's one of the Five Pillars. Slavish adherence to the rules to the detriment of an article's content does not help build Wikipedia in a manner that helps its readers. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:32, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I do assume good faith, here and in real life. Please do not take a statement of mine out of context and accuse me of saying something I did not—it doesn't demonstrate a presumption of good faith on your part. If you truly believe I have threatened to harm the project, and you feel my history here demonstrates a propensity toward such actions, please open an AN/I incident.

My statements, above, were in answer to a question posed regarding my objection to what appears to be several fansite links. I believe the guidelines in WP:EL are good ones and help ensure we present good, encyclopedic content to our readers.

I don't believe WP:IAR was intended to mean every rule, every guideline, at every moment, should be ignored. If so, we wouldn't need them. One of IAR's companion essays, in fact, specifically addresses this: "'Ignore all rules' does not mean that every action is justifiable. It is neither a trump card nor a carte blanche." That being said, if the broader consensus here is the links be retained, so be it. That's the way the process works in the WP community. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 04:27, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Time to "cool" the rhetoric and note this is a discussion, not an argument. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 12:25, 19 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Weighing in two years later as I am working through cleanup tags: I strongly agree with UncleBubba that those links don't belong in the article. Movie articles in particular pick up loads of fansites, personal pages, non-notable reviews, trivia collections, etc, etc. WP:ELNO is very clear those don't belong there and are detrimental to Wikipedia; they're also an attractive nuisance for other people to add their own fansites, trivia lists, personal pages, etc, etc, and then you wind up with an external links section that's longer than the article itself. --rahaeli (talk) 04:46, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]