Poll: Fictional Deaths Within a Movie

[JenGe]

The following question has been raised and is open for discussion, debate and a vote...

wraith said:

A couple movies led me to ask this question. If a movie shows a television show/movie that's not real in the context of the movie does that count? I don't mean archive footage from another movie, but the footage is particular to the movie.

EG:
ProtoCop's kills in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, as well as the animated death in the credits, and the B-movie actress's "death" in the horror movie

The MagnaVolt Commercial in RoboCop 2

admin said:

I would say yes they count if it is shown on screen but I'm open to opposing opinions and debate on it.

davethejew said:

I always do it, even if its archive footage, its still an onscreen death

ronnoc said:

So even though the deaths are fake in the context of the film, they are counted?
In my first count, The Running Man, there is a part where a character is watching the news, and they show two dead guards that didn't aculy die, and latter, a simular thing happens where in two of the main characters deaths are faked on tv. Do these count?

[ronnoc]

I'm not sure. The example I used before is 'The Running Man', so I guess I should expand on that.

Richards doesn't trust her, but he can't leave her either, so he attempts to kidnap her and fly to Hawaii. After she alerts airport security, it leads to a chase through the airport, whereafter he is captured with a netgun (afterwards, and the media falsely states that Richards killed several police officers and security guards at the airport).

Now, we get a lovely little newscast compleat with bodys lying in pools of blood.

Later the deaths of the two main characters are staged; there is a scene that shows two people being killed (who are latter refered to as acters), and they use teh magic of CG to make them look like the main characters.

Both of these are realitively grafic for the time, and without the whole "We faked it lol" there wouldn't have been any argument.

I think this is more than a bit like the dream disscussion, and I think it would be fine to inclued them in the count, as long as it is mentioned that they are fictional in the context of the film.

[JenGe]

Certainly if it turns out that we count them we really do need to mention the ones that are "fictional."

[ronnoc]

admin said:

Certainly if it turns out that we count them we really do need to mention the ones that are "fictional."

I think they should be in the count. As someone said in the dreams disscussion, the director is going out of their way to show a body.

[Ankhareon]

I say count them with a disclaimer, but not in the final count

[JenGe]

A good example is Alpha Dog. There is one kill within the reality of the film but there are two more cleary shown in a "music video."

I think I might list both counts especially with smaller count films like this since it will not effect any charts. It's the ones that mess up the charts that I'm more worried about.

[JenGe]

Guys take a look at how I worked up the page for Alpha Dog and let me know what you think (SPOILER WARNING!!).

I made it perfectly clear that 2 are fictitious and linked to this thread. It's much easier right now to test this out on a film with a small count before we tackle a mega one.

[ronnoc]

I think it's fine.

[Amie]

Alpha Dog looks good, Jen. I believe Dave is right when he says it's an onscreen kill. It may be fictitious in the context of the film, but we don't bodycount films because there's any reality in them--- we count to measure the shock value of a film (according to Wikipedia). As somebody mentioned, if the director thought it important enough to show bodies on the video, then it must be significant and should be counted (with a disclaimer).

[JenGe]

It seems to be working fine now. Number 23 had quite a few of these as well...

www.moviebodycounts.com/Number_23.htm

[rgd51]

If you see a death, i think you should count it.