SUGGESTION BOX: Additions for the Rename database system (4 Viewers)

[fredco]

@RoChess: I know I can customize, but I have many instances of MP with IMDb+ running and quite often I do a re-install or refresh. It is then much easier if it is part of the system. Not to mention all other people that benefit also.
Like I said: most of my suggestions are current, although I saw you indeed did some minor changes. Don't interpret this as critisism, but as an attempt to make an already great plug-in even more perfect!

 

[RoChess]

Don't interpret this as critisism

After you've experienced walking into a room and going "ugh, what was I doing/looking-for?", then a lot of things stop being criticism and instead become friendly reminders

I'd happily make you (or others) a contributor on the GitHub project, so you can edit the master file yourself. Just the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" ordeal then, because if you forget to XML-encode & into & or break functionality in another way and not test/verify then it impacts all IMDb+ users (editing the file in Notepad++ with XML-language verification active helps a lot, but I often edit directly in the GitHub editor). And I've got hundreds of custom edits that will never go into the master file, because I do not deem them community worthy and are more personal preference. It is difficult to please everybody sometimes, and I never got around adding multi-rename support yet for the whole "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" vs. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" issue that bugs me between UK/USA, let alone different languages.

Keep in mind, I would never expect contributors to be perfect, as there are plenty of commits where I broke stuff if you look at the commit history, but I often immediately test after publishing to master, and then correct mistakes as quickly as possible when I catch them.

So that's an option, or be patient until I get to it. Just usually never a good time during the weekdays due to work, and difficult to find the perfect moment at night or on the weekends when all I want to do is stretch on the sofa and relax, or get dragged away by others

Usually I get to it when it bugs me enough noticing a movie title that is not renamed when I expect it to be, and before I know it I've spent 4-hours looking at IMDb future sequel releases and making IMDb+ edits.

 

[RoChess]

@thepahakurki changes added to v1.9.26, but I added the foreign title to stay uniform

@fredco most changes added, but got a few notes:

1. Next time if you contribute, please try to help me by getting the IMDb tt-IDs, and ideally provide XML that I can use as-is (link to IMDb.com connections page works for first or last movie as they are all listed there).
2. Fantasia 2000 is a remake, but doesn't need an IMDb+ entry with title already different; I could force a collection entry though. Feel free to persuade me otherwise if you have better info, because it has been a long time since I watched them.
3. Monsters, Inc. and Happy Feet titles are not renamed due to conflicts of preference by other users. I'll rethink the options available for this, but for now I kept them the way they were. Did force the sortby order and collection for Happy Feet to match Monsters entry.
4. Please verify your import on "Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue", because the existing entry had the correct IMDb tt-ID for "tt1216515" and should have worked (could be that TMDb has a typo). And added an extra movie in the series you overlooked as well as both shorts.

Full changelog @

Rename XML database v1.9.26 · RoChess/IMDbPlus@5dfbe2d

IMDb+ scraper for MediaPortal's MovingPictures plugin - RoChess/IMDbPlus

github.com

PS: v1.9.27 released to fix Tinkerbell mistake lol

 

[fredco]

Firstly, I want to thank you for your work which is, as always, outstanding! I did a completely new rescan of my movie collection and verified all of my suggestions which indeed all have been added. First about your notes:

1. I will certainly add the IMDb tt-IDs. Have to dive deeper into the XML thing, to know exactly what you want.
2. You're probably right about Fantasia 2000. Never thought of it as a remake, but it is. About this: you seem to use the term "reboot" as well as "remake". Is there a difference and if so, what is it?
3. I'm not really sure if I understand the other preferences. There are some other movies with Monsters in the title which could cause conflicts, but if you use Monsters, Inc than it should be ok. These are clearly part of a series. Same goes for Happy Feet: clearly a series. Not sure what the issue is.
4. Tinker Bell is totally correct now. Wasn't even aware of any shorts, but now it's complete.

My notes:

5. The Lion King I, II and III should have (Cartoon) added to them, now that we also have a live version of this movie.
6. Herbie I: The Love Bug is not picked up. That might be because you use tt0119571 which is for the television series. This should be: tt0064603.
7. You made Davy Crockett II even better. This followes you're own rename rules more closely.

My movie collection now contains almost 1.400 movies which are perfectly renamed and grouped by IMDb+. I probably will come up with some more suggestions in the near future. I also have a question about some movies needing a localized title (Dutch) to be picked up by IMDb+. I will make a good report about what movies they are (not many) and will post later. For now: thanks very much!!!

 

[RoChess]

Firstly, I want to thank you for your work which is, as always, outstanding! I did a completely new rescan of my movie collection and verified all of my suggestions which indeed all have been added. First about your notes:

1. I will certainly add the IMDb tt-IDs. Have to dive deeper into the XML thing, to know exactly what you want.
2. You're probably right about Fantasia 2000. Never thought of it as a remake, but it is. About this: you seem to use the term "reboot" as well as "remake". Is there a difference and if so, what is it?
3. I'm not really sure if I understand the other preferences. There are some other movies with Monsters in the title which could cause conflicts, but if you use Monsters, Inc than it should be ok. These are clearly part of a series. Same goes for Happy Feet: clearly a series. Not sure what the issue is.
4. Tinker Bell is totally correct now. Wasn't even aware of any shorts, but now it's complete.

My notes:

5. The Lion King I, II and III should have (Cartoon) added to them, now that we also have a live version of this movie.
6. Herbie I: The Love Bug is not picked up. That might be because you use tt0119571 which is for the television series. This should be: tt0064603.
7. You made Davy Crockett II even better. This followes you're own rename rules more closely.

My movie collection now contains almost 1.400 movies which are perfectly renamed and grouped by IMDb+. I probably will come up with some more suggestions in the near future. I also have a question about some movies needing a localized title (Dutch) to be picked up by IMDb+. I will make a good report about what movies they are (not many) and will post later. For now: thanks very much!!!

Always good when efforts are appreciated which keeps motivation going.

1. Yeah, you can look at how thepahakurki posted his contribution, which aside from the foreign="..." additions was almost a copy-n-paste, and very easy to verify and sort out
2. Remake is when the movie is redone and the only thing different is a new cast, new soundtrack and tiny changes, but overall it is an almost identical movie in some cases scene-for-scene. Reboots are when they take the rough idea, but then go a different direction in trying something else. The Spider-man movies are perfect example of a reboot, we have three different actors now playing the role on the big-blockbuster movies (not counting any other variation) and even though it is all about Spider-man they all three take a different route. More concrete example is the new Charlie's Angels movie which is a reboot as it takes the same concept, but totally different movie. Often the IMDb connections page gives me the term that I go with, such as: Ghostbusters (2016) - IMDb where you can clearly see "Reboot" being used as they went with same concept, but female case and different story. But then "Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)" ties back into the original two even though the connection is due to one of the kid's grandfathers being one of the original ghostbusters. Often I just pick whatever feels good in the mix of everything
3. If you look at the XML entry, you see that they get a strong sortby title to avoid other "Monster" movies sorting in-between them, but you are right there are quite a few movies with "Monster" in the title, and the whole purpose of IMDb+ is to identify your sequels easier, so you've convinced me. Keep in mind they were both added into a series/collection, just the way they were named, but all is now fixed.
4. Cool.
5. Only got around to watching the live-version (still an animation, but damn well done obviously) last-night actually, and for the generation that wasn't even alive when the cartoons came out it makes sense to rename those, but I'm always looking from the view-point "should I really add it?", because the IMDb+ rename-database file has ballooned to a pretty gigantic file that I never thought was needed, but just kept growing to keep things consistent as movie titles are often just chaotic when compared to others. Really figured that eventually Moving-Pictures would get collection/series support within the list and that IMDb+ would only be used to get better details and RottenTomatoes rating (which doesn't even work anymore, unless your API key wasn't revoked like they did on mine). The moment they are considering a sequel to the realistic-animation movie then I'll obviously rename all the cartoon ones, but for now I think they stand fine on their own, especially since most lists show release-year next to the tile and there is a clear difference there, before you select a movie and the cover gives it away.
6. Oopsie, fixed
7. Tried to keep it consistent indeed

And yes, I'd really like to fix the root system of the scraper, but it is a pain to properly debug IMDb.com when it gives me different HTML than you on a Dutch IP. Have a few ideas how to go about it, just never find the time to do a proper rewrite.

Changelog @

Rename XML database v1.9.28 · RoChess/IMDbPlus@93a4077

IMDb+ scraper for MediaPortal's MovingPictures plugin - RoChess/IMDbPlus

github.com

 

[fredco]

@RoChess: Your plugin is getting better and better. I have some more suggestions in a format I think you prefer:

<rename id="tt0212346" title="Miss Congeniality I" />
<rename id="tt0385307" title="Miss Congeniality II: Armed & Fabulous" />
<rename id="tt0084516" title="Poltergeist I" />
<rename id="tt0091778" title="Poltergeist II: The Other Side" />
<rename id="tt0095889" title="Poltergeist III" />
<rename id="tt1029360" title="Poltergeist (Remake)" />
<rename id="tt5726086" title="Insidious IV: The Last Key" />
<rename id="tt3322940" title="Annabelle I" />
<rename id="tt5140878" title="Annabelle II: Creation" />
<rename id="tt8350360" title="Annabelle III: Comes Home" />

I think I used the term "Remake" correctly, but I didn't see the movie myself. That's the only thing I'm not sure about: Remake or Reboot. If there is anything I can improve in the way I present the XML, just say so.

 

[RoChess]

I can use that list almost as-is, so yeah, exactly what I am after.

Regarding reboot/remake, just let IMDb do the heavy lifting, if you look at the movie-connection page in question:

Poltergeist (2015) - Connections - IMDb

Poltergeist (2015) - Referenced in, Featured in, Spoofed and more...

www.imdb.com

You can see that it says "Remake of:" with the Poltergeist reference, and no indication of "Reboot". So that one is a remake where it is like the identical movie plot, but they will use new actors and like an OLED-TV instead of an old Black-and-white CRT in original movie and other more modern relevant updates such as integrating usage of mobile phones, the internet, etc. Whereas a reboot is when they change the all-male cast of Ghostbusters to an all-female cast of Ghostbusters and it is no longer an epic battle on the top of a skyscraper, but at a movie theater instead with the entire movie different, except for the fact that they are still a crew going after ghosts (the main concept).

Otherwise pick one, because unless I've seen both movies, or see IMDb having a conflicting answer I'll use whatever you provide

Speaking of Poltergeist, not sure about you, but I hate it when they put a sub-title on the sequel of "The Other Side", but then remove that on 3rd one, so in that case I often have a quick peak at the AKA list, which tells me that the working title was "Poltergeist III: We're Back", and in Australia they went with "Poltergeist III: The Final Chapter". Seeing as no other movie is planned, I personally would go with that Aussie suggestion, because it fits nice in the trilogy naming and is an acceptable English title that has been used internationally. Many other movies have used it as their official title, so it makes sense as well as the final movie in a series. If they do come back with a new series, it will obviously become a remake or they will reboot the franchise.

Released as v1.9.29

PS: Good thing GitHub editor warned me, or the rename system would have broken for everybody, the '&' is a reserved character, so I had to XML-encode it to &amp; but thankfully I caught the warning

 

[RoChess]

Forgot to add in my own changes for Aladdin, which due to the 2019 live-remake I was gonna call the original one (Cartoon), but then noticed that one actually was a trilogy. Prefer to avoid renames when possible allowing those only adding more recent movies would just see "Aladdin" once in their collection for the 2019 one with blue-man Will Smith, and those with a sense of quality will see the trilogy starting with Robin Williams and then two straight to video "let's print some money" sequels that never should have been made

Read interesting interview in which director of Logan was saying he wouldn't be opposed to Hugh Jackman being Wolverine again, but it better be for a proper reason with a good story and not because Hugh needs a big paycheck as it would otherwise tarnish the proper conclusion to his portrayal. Same for RDJ with Iron Man, and at first I was like "ohh shit they better not!", but they did a pretty good job with The Irishman to make old actors play a younger version of themselves, and I rather see Hugh and Robert in the roles that they defined. But they better not become like Steven Seagal or the internet is going to blow up

 

[fredco]

With a Covid pandemic slowing everything down here I am AT LAST with some new suggestions:

<rename id="tt0101272" title="The Addams Family I" />
<rename id="tt0106220" title="The Addams Family II: Family Values" />
<rename id="tt1620981" title="The Addams Family (Reboot) I" />
<rename id="tt11125620" title="The Addams Family (Reboot) II" />
<rename id="tt0103639" title="Aladdin (Cartoon) I" />
<rename id="tt0107952" title="Aladdin (Cartoon) II: The Return of Jafar" />
<rename id="tt0115491" title="Aladdin (Cartoon) III: ...and the King of Thieves" />
<rename id="tt0952640" title="Alvin and the Chipmunks I" />
<rename id="tt1231580" title="Alvin and the Chipmunks II: The Squeakquel" />
<rename id="tt1615918" title="Alvin and the Chipmunks III: Chipwrecked" />
<rename id="tt2974918" title="Alvin and the Chipmunks IV: The Road Chip" />
<rename id="tt1214946" title="Anubis I: Het Pad der 7 Zonden" />
<rename id="tt1581622" title="Anubis II: ...en de Wraak van Arghus" />
<rename id="tt0034492" title="Bambi I" />
<rename id="tt0447854" title="Bambi II: ...and the Great Prince of the Forest" />
<rename id="tt0101414" title="Beauty and the Beast (Cartoon) I" />
<rename id="tt0118692" title="Beauty and the Beast (Cartoon) II: The Enchanted Christmas" />
<rename id="tt0042332" title="Cinderella (Cartoon) I" />
<rename id="tt0291082" title="Cinderella (Cartoon) II: Dreams Come True" />
<rename id="tt0465940" title="Cinderella (Cartoon) III: A Twist in Time" />
<rename id="tt0033563" title="Dumbo (Cartoon)" />

I have checked all movies I own from A to E. Next will follow F to J. Soon, not next year...

 

[RoChess]

@fredco Just noticed this as I'm waiting on dinner, so not enough time left to do a quick check, but keep adding them to your custom for now and I'll make them part of the default "soon" -- probably next weekend. One of these days I might just give you access to the GitHub repo to commit direct yourself