Talk:Quest for Fire (film)/Archive 1

Archive 1

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BetacommandBot (talk) 13:25, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The cannibals

The credits for the film (DVD version) list 18 actors who portrayed the WAGABOU tribe. I saw no reference to WAGABUS. IMDB concurs. Oh, and maybe point out that 20th Century Fox saw fit to release a DVD double feature pairing Q4F with... Planet of the Apes! Not even the good one; the crappy remake. Asat 07:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Wagabus were the ape like creatures that attacked at the start Zomputer 22:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

He's referring to the spelling, the wiki page spells it wagaBU and the DVD spells it wagaBOU.--200.14.108.1 (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I also thought the cannibals were the red haired tribe. Zomputer (talk) 16:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

John Kemeny

Link goes to wrong John Kemeny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.205.209.205 (talk) 15:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Mistakes

I edited the following in the "Historical accuracy" section : "The film depicts a scene in which the Neanderthals stumble upon fine pottery allegedly created by the Homo sapiens tribe (pottery is also seen in their camp). Yet archaeological evidence suggests pottery only appeared during the Neolithic period, some 70,000 years later. The Homo erectus seem much larger and stronger than the Neanderthals although the study of fossil remains tend to show the contrary. The latter had much thicker bones, and the average height of a Homo erectus is estimated at 1,60 m whereas the Neanderthal's height is estimated at 1,65 m (the tallest we know of, found in Israel, stood at 1,8 m).[1] The possibility of interbreeding of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals, shown at the end of the movie, is highly debated." I hope everyone is ok with that and I was wondering if we should add a special section dedicated to these mistakes. Also, I surely didn't mention some inaccuracies or exaggerations and might add more to the "mistakes" later on. Please contribute if you can.Munin75 (talk) 01:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I edited out the part where I wrote homo erectus were smaller than neanderthal. After verification I realised it was indeed false (the french wikipedia seems to have an error there then...). Thank you to the person who pointed out the mistake.Munin75 (talk) 18:01, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

As to the pottery, you are wrong. The thing they found was actually a gourd, a kind of cucumber-like plant, probably one of the first domesticated plants. I am correcting the article, please correct if it is me, who is wrong. --Marcel Kosko (talk) 20:58, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh damn, thanks for correcting. I'll have to watch the movie again to make sure but you're probably right because that would have been one hell of a mistake. I can't believe I didn't think of that. If you're sure of this you should delete the whole pottery issue in the Historical Accuracy section.Munin75 (talk) 00:52, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know what species the tribes represented?

It seems logical to say the Wagabus are the most primitive tribe, representing Homo erectus, the Kzamm and Ulam are Neanderthals and Ivaka are more or less the modern Homo sapiens who emerged in Africa. But there's no citation, and the film makers would have had to have been far ahead of their time to have made the film so accurate. I've heard though that the Wagabus were neandertals, but no source. Zomputer (talk) 16:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The filmmakers would not need to be far ahead of their time at all... the splitting of our ancestors into the categories H. erectus, H. sapiens neandertalensis and H. sapiens sapiens was made a very, very long time ago. You should also consider that one of the world's premier anthropologists, Desmond Morris, was involved in the making of the film, and the film was made with much attention to detail (note that the entire film is in various Hominid conlangs designed by Anthony Burgess, author and linguist, and Desmond Morris, for help with signing). ناهد/(Nåhed) _speak! 22:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

They would have had to have been ahead of their to have made the African tribe the most advanced because this is consistent with genetic discoveries that the first fully modern humans emerged in Africa (out of Africa hypothesis) & then eventually spread out of Africa to completely replace the Neanderthals & Homo Erectus. Prior to those genetic discoveries, it was assumed that modern humans evolved independently in several parts of the world Zomputer (talk) 20:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

See Out of Africa hypothesis. Zomputer (talk) 23:40, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The intellectual superiority of the Homo Sapiens (as opposed to the Neanderthals) has always been known... In fact, its Neanderthal intelligence which is subject to debate, the movie tends to diminish them to vulgar and stupid "savages" although the proof of the existence of Neanderthal tombs (which show Neanderthals had the mental capacity of abstraction) dates back to 1908. Also Neanderthal was not technologically inferior to Homo Sapien during the middle paleolithic (period in which the movie is supposed to take place). The Mousterian tool industry shows it.. there was no difference between Neanderthal and Homo Sapien tools at the time. I don't see how this movie is ahead of its time, its actually full of mistakes on facts which were already well known in the 1980s (pottery 80 thousand years ago...). Anyway, sure the Homo Sapiens are more intelligent, there never was a debate about that, so I don't see how the Out of Africa theory has anything to do with the movie.Munin75 (talk) 01:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Several errors are present in the main article and the conjectures above. The 2oth anniversary DVD release has two commentaries. The first is by Jean-Jacques Annaud, the director, and the other is with Rae Dawn Chong, Ron Perlman and one of the production staff members. In these it is stated that the Wagabu and Kzamm are Neanderthal, while the Ulam and Ivaka are Homo sapiens. It is also specifically stated that the intent was to show that human development was not a uniform process, with the base assumption that progress would be more rapid in the more temperate to tropical climates than the more frigid ones. Finally, it was also stated that the trek of the Ulam quest trio went from what is not France into Spain.

On other topics ... Recent research has shown that even bonobos, which have been noted for their "Make love not war" life-style, will attack and eat chimpanzees, while chimps have been known to attack and eat baboons, and there are known instances of chimpanzees cannibalizing other chimps ... which they killed. In short, continuing research on the topic of cannibalism among humans and other apes has shown that this is far from being an exceptional activity. Also, the article states that the Kzamm had mastered fire, but there is no support for this in the movie and commentaries. We only know that they have fire, with no indication of how they obtained it. Likewise, the Wagabu are described as displaying no language, but the organization of the attack on the Ulam indicates that communications did in fact occur. We simply don't know what form of communication used to plan the attack and organize the requisite actions.

With regard to languages, it was stated by the director that he and Anthony Burgess had not had the time needed to develop a separate language for the Ivaka. Annaud solved the problem by an interesting means. He used Inuits to do voice-overs for all the speaking parts of the Ivaka. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.233.183.207 (talk) 00:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting comments, thanks. Zomputer (talk) 20:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

neandrathal cannibalism

I think we sometimes try to avoid thinking about the topic, but the scraping of the bones of those buried in European locations, indicates the bones were scraped by a "tool" not likely by a beast. Although this doesn't necessarily mean the flesh was eaten it seems likely, perhaps due even to practicality or for shamanistic benefits.

Some indications in the early Neolithic settlements point to bodies being put out for vultures to eat the flesh and then the bones were brought into the mud and plaster dwellings for burieal in the "sacred" room, usually the NE room of the family dwelling.

I can see both modes going on over prehistoric times - buried bones were scraped and the flesh removed prior to burial, that's what we know. Also human cannibalism has naturally occured over into modern times in death camps, due to droughts and famines and during seiges. It doesn't necessarily mean the person was murdered in my mind!!

Neandrathals had to consume 5,000 calories a day and survived well eating red meat and shell fish and mollusks that had a high iron content. I think the last settlement was seen to be in Spain near the coast where shell fish were plentiful. Perhaps it was just the lack of red meat as the mammoths declined, etc., that caused their extinction, also the fact that their family groups diminished to the point that a disease or bad hunting season could wipe out the whole group. They only had kids every 4 years of so I'm thinking, as they often were nomadic and couldn't breed as rapidly as the city settlements that sprung up.

Kathleen-Marie```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.130.51.30 (talk) 15:46, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for adding that.Zomputer (talk) 20:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)