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Honestly, if the English dub is that mangled, it probably should indeed get a separate page.
This is a Power Rangers-esque case; the original and the "dub" should be treated as two separate works.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
Also Pokémon Crystal and Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal—the latter is a Translation Trainwreck bootleg of the former, and they're separate works.
^^ Hrm, the Power Rangers vs. Super Sentai comparison didn't occur to me until you'd mentioned it. (Although they only have the video for the fight sequences in common rather than for the entire series.) I can definitely tidy up Film.Sadko, but I've never actually seen The Magic Voyage of Sinbad in its unadulterated form (I have to imagine that even Mystery Science Theater 3000 may have cut some material in the interest of time), so I'd have a trickier time cobbling together a page for Film.The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad. (Which, as you can see, is currently a redirect to Film.Sadko.)
(Perhaps luckily, this problem doesn't exist for the other Ptushko-helmed MST3k subjects; for Ilya Muromets vs. The Sword and the Dragon, the plots are fundamentally the same, though the latter features some ham-fisted Dub Name Changes and cuts or re-arranges a few key story scenes, while for The Sampo vs. The Day the Earth Froze, the plots and names are mostly the same, although the latter has been cut by over 20 minutes - out of just over 90! - compared to the former.)
Edited by mlsmithca
Okay, follow-up question: what's the protocol for cross-wicking the split pages, specifically for tropes that are common to both the Russian original and the English dub? Have separate entries for Sadko and The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (which seems redundant) or combine them (which seems contrary to the rules for example indentation)? I haven't split the pages yet since I'm not sure how to cross-wick Film.The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad once it's become a separate page.
Edited by mlsmithca
Unlike Super Sentai (and for that matter Doki Doki Panic), it's unclear which version is more well-known to English-speaking audiences, because both of them are so obscure.
Edited by bwburke94 I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
- In Sadko and the reimagination The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, the score is blah blah blah blah
or if there are any differences in the text, maybe
- In The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (a reimagination of sorts to Sadko), Sinbad is blah blah blah blah
- In Sadko, Sadko is blah blah blah blah
Parenthetical statement optional.
I don't think it can be really compared with Power Rangers, since the American and the Japanese versions are effectively different shows, shot with other actors and at different times. This kind of situation where dub alone creates a vastly different story is pretty new to me.
Personally I'd suggest to keep a single page in Film/Sadko with Film/The Magic Voyage of Sinbad as a redirect. First desribe both versions in broad strokes (avoiding non existing nicknames like Sinbadko), then separate the tropes applying to the different versions simply with disambiguation headers.
Edited by gc10
I've wondered for years what to do about Film.Sadko, the wiki's page for the 1953 Alexander Ptushko film starring Sergei Stolyarov as the title minstrel from the classic Novgorod epics.
The description acknowledges that the script for the film's early 1960s English dub (scripted by a young Francis Ford Coppola) as The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (the subject of one of my personal favourite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes) bears little to no resemblance to the original script for Sadko; all of the names are changed, starting with re-imagining the very Russian Sadko as the very Arabian Sinbad, and several story points are either dropped entirely or mangled by the translation. However, the page takes a very muddled, not to mention snide, approach to this, combining the original and dub names (the hero is referred to throughout as "Sinbadko") when it doesn't just go for nicknames (such as referring to the Maharaja as "Prince Farr" because of his resemblance to Jamie Farr).
The reason I don't know what to do about the page is that the wiki's policy is to use English names where they're available, but in this case, the English script might as well be for a completely different film. However, I have to imagine that's true of countless anime series (what I know about anime wouldn't fill a matchbook, but Macek's name has still crossed my radar), including series that were cobbled together from two or more other series to the point that you could practically see the staples holding them together. And goodness knows which names to use on those pages is often contentious.
So... what to do? Use the names from the dub, even though the story is completely different? Use the names from the original, even though wiki policy is to use English names where they exist? Have separate lists for Sadko and The Magic Voyage of Sinbad?