Talk:Festive Greeting (home video)

Rename

I've changed the speedy rename tag to a rename tag because I would like an explanation of why the dab term should be changed from "home video" to "webcast" when the series page of Reconstructions specifically says: "released on the DVD release of An Adventure in Space and Time." (emphasis mine) Shambala108 ☎ 02:50, October 31, 2017 (UTC)

Why Non-DWU?

The header says this particular short has David Bradley actually play the First Doctor rather than William Hartnell, so what, precisely, makes it invalid? Since it is "adapted" from a scene of The Feast of Steven, shouldn't we basically just treat it as we would a novelisation or comic adaptation?

(Also, if this has been reclassified as "home video" rather than "webcast", perhaps it oughtn't remain in the Non-DWU webcasts category where I found it…) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 23:03, December 7, 2018 (UTC)

Well, the first question to ask is: is it a story? Unlike a novelisation, or a comic adaptation, or a novel adaptation, or multiple other translations from one medium to another, this is a small scene from a story. It has neither a beginning nor an end, nor indeed a plot. There is a precedent of And Introducing..., which is not classified as a story for the utter lack of any plot. Incidentally, is there something someone would want to use from this story that they are not capable of using from the original serial? Isn't it supposed to be an exact copy, more akin to releasing a remastered version (as far as the plot is concerned) than to an adaptation? Amorkuz ☎ 16:48, December 8, 2018 (UTC)

Both of these are good points — though as concerns the second, the intent behind at least some novelisations, adaptations, remakes and so on is the same: to retell the exact same events in a different form. If one looked hard enough one could surely locate a novelization that brings absolutely nothing new to the table in comparison to the episode it retells, yet I'm pretty sure that wouldn't make such a novelisation invalid for being too faithful.

As concerns the "too short to be a story" thing… you're probably right. In truth, I would have said that both these things are 'stories' of a sort; I would define a 'story' as something showcasing one or more events in the fictional universe, as opposed to just stating or showing facts about the universe without any chronicling involved. Hence it's not a very satisfying work of fiction, but And Introducing… or Festive Greeting would both be "stories" in my book, the events chronicled being "The Thirteenth Doctor once stepped into a heavenly-looking scenery full of flowery plant-life, and this put a grin on her face", and "while in his first incarnation, the Doctor, looking cheerful and jolly, gave out friendly greetings to unknown people 'back at home' while raising a glass". This information is very trivial, but in both cases it is biogrpahical information about the characters.

But I ramble; in practice, Tardis appears to operate by a slightly definition of 'story' than I do. So oh well.

A more problematic thought that occurs to me: by Tardis's definition, the answer to "is it a story?" might not be the same for all the Reconstructions, which is kind of a problem. I have long been puzzled by Another Doctor (which is supposedly found on the Internet, according to the page, but I have found no trace of it), since despite being classified as an installment of the Reconstructions series it does not appear to actually reconstruct anything, but instead to be an entirely new scene.

I left a message on that page's talk-page talking about all this in more detail, ifyou would care to go and take a look there… --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 17:05, December 8, 2018 (UTC)