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Comparison between the German and English Wikipedia article of “The Blair Witch Project”

1. Introduction
The Wikipedia articles are about an American horror film produced in 1999. In the movie there are three student filmmakers, who are trying to get some evidence of the mysterious Blair Witch. They plan a camping trip to the Black Hills, where they are filming the documentary movie. During the whole movie, the witch can not be seen, but a lot of mysterious things happen. The film ends with the camera being dropped. So it is an open end, where every viewer can imagine his or her own end. Now I am going to make a comparison between the German Wikipedia article and the English one. It is focused on the differences in content and form.

2. Differences in content
A remarkably great difference is that some facts just do not coincide. In the English article for example, the investment amounts to 35.000$ whereas the costs in the German version are claimed to be around 60.000$. The number of the revenues on the other hand is the same again with 248.000.000$. This variety of information is probably caused by the lack of sufficient reliable sources.
Interesting is also the fact that only in the German article the movie’s profit is compared to a similar successful movie, an American porn called “Deep Throat“, which is the only movie that had better return on sales. It is maintained, that “The Blair Which Project” had an entry in the “Guinness World Records“.

The next difference is that the length of the movie differs in both articles. In the German one, it is stated to be 78 minutes long, but in the English article 3 minutes longer. This could have two different reasons. On the one hand, one of the authors could have simply made a mistake, on the other hand, there could really be a difference in the two versions. Maybe the English version has some bonus material that the German version does not have.

3. Differences in form
The plot of the story in the two articles is mostly the same and probably some parts are translated from the English version to the German one. This is very common for plot summaries, because the content is simply the same. However, there are some differences, especially in the form. It is written that the movie starts with an introductory text. Whereas the introductory text in the English version is intended and highlighted by a paragraph, the text in the German version is handled as a normal in-text citation.
Another structural difference is how the information of the awards and nominations are stated. Whereas the awards in the German version are given in a continuous text, they are listed as a clear chart in the English article. It is a lot easier to gain these information from the chart than out of a text as in the German article.
At the end of the article, there are much more sources given in the English Wikipedia article. This is an indication that the English version is more reliable than the German one.

4. Conclusion
All in all, one could say that there was more time invested in the English Wikipedia article as it is more elaborated than the German one. Especially the differences in the form in the English article make it much easier to read. The comparison has also shown that Wikipedia is not always trustful and should therefore not be used as a source for an academic paper. It is however very useful to gain a general overview about a new topic.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Chris (March 29, 2015). Comparison between the German and English Wikipedia article of “The Blair Witch Project”. Wikipedia and the Humanities. Retrieved November 5, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/vbf4


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