Weird Evil Angel Scene Dates

StashDB Ministry of Truth
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WARNING:

This post includes a lot of hyperlinks documenting my sources. Most contain hardcore images.

:police_car_light: ASSUME ALL LINKS ARE NSFW. :police_car_light:

Intro

So I ended up spending a lot of time trying to figure out why this Evil Angel scene has a release date of 2001, despite being produced in 2005 for a DVD released in 2006. According to IAFD, the featured performer’s career didn’t even start until 2004. You don’t often see a false release date that’s older than the actual date, let alone older by 5 years, so I felt compelled to dig deeper.

I wrote most of this for my own future reference. I spent so much time jumping back and forth on the Wayback Machine — too much time honestly — that there’s no way I’m going to remember all of this, and absolutely no way I’m doing it all over again.

Feel free to skip to “Recap” at the bottom if you’re not interested in the details of my research, conclusions, and suggested workflow. That’ll tell you how to correct individual scenes.

Background

I know they’ve been around forever, but I’m not the most familiar with Evil Angel, their website, or their scenes on StashDB. I just know that the site is hosted by Gamma now. To figure out what was going on here, I had to resort to the Wayback Machine to track the website’s history.

Catalog Era

Best I can tell, the original EvilAngel.com served as an online catalog to order VHS tapes and eventually DVDs. Later, they also carried digital copies you could stream, rent, or download, but still just the full movies.

This version of the website saw several facelifts over the years. The most recent snapshot of the homepage is from April 10 2010. They kept their catalog up-to-date the whole time, with this DVD from April 5 2010 as the last release captured by the Wayback Machine.

I also thought it was suspicious that this DVD from Feb. 17 2010 is the last one with a link to stream the movie. But looking closer, that’s probably just a coincidence. The pages for every other DVD released in those last two months only had one snapshot taken by WM, and each time it was grabbed prior to the DVD’s official release. Also, those links just redirected to either EvilAngelDirect.com or EvilOnDemand.com and both of those websites continued operating after the main site turned to the subscription model.

I think it’s safe to assume this version of the website was fully operational all the way up to that last snapshot from 2010-04-10.

Re-Launch Era

The earliest snapshots of EA’s big re-launch are from April 18 2010. This is when they upgraded the site to offer individual scenes, covering both the last 5 years or so of old releases and new releases moving forward. But for some reason, all of those old scenes from the initial migration have dates that stretch across the last 10 years instead of 5, a mistake inherited by the current version of EvilAngel.com

Incremented Dates

To me, it looks like they applied arbitrary dates to all of those old releases as a convenient(?) way of sorting them chronologically. The 1st scene from the oldest movie was given a date of 2000-01-01 and every scene and movie counts up from there, one day at a time, following both chronological and scene order. Not every scene was imported right away, but their spot on the fake calendar was still preserved for when (or if) they got around to it. This pattern continues up until 2006-05-13. Meaning, any scene date between 2000-01-01 and 2006-05-13 is likely an arbitrary incremented date.

Duplicate Movies

After that, it just keeps getting weirder. That last DVD with the incremented dates? I found two separate listings archived in the days immediately following the re-launch, both with different scene dates and slightly different titles. Pretty Sloppy 2 has the dates from May 2006, but the scenes under Pretty Sloppy #02 all list 2010-03-23 as their release date. At some point, the former entry (“Pretty Sloppy 2” dated May 2006) must have been removed from their database in favor of the latter. The last snapshot of the first URL is from July 2010 while the other one (“Pretty Sloppy #02” dated March 2010) was eventually scraped into StashDB.

Constantly Shifting

A different story plays out with every other scene backdated somewhere between the last incremental dates from 2006 and the website’s re-launch in April 2010. Depending on when the snapshot was taken, sometimes the scenes from multiple DVDs all pile up on a specific date, like 2010-03-10 for example. A few days later, scenes from those same movies will suddenly be spaced out by one week, two weeks, or some other seemingly random mix. Then in a later snapshot, they’ll all be listed at 2010-03-10 again, or maybe they’re still randomly spaced out. Nearly all of those dates are impossible, pre-dating the final days of the old website in April 2010.

Why the Inconsistency?

My interpretation is that the initial collection of scenes were loaded into the database through two different methods. That’s why some movies were accidentally added twice. They didn’t realize those movies were included in both batches.

The first method migrated data used by their existing websites (EvilAngel / EvilAngelDirect / EvilOnDemand). This migration inherited their previous movie numbering conventions (Movie Title 2) and created the odd incremental date system. These are the scenes dated from 2000-01-01 to 2006-05-13.

The second method probably served as a test of the new publishing system they would use moving forward. That explains why these scenes use the same movie numbering convention they would adopt for all new scenes (Movie Title #02). They also didn’t use the incremental dating system with these, initially using dates primarily from March 2010 instead. I suspect these were actually the date each scene was imported in preparation for the public launch a month later. That’s why there would be so many scenes “released” on a single date like 2010-03-10 as they added large batches of movies at a time.

However, I still can’t explain why so many scenes from the second import method would jump back several months to spread out, then snap right back to a crowded date like 2010-03-10. Just trying to make the website look like it wasn’t a week old? Who knows.

Regardless of how many times they jumped, all of these dates still land after the last of the incremental dates in 2006. From what I’ve seen, they can stretch from 2009 all the way into April 2010, and those linked examples are two snapshots of the same movie. Also note that the last scene from that second link is after the re-launch, which definitely complicates things.

Veeeery long story short:

Every date prior to 2010-04-10 is definitely fake, while any other date from April 2010 should be treated with suspicion.

StashDB’s Data

Looking at Evil Angel’s oldest release dates on StashDB, it’s kind of a mess. We’ve got a lot of scenes as far back as the 80s and 90s with dates that match the VHS release instead of the digital release — apparently uploaded after the April 2010 re-launch — mixed in with the arbitrary dates starting from 2000-01-01. There are also several different formats for scene numbers (if they have any number at all), plus a few duplicates thrown in for good measure.

Frankly it’ll take a long time to sort out, mostly due to Evil Angel’s haphazard approach to maintaining their database across migrations and re-launches. And in order to re-align that data to match StashDB’s standards (accurate release/production dates, original title formatting), it’ll unfortunately take a lot of manual work involving Wayback Machine archaeology. I don’t see any way to script this using the bot queue.

So What Do We Do?

Now that Stash-Box supports production dates, we don’t have to choose between when a scene was released vs. when it was made. The database can capture both, while also reflecting the ambiguity of any dates we’re forced to estimate. If it wasn’t for those features, I’d be tempted to throw up my hands and say “I don’t know, we’ll figure it out later.”

Release Dates

The release date should reflect our best estimate of when the scene (not full movie) was digitally released by Evil Angel. That pegs most of them around the April 2010 mark (the earliest WM snapshots I found post-migration), but I’d rather use the Wayback Machine to get an estimate for each movie individually rather than assume 2010-04 for everything. Since it looks like they slowly imported more scenes after that April 2010 snapshot, that estimate wouldn’t be accurate for everything.

You can find an archive of the movie’s page by navigating to https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.evilangel.com/en/Name-Of-Movie-5/dvd/*, replacing the title slug and number while preserving each *. Click on the “From” column header to sort for the URL with the oldest snapshot. Then, navigate the timeline to open that oldest snapshot, confirming the date by checking the Wayback Machine’s header. Most likely the Wayback Machine took a snapshot of each scene’s page at the same time as the movie, but you can double-check by clicking into each scene.

You can try navigating the website within Wayback Machine by clicking on hyperlinks and scrubbing through the timeline. You may be able to find a snapshot (or simply evidence of a once-active URL) through the home page, scenes page, movies page, or the profile page of the relevant performer/director. Those lists of scenes will be sorted by the arbitrary date still used by EvilAngel.com, so use that as your target if you’re jumping between snapshots and/or the website’s pagination.

However you get there, grab WM’s date of the oldest snapshot you found that includes your scene. Now turn it into an approximate date (YYYY-MM instead of YYYY-MM-DD) before adding it to StashDB. Don’t forget to add the Missing Date tag as well, just like any other estimated release date.

I realize that this sort of WM spelunking requires a lot more time, effort, and practice, so don’t worry if all this sounds overwhelming. You can use just the year 2010 instead and somebody else can look for a month on WM later. Just make sure you’re confident that scene/movie was part of the April 2010 re-launch and explain why in your initial edit comment.

Approximating the dates like this will create a logjam within that early-to-mid-2010 window, but adding accurate production dates at the same time will help mitigate that issue moving forward.

Production Dates

The production date should reflect the closest date we can find to the day the scene was filmed. I’m long overdue for adding a prod. date section to the guidelines site, but for now this GitHub issue explains our approach. It includes a hierarchy of sources in case there’s a conflict to resolve, as well as guidance for when to use a specific date (YYYY-MM-DD) vs. an approximate date (YYYY-MM or just YYYY).

Luckily, Evil Angel was still printing official Dates of Production on the back of their DVDs back then. IAFD sometimes includes the official DoP in the “Comments” section as well, underneath the cast and synopsis. Otherwise, you can often find it yourself by zooming in on a clear enough photo of the back cover. Those images can be found on Data18, Adult Empire, Hot Movies, and I assume other online retailers.

If you find the DVD’s official DoP, use the full date (YYYY-MM-DD) on StashDB. Otherwise, you can take the DVD’s release date (IAFD, Adult Empire, etc.) and turn it into an approx. date (YYYY-MM instead of YYYY-MM-DD) to use it as StashDB’s prod. date instead.

Be careful though. Sometimes a scene was originally released on an older DVD. They’re often marked as a “Bonus Scene” on IAFD or as a “Compilation” in the sidebar, with the original DVD titles listed in the comments. In those situations, use the original DVD as the production date’s source instead, both for specific dates (official DoP on back cover) and approx. dates (YYYY-MM of DVD release).

Scene Number

We try to capture the original official scene title on StashDB whenever possible, allowing for exceptions when it’s difficult to pin down what the “original official” title even is. But as you’ve probably noticed by now, Wayback Machine’s formatting is often borked in these older snapshots, making it hard to know exactly how the titles were displayed in the functioning website.

It looks to me like Evil Angel’s website was dynamically generating the formatting of their appended scene numbers. As a result, scenes from these migrated movies saw their naming scheme change multiple times over the years, eventually losing their scene numbers entirely after the move to the current Gamma structure.

All of the older DVDs also followed a different naming pattern for their movie numbers. These appear to be static unlike the scene numbers.

Here’s a quick rundown of the timeline I’ve found of scene title changes:

  • Starting from April 2010 with the earliest snapshots, migrated movies commonly had their scene number duplicated, but the same wasn’t true for new movies. The formatting of the website is consistently broken in these older snapshots, so I can’t confirm how it looked when everything was displayed normally.
  • By Oct. 2010, the duplicated scene numbers seem to be fixed. The migrated movies now use the same formatting for scene numbers, but the movie numbers are still different.
  • By April 2012, the formatting changes again. It affects scenes from all movies this time. Movie numbers are still unaffected.

I know I usually insist on preserving original title formatting, but in this case I don’t see any value in preserving the duplicated scene numbers from Movie Title 2 Scene #1, Scene #1. The typo doesn’t add or change any valuable search keywords, it’s easier to use the DVD title slug to search for WM archives anyway, and I can’t think of any other reason the redundant title would be helpful. I also have difficulty calling these titles as completely “official” since WM’s glitched formatting makes that difficult to confirm, or as completely “original” since they’re dynamically generated using the movie title and scene order. Instead, I would default to the cleaner Movie Title 2, Scene #1 format for those scenes.

Ultimately, the only way to know for sure which naming scheme a particular scene used originally is to find the oldest snapshot of it on the Wayback Machine. Absent that, my rundown above should get you close enough. Just make sure to explain your source in your comment, as always.

Example Walkthrough

For the scene that started this deep dive, I knew the scene date (2001-05-10) was wrong because it was 4 years earlier than the DVD’s release date (2006-01-20). The scene’s release date is also before 2010-04-10 and within the range of incremental dates (2000-01-01 to 2006-05-13), so we know it’s definitely inaccurate and likely part of the April 2010 migration.

The movie and scene pages were both archived by the Wayback Machine in July 2010. But since that was several months removed from the April re-launch, I kept digging. Notably, it’s absent from this snapshot taken days after the re-launch, so I couldn’t use 2010-04 as my estimate either. Eventually, I found a snapshot of the director’s page that included a link to my scene, captured in June 2010. So I set the release date to 2010-06 (no -DD), then add the Missing Date tag.

I’ve already found it on the Wayback Machine, so the scene title is easy. The snapshots are old enough that it’s listed as Angels Of Debauchery 5 Scene #2, Scene #2. After cleaning up the redundant scene number, I enter Angels Of Debauchery 5, Scene #2 into StashDB.

The DVD had the Date of Production listed on the back cover (2005-10-10), so I used that for the production date. I should have looked on IAFD first, but I had already zoomed way in on Data18’s copy of the back cover to find it myself.

After taking care of an unrelated piece of missing data (added a missing performer), the edit’s done.

Recap / TLDR

  • All release dates from to 2010-04-10 and earlier are definitely fake, but any other date from April 2010 should still be treated with suspicion
  • Affected release dates should be replaced with approximate dates since there are no accurate release dates to be found
    • YYYY-MM based on earliest WM snapshot is preferred
    • Using just 2010 is also acceptable if you don’t have a WM snapshot, but -MM should be added eventually
    • Don’t forget to add the Missing Date tag when using estimated release dates
  • Production dates should be added to better reflect scene chronology
    • Official “Date of Production” printed on back of DVD is preferred, sometimes listed by IAFD, otherwise find an image and zoom in real close
    • Converting DVD release date to an estimated date (YYYY-MM) is also acceptable
    • Make sure to use the scene’s original DVD release as your source for both official DoPs and estimated production dates, so look out for “Compilation” or “Bonus Scene” on IAFD
  • Scene titles should include scene numbers, matching original format
    • EA’s format for both movie title numbering and scene numbering change over time
    • Wayback Machine is the only way to confirm exact “original official” title format
    • If the appended scene number is duplicated in WM archive, clean it to simply Movie Title, Scene #1 instead
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