Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2001: A Space Odyssey (film)/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 26 September 2019 [1].

2001: A Space Odyssey (film)[edit]

Nominator(s): CodexJustin (talk) 19:20, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the film of Kubrick's titled 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film article has been updated and brought up to date with a new 2018 book about the film and appears to be ready for consideration as a candidate for promotion. The article has been at GA for some time now, and was unsuccessfully twice nominated for FAC previously over 5 years ago (in 2005 and 2013). @Darkwarriorblake: has indicated an interest in participating in order to start this assessment and the top active editors have been pinged if they might like to participate. CodexJustin (talk) 19:20, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Darkwarriorblake[edit]

There are a few issues that stand out to me with a cursory glance through.

  • There are too many cited statements in the lead. These should all be sourced in the body so they don't need to be sourced in the lead unless controversial.
  • I don't think the mentions of its ranking by the likes of Sight and Sound, etc is particularly notable in hte lead. I'd maybe look at replacing some of that puffery with mention of the film's cultural impact/legacy
  • Similar to point 1, the budget/gross in the infobox don't need sourcing, these should be sourced in the article.
  • I don't know if there is a particular style-guide against it, but I think the numerous sub-sub headers in the development section are unnecessary. "Meeting of Kubrick and Clarke" for example is a paragraph. I don't need that breaking apart from the next two paragraphs, it's an easily digestible chunk of text as a whole.
  • Merged subsections and re-factored Production section to new format. CodexJustin (talk) 16:22, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sub-subsection about Hal's breakdown for example does not seem to relate to the writing of the film at all, it seems more fitted to the "Interpretation" section
  • The two fairly large quotes in this section could possibly be a WP:COPYVIO. Where possible it might be worth trimming them down to the key points.
  • I'm not sure what is notable about a list of home video releases by year. Are any of these released particularly notable? There's 3 mentions of its release on VHS for instance with the only mentioned difference being the distributors. Information like sales figures, unique presentations, restorations, etc would be of benefit, but generic releases are kind of pointless to mention. IMO.
  • The list was excessive. I have kept the original release, the Criterior Collection release, and the 4K release. CodexJustin (talk) 16:22, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also prefer to move soundtrack releases into a home media section as it seems chronologically incorrect to talk about them in a Music section well before we even discuss the film's release. But that's a personal style thing not a deal breaker.
  • I'll look closely at this. The music was a big deal to Kubrick according to the new 2018 book about the film. CodexJustin (talk) 16:22, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are used in the first section of the Critical Reception section, but these did not exist until decades after this film was released. It's typically frowned upon to do this as it is both over emphasising the importance of these two sites and not providing an accurate contemporary take on how the film was received at the time. The Thing (1982 film) for example was hated on release but it is much more well received today. There seems to be a section later on in the reception area relating to modern reception. I would personally break the RT/MC lines and this off and make it part of the Legacy section, because this is relating to modern receptions and the reception section relates to the film at release.
  • This post-mortem material has been moved to the legacy section. It does have some value, however, even though its after the fact analysis and review. CodexJustin (talk) 16:22, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • A lot of the references seem to be lacking archives which jeopardizes the longevity of the article being verifiable. There are tools on the left hand side of the website when viewing the article that can do this for you.
  • @Darkwarriorblake: Are you talking about the deadURL tool or something more extensive? Really good comments from DWB, ready to continue if there are more easy spots or even difficult spots that you can find and identify. It would be nice to improve the article further. CodexJustin (talk) 16:22, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose at this point pending citation cleanup - lots of missing page numbers, incomplete and inconsistently formatted citations, areas missing citations, etc. Also noting that there seems to be a lot of quoting going on, which at times interferes with the flow of the prose. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:38, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose − the prose is below FA standard. Here are some examples:

  • Why is "Monolith" written with an upper case em?
  • There are several fused participles, for example "with critics reacting negatively to the aesthetics". I suggest "and critics reacted negatively".
  • Here "Kubrick received one for his direction of visual effects" should be the visual effects.
  • "A number of" means "several".
  • Here "and drive their rivals away from the water hole", there is no need to repeat "from the water hole".
  • "a loud high-pitched radio signal is heard" - humans can't hear radio waves.
  • " led him to seek more realistic and scientifically accurate depiction of space travel" should be "a more accurate" or "depictions".
  • "Two educational films that came out previously" - ??
  • I have no idea what this means, "They spent two years transforming the 6 short stories that would become a novel, along with several newly developed plot lines by Clarke for new short stories required by Kubrick for the film development, and then integrate them all into a single script for 2001."

There are more problems, these are just examples. Graham Beards (talk) 05:03, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The literature about the film capitalizes "Star Gate", "Star Child", and "Monolith" and presents them as proper nouns. The article is consistent with this usage. The main editors of this article are listed here [2] and have been maintaining the prose quality at the GA-level of the article for some time now. I have added your prose improvements listed above to the article and would be happy to add any more suggestions for further prose improvement. CodexJustin (talk) 18:31, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support, in my opinion the article is good enough to qualify. I also did some citation work, with the help of IABot Management Interface. --Mazewaxie (talk • contribs) 18:58, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment - This appears not to have been sufficiently prepared for nomination, with early opposition on prose and sources. Therefore, I will be archiving it shortly and it may be re-nominated after the customary two-week waiting period. In the mean time, please action feedback as appropriate. I recommend engaging a peer review process to ensure the writing and sourcing meets WP:WIAFA. --Laser brain (talk) 15:37, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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