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Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

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Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 3 December 2024, 18:48 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): GamerPro64 23:55, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Decided to try getting another movie shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000 to Featured Article status. This time around its Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, a major for public television movie starring the late great Raul Julia. A very bizarre science fiction film that tries its best to be profound but ends up being pretty confusing at times. Still a fun movie to watch and I believe that the article meets FAC criteria. Always looking forward for critiques, however. GamerPro64 23:55, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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Support from Crisco 1492

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Otherwise, that's it. This is a nice and tight article. I'm going to look at the Wikipedia Library to see if there is anything production- or theme-related that could be found, but I doubt there will be much critical analysis of an 80s made-for-television film. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support, based on prose, though with the caveat about references that I will leave to whoever does the source review. Looks good! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:24, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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Oh, this didn't get an image review yet. There's just the one, File:Overdrawn.jpg, which has a well put-together rationale. I've seen a lot of articles like this include photos of the main actors, who do appear to both have useable images (though from long after this movie, so ultimately your call there.) Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 17:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's File:RIVERSIDE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY RAUL JULIA 1983 2.jpg that got recently moved to Commons and that was taken in 1983. Not sure if its a good enough image to use though. GamerPro64 00:59, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Generalissima, just checking to see if you saw the comment above? Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:55, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

EG

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I will leave some comments in the next few days. – Epicgenius (talk) 21:19, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead:
  • Para 1: "Based on the 1976 John Varley short story" - If we know the name of the short story, we should say "Based on the 1976 John Varley short story X". If not, we should say "Based on a 1976 John Varley short story"
  • Para 1: "It was co-produced by Canada's RSL Productions in Toronto and New York television station WNET" - I wonder why this isn't "Toronto production company RSL Productions", for consistency with "New York television station WNET". Also, RSL is called "RSL Productions" in the lead and infobox but "RSL Films, Ltd" in the body; which is correct?
  • Para 2: "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank was featured in the eighth season finale episode of the comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1997." - I notice that there was critical reception about this as well. Perhaps you could add a mention of the fact that "The episode was considered one of the best episodes in the series, both by critics and by fans of the show."
References:
  • Is there a reason that the "Notes" subsection is a WP:PSEUDOHEAD, while the "Citations" and "Bibliography" sections are level-3 headers? In any case, pseudo-headings should use bold text, not semicolon markup, which is reserved for description lists.
More in a bit. – Epicgenius (talk) 03:48, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Plot:
  • Para 3: "Aram vows to fight against the dystopian government." - I think the word "against" may be redundant in this context.
  • No other comments (with the caveat that I didn't watch the film, so I don't know whether all of the details are correct).
Cast:
  • It seems that source [3] is being used to verify all nine primary cast members. However, the source only verifies that these cast members appeared in the film; it doesn't mention their specific roles.
Production and release:
  • Para 1: "To alleviate the costs," - I'd say the word "mitigate" or "reduce" works better here than "alleviate".
  • Changed to mitigate.
  • Para 1: "with Lantos claiming that if it had been shot on photographic film, it would have been as expensive as Blade Runner." - I don't know how much Blade Runner cost, so a quote like this would be missing context for someone like me.
  • Para 2: "The film premiered on CBC Television on September 22, 1984.[7] It was later shown on PBS's anthology series American Playhouse on February 4, 1985.[8] " - Given that these two sentences are relatively short, and the third sentence of this paragraph also begins with the word "It", I would consider merging these two sentences.
Reception and legacy:
  • "Julia and Griffiths' characters" - This should be "Julia's and Griffiths' characters", since these are two (three?) separate characters each individually played by Julia and Griffiths, rather than a group characters shared by Julia and Griffiths (which is what this sentence structure implies).
Mystery Science Theater 3000:
  • Para 1: "Corbett also noted difficulties in mocking the film due to the death of Raul Julia" - It seems like these difficulties stem from the fact that they didn't want to disrespect Julia (the source says "So we spent much of the movie feeling a bit worried that we might be besmirching the late Mr. Julia's reputation."), but the current sentence structure makes it seem like his death physically prevented them from mocking the film. Is there a better way to word this sentence?
  • Para 2: "Jim Vorel for Paste ranked it as the 40th best in the entire series" - I don't know how many episodes the series had at that point, but 40th-best doesn't seem terribly high. Though looking at List of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes, seems like it would have been among the top 25%?
That's it for me. Overall, this article looks pretty good. – Epicgenius (talk) 15:59, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I forgot to return to this. I support this FAC. – Epicgenius (talk) 01:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Is the content of source #15 in a video? Source formatting wise, what gets webarchives and what not? What is Creatures at Large Press? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:34, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No I see in at the bottom of the article. Also I believe everything has an archive link where its acceptable. Don't think newspapers.com clips can be archived. And it looks like Creatures at Large Press might be John Stanley's publishing? GamerPro64 01:32, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Afternoon Jo-Jo, any comeback to GP's comments. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:47, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to know a bit more certainly what Creatures at Large Press is. "where its acceptable" is a bit too indeterminate for my liking. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:17, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comments

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Infobox: "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" by Varley is a short story and so should be within quote marks, not in italics.

  • Was the film ever shown on UK TV?

Gog the Mild (talk) 18:00, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Changed from italics to quote marks. And I haven't found evidence it played on UK television. GamerPro64 03:41, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
UK: me neither, despite having a clear memory of watching it on terrestrial TV in the UK in the eighties. I am a huge Varley fan and recall most of the bits where to film varied from the story. Ah well, if there is no source there is nothing to be done. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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