Wikipedia:Peer review/The Lord of the Rings film trilogy/archive1

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy

After much work of researching books and DVDs, this article passed the GA nomination. I now wish to know how I can improve the article to an FA. Please be specific, vague comments aren't really going to help, and suggest images for me to get, due to my main expertise being prose. Thank you. Wiki-newbie 19:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, there's a lot of stuff here! I don't have time to give detailed comments on the text, but one thing that did strike me on a quick read is that there feels to be rather little comparison with other films. You might also build up the film criticism section to give some more detail of the critical response (positive and negative) to the films. A quick nitpick: the reference citations aren't in standard format (after punctuation, no space).

Given the length of the article, there's immense scope for adding images. Some things you might look out for, though many of these might be tricky to get rights to use:

• Peter Jackson, possibly with Fran Walsh/Philippa Boyens
• Publicity shot(s) illustrating one or two major cast members, preferably at a key scene
• Something to illustrate one of the different plot elements used compared with the book (eg elves at Helm's Deep or the warg attack)
• Publicity shot of one of the battle scenes, showing the scale of involvement of extras
• One of the major sets (eg Hobbiton, Rivendell, Edoras)
• One of the major animated effects (eg the balrog)
• Andy Serkis doing motion capture (as this was a relatively new technique) and/or the forced perspective hobbit filming and/or MASSIVE technology
• Something illustrating the detail that went into the props/costumes (I saw the props exhibition and the Rohan material was particularly detailed), and/or the Weta Workshop showing the sheer scale of props used
• Some of the concept drawings done by Alan Lee/John Howe on which the set design was based, preferably back-to-back with the filmed version
• Something illustrating the immensity of the fannish response, possibly crowds of fans in costume attending a convention and/or some of the film-related merchandise

Espresso Addict 12:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Quick question, what kind of comparison to other films? I know some ideas are similar to Bakshi's version. Or do you mean stuff like TTT's reference to Evil Dead 3? Something like that could be explored for the individual film articles. Wiki-newbie 16:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Comparison with previous dramatised versions of LotR (including the radio serial) would be interesting, but actually I meant that there's rich detail on this project, but few comparisons of how this project differed from other films, especially big blockbusters in the sf&f genre & perhaps adaptations from well-loved novels in other genres (eg Pride & Prejudice). How does the film relate to other films released in the same decade? -- in terms of technical issues, visuals/cinematography, direction/editing, music/sound, themes &c&c. How did the film-creation processes differ? -- scales of time, costs, cast numbers, extras numbers, numbers/detail of props/costumes/sets, levels of rewriting of source, directorial style &c&c. How does the critical/fannish reception differ from comparable films?

Hope this is of assistance. Espresso Addict 17:05, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, nonetheless, thank you for image suggestions. I may try to emphasise how this movie was a fantasy made as a historical epic though, which is really why most people love the trilogy. Wiki-newbie 17:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Some random suggestions:

• I think you need to write more on the divergence of the film from the book. Right now you seem to be just quoting two reviewers in rather general terms. I would suggest you rely less directly on these specific reviewers and include more specific information on changes in themese in characters. For example maybe you should mention specific things like Frodo being many decades younger, the Aragon-Arwen story being expanded and brought to a much more prominent role, etc.
• The article is rather long, perhaps it needs to be broken up into sub-pages.
• As others have mentioned already, pictures of Peter Jackson, and maybe a couple of other people, would be nice.
• The section "Comparison of worldwide box office figures" should be converted to prose rather than a list, or perhaps a table with some explanation.
• I'm not sure myself, but is "trilogy" a correct official name for it?--Konst.able 13:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

What I'm trying to do is explain the trilogy as a single piece: more specific things are there for the individual films. Also, length isn't that big an issue personally, that's the length of most franchise articles. Wiki-newbie 16:23, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Great job so far for an article of this immense size and coverage. Since this is a pretty long article, I'll break my critique into sections:

• Lead

• Probably expand the plot summary to include Gandalf, Saruman, Gollum, and maybe others. Right now it seems to be only a summary of the first film.
• "as well as praise for its international cast" sounds like they're getting praise for being international, not for their performances (I think that's what you mean).
• The norm is three paragraphs for a lead, but four is perfectly reasonable for this article. Organize it so each paragraph makes sense and doesn't jump around too much.

• Cast

I'm completely unsure of how to organize a cast section. What you have now works well, but it could be improved. The Extended Edition DVDs really screw everything up, like Christopher Lee's appearance in ROTK. I'll think some more on that.

• Pre-production

The following three sections will probably be the hardest. They need to be organized and copyedited, and only about half of the sentences needing citations are cited. At first I was opposed to it, but now I'm thinking that Konstable's suggestion of splitting information in the article into several subpages would work. Stuff like "Costuming" could go into the sub-article, while important information such as "Weta Workshop" can mostly be kept.

That's all I can get through tonight, I'll comment more tomorrow. Others have already mentioned the ref placement problem (they go directly after periods or commas, and only occasionally in the middle of sentences) and the online references need retrieval dates, authors, publishers, stuff I'd be glad to help with. Good luck.--Dark Kubrick 01:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

You see, the cast section is a disguised plot description, without me having to describe both cast and a 12 hour storyline. Also, I kind of understand the idea of sub-articles. Still, I'm totally helpless with uploading any type of image. Wiki-newbie 15:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll be glad to upload some images. I know some suggestions were made above, but what would you like to go in the article?--Dark Kubrick 19:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, what do people mean by standard format for references? Can anyone give me an example of how to properly write one in the middle of a sentence then? Wiki-newbie 10:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Go to the edit box of this page and look at what I've written. This is the template for a website reference. Something like: "Jackson used 500 bajillion props for the films as well as a million crew members." If you put that after a period or comma, it would go directly after the punctuation. I don't know the rule or guideline for this, but I only put refs in the middle of sentences if there are two claims in that sentence and each is cited with a different source.--Dark Kubrick 14:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 01:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)