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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Terminator 2: Judgment Day/archive1

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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 Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 27 February 2023 [1].

Terminator 2: Judgment Day edit

Nominator(s): Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 21:06, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the 1991 science fiction action film that pretty much defines Arnold Schwarzenegger's career. Easily one of the greatest action films and science fiction tales of all time that created THREE iconic characters, an insane feat. Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 21:06, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comments by TompaDompa edit

I may or may not find the time to give this a more thorough look later, but for now I have a couple of notes:

  • It is in general a good idea, when dealing with articles about films, to try to use photos of actors that are fairly close in time to the film itself. People age, after all. All photos of actors in this article are from between 2009 and 2019, i.e. between 18 and 28 years after the film was released. The actors all look very different from how they look in the film. I realize that it might not be entirely easy to find better images for all of them, but at least for Schwarzenegger it should not be a tall order.
  • There are no fewer than 7 images that are just photographs of people. Adding more photographs of people rather quickly runs into diminishing returns, and this is past that point. At minimum, there should not be two photos of Patrick.
  • The "Cultural influence" section is a bit dubious in terms of MOS:POPCULT (or equivalently, WP:PROPORTION). Examples of references to T2 in other media should come from sources about T2, not sources about the media the references appear in.
  • "included in the 2013 film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" – the 2013 edition was not the only or the first edition it appeared in. To the best of my knowledge, it has appeared in every single edition.

TompaDompa (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've made most of these changes, the only thing in the Cultural influence section that seems relevant to your comment is the one sentence about references to it in other media, which doesn't seem undue, it's a single sentence referring other popular IP that took influence from it. Unfortunately youre not going to find many reliable sources that talk about T2 and bring up external media references unless it's to do with the Simpsons hedge meme. It seems a proportionate and fair amount of content toward that topic, it's certainly not an In Popular Culture section. As for pictures, anything from the actual time period is not going to be free to use because any photos taken back then are going to be 99% professional photographers, I've gone as contemporary as I can possibly go while not using images that are fuzzy or facing out of the article. Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 22:43, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If reliable sources about T2 don't bring up external media references, covering them in this article is out of WP:PROPORTION by definition, really. It seems reasonable to me to mention Patrick's cameo in Wayne's World and the Stallone poster in Last Action Hero (even if the sourcing is not the strongest), but "Terminator 2: Judgment Day has been referenced to in a variety of media, including television (including American Dad, Rick and Morty, Stranger Things, and The Simpsons), films (including Ready Player One and Scream 2), and video games (including Cyberpunk 2077, Doom, Grand Theft Auto Online, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Mortal Kombat 11)." is just a laundry list. The Black Panther: Wakanda Forever stuff is also questionable and comes off as an example of WP:RECENTISM. TompaDompa (talk) 14:33, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure the Black Panther 2 reference is recentism. I would generally include references to filmmakers who said they were influenced by a film or who rated it highly but finding those types of sources is not easy as it's generally not the focus of an interview, just a one off question some filmmakers get asked (such as Spielberg's recent comments on The Dark Knight), but Coogler states clearly that T2 was a big influence on his film, which is a big film in a significant franchise and demonstrates its lasting influence on filmmakers over 30 years later. I've removed the links to the other references, although some of them, such as The Simpsons and Family Guy have done fairly extensive parodies of the film.Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 16:01, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
TompaDompa ping Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 14:22, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not like Black Panther 2 is the only film where creators have acknowledged being inspired or influenced by T2. Feige said so of Captain Marvel. Steven Caple Jr. said so of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Hideo Kojima said so of Metal Gear Solid 2 (though that's a video game). That's just from a few minutes of Googling. I would be looking for high-quality sources that say that the film has been influential (more broadly) rather than sources saying that XYZ was influenced by T2. TompaDompa (talk) 03:25, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What terms did you use to find those? I have beefed up the section about its influence, there is already an existing section about its influence on visual effects. Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 18:14, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it was "Terminator 2" "influenced by", "Terminator 2" "inspiration from", and similar variations. TompaDompa (talk) 04:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have done some searches based on those but not come up with anything explicit to individual persons/films. I did however change up the section in the article and add more sources, is that sufficient? Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 18:31, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's an improvement, at least. TompaDompa (talk) 23:49, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review edit

  • File:Terminator_2_-_3D_Entrance_Universal_Studios_Florida.jpg needs a tag for the work pictured
  • File:A._Schwarzenegger_(3x4a).jpg: source link is dead. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:05, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Nikki, for the A._Scwarzenegger one, do you mean the archive url isn't sufficient or it didn't load? It didn't work for me first time but I reloaded and it came up. For the ride image, sorry, I'm not 100% what you mean. I'm just gonna remove the ride logo because I never know how to find the right tags, searching fair use doesn't ever get me to the right place. I do think it's too generic a design to be copyrightable since it's just font and that font is apparently called Earth and has been around since the 1970s, but its not essential just decorative. Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 23:28, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria ping Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 14:22, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, not sure what was going on with the source link, but looks good now. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Harry edit

At over 10,000 words, this article is too long and fails criteria 1a and 4 at least. The lead technically follows the four-paragraph rule but those are four chunky paragraphs that could be shortened to focus on the most important points. The plot summary is overly detailed and could withstand some culling without losing any important details. There are places where wording could be tightened to improve flow and bring the word count down without actually losing any facts (just one example: making director James Cameron a credible director).

  • The cast section mentions non-notable actors who play minor roles (although Hamilton's sister appearing as as T-1000 impersonating her is definitely worth keeping).
  • Two big paragraphs on rights acquisition is excessive and the whole development and writing sections go into too much detail
  • Schwarzenegger's jet is trivia
  • The casting section is huge. The reader doesn't need 850 words on the casting process to understand the film.

From what I can see, the article is very well researched but is not written in summary style (cf. WP:TERSE). It would benefit from a 10-20% reduction in word count in my opinion. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:13, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much every article I've promoted in the last 2 years has been at least 10,000 words, a big film is not going to have a comprehensive article and be short. It also has a 1,140 word Themes section which means the base article is 9000 words. A themes section is unrelated to the film but a requested aspect of a Featured Article and so I do not count it towards the word count because it's not essential to the core of the film process. It's been copy edited and trimmed extensively, Schwarzenegger's pay was huge for the time and them paying him in a jet is unique and therefore notable, and the casting section again was heavily trimmed to the essentials which is physical and mental preparation of Hamilton and Patrick, there's nothing there to be cut that wouldn't be a loss and it certainly does not fail 1a or 4, but thanks for your input. Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 13:25, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware that you've had other articles promoted. We butted heads over Die Hard so I've refrained from reviewing those articles but in my opinion those articles should have been challenged for their length. Reviewers are often unwilling to oppose, especially when the nominator disagrees with their concerns, and the appropriate length is always going to be somewhat subjective. But if you can summarise India or Canada in 10,700 words, you don't need 10,200 for one film. I've pointed out places above where details could be trimmed. I even gave an example of redundant language. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:58, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Articles on countries have multiple sub articles, if all the content was in the top-level article they'd probably be like 40,000+ words, they're effectively hub articles for a subject that's spread over dozens of articles, it's not a fair or realistic comparison. The only thing that could be removed here is the production section which would negate 90% of the article and the only outcome would be that an article about 1 film would now be spread over 2. If you don't find the information pertinent, that's your personal opinion, I've explained above why your suggestions are not applicable, and I've also explained that without the Themes section, it's only 9,000 words, and that is with the special effects section broken off into its own article. I can remove the cast you consider non-essential and save like 50 words. It's not worth it, but the article is comprehensive which is part of the criteria, and I can assure you the casting section was gutted and gutted until only the key elements remained. If you prefer shorter articles that's your prerogative, but that does not mean it fails any criteria. Your input has been appreciated, but there is no where for this discussion to go. Thank you. EDIT: and if you look at my previous FAs I've been more than aggreeable to any changes suggested by editors, as I've been so above, but I won't gut the article for some arbitrary limit. Darkwarriorblake / Vote for something that matters 14:23, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not suggesting that the article needs to hit an arbitrary word count. If the subject can't be summarised without using 10,000 words, then 9,900 words wouldn't be comprehensive, but I could probably eliminate a non-trivial percentage of the word count just by tightening language and maybe 10% by trimming it to focus only facts that are directly relevant to the film. Verbiage is something that I'm guilty of myself. My writing has improved through feedback at FAC and elsewhere, to the point that I was able to look back on one of my older FAs recently and managed to eliminate 900 words without removing any important details. It's not about a golden number but about staying tightly on-topic, especially when there's a lot to say about the subject. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:39, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note edit

This has been open for nearly three weeks and has yet to pick up a support. Unless it attracts considerable movement towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it will have to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:48, 20 February 2023 (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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