Talk:Night of the Living Dead/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Red Phoenix (talk · contribs) 23:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

How does such an iconic movie like Night of the Living Dead not get reviewed since a nomination in September? I'll put my name down for this one. Expect me to work on comments for the next couple of days as I fully review the article in detail. Red Phoenix ^talk 23:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Lead

• The lead does not summarize all of the main ideas of the article. I can see quite a bit of room for expansion here; ideally, a good lead should have 3-4 solid paragraphs of at least several sentences that hit the main points. At least every main section should have something about it in the lead. Right now, the current lead doesn't reflect the Critical Analysis section at all, which I think the political points of the section are relevant for the lead. There's little about the production other than the dollar amount of the budget. There's no reference to the number of revisions the movie has had, which says quite a bit about the film's legacy. Nor is there anything about the copyright status that has led to its re-releases. Lastly, surely it should say something about popularizing zombies? As popular as zombie films are nowadays, how could its cultural impact not be mentioned?
• Infobox says "Music by: See Music". I'd just drop that out; it's redundant to refer someone to the music section in the article if you can't summarize it in the infobox.
  • Removed
• Are we 100% certain the image in the infobox is free material? I understand that the film itself is in the public domain, but I looked closely at a zoomed-up image of the poster and I saw a copyright notice in the bottom left corner for Continental Distributing. It would be acceptable use regardless of if it was copyrighted or not because it'd definitely qualify for fair use as identification of the film, but we have to make sure we get this right.
  • I switched images

Plot

• There are a lot of short and choppy paragraphs in this section. Can any of this be condensed into a neater layout? Ideally 3-4 paragraphs is a good fit here too. Be careful about starting consecutive sentences with the same noun; it makes for unengaging prose. As you go, be careful not to expand this too much; we're already at the word limit for a plot per MOS:FILM.
  • Fixed
• Barbra and Johnny Blair drive to rural Pennsylvania to visit their father's grave. Barbra is attacked by a strange man walking in the cemetery. - Look at sentence fluency here, this reads choppy. I recommend: "Barbra and Johnny Blair drive to rural Pennsylvania to visit their father's grave. While in the cemetery, Barbra is attacked by a strange man."
  • Fixed
• After a mishap with the car, Barbra escapes on foot, with the stranger in pursuit, and later arrives at a farmhouse, where she discovers a woman's mangled corpse. This is a run-on sentence. I recommend you break it up a bit.
  • Fixed
• Ben and Barbra are unaware that the farmhouse has a cellar, housing an angry married couple, Harry and Helen Cooper, along with their daughter Karen. Another run-on sentence.
  • Fixed
• Ben finds a television, and they watch an emergency broadcaster report... Who's they, exactly?
  • Fixed
• Experts, scientists, and the United States military fail to discover the cause, though one scientist suspects radioactive contamination from a space probe. It returned from Venus, and was deliberately exploded in the Earth's atmosphere when the radiation was detected. Please reword, this reads awkwardly.
  • Fixed
• Tom and Judy try to drive the truck away from the pump, but Judy is unable to free herself from its door, and the truck explodes, killing them both; the zombies promptly eat the charred remains. Run-on sentence.
  • Fixed
• Eventually forcing his way back in, Ben beats Harry, angered by his cowardice, while the zombies feed on the remains of Tom and Judy. Another run on sentence.
  • Fixed
• In the chaos, the two fight and Ben manages to wrestle the gun away and shoots Harry. This reads awkwardly; the two uses of "and" and the verb tenses make this read odd. Please reword.
  • Fixed
• Ben fights off Karen and seals himself inside the cellar (which he initially refused to do earlier) I'd go with dashes instead of parentheses here.
  • Fixed

Cast

• He was in a few other films Unprofessional wording. Do we know how many other films? Can we name a couple? Can this be reworded with more specifics?
  • Fixed
• Besides acting, O'Dea performed her own stunts, which she jokingly claimed amounted to "lots of running". "I honestly had no idea it would have such a lasting impact on our culture", assessing Night of the Living Dead. Couple of issues here. Double quotes at end and start of next sentence reads very awkwardly. Using "Besides" to start the sentence makes it seem like O'Dea performed her own stunts but not while she was acting in this movie — perhaps "In addition to" might be a better replacement.
  • Reworded
• Keith Wayne as Tom Everyone else gets a fact about them, why not Keith Wayne? He does have an article.

Critical analysis

• Everything looks good here for the material itself - paragraphs all look good, citations are all in line (noting that I have not yet analyzed references for reliability and will do that last). However, I think it's in the wrong place; it should come after the release, to put the article into chronological order. I also don't think "Critical analysis" is quite the right term for it when we consider there's a later subsection on "critical reception" which both refer to two different kinds of critics, and this can cause some confusion. I'll propose a couple of possible solutions: you can either combine the critical reception subsection with this one to create a "Reception" section (and you can use subsections as needed) or you could do the same idea but with the Legacy section and combine it with the zombie commentary.

Production

• They wanted to capitalize on the film industry's "thirst for the bizarre",[24] according to Romero.. Move the citation to the end of this sentence; surely the source attributes the quote to Romero or else it wouldn't be cited. A citation doesn't need to be immediately after a direct quote if there's a bit more to the fact in the same citation, like that it was according to Romero.
  • Fixed
• They pitched their idea for a then-untitled horror film. Who's they? Unclear if this is Romero and Streiner, or Eastman and Hardman.
• Another ten investors were found when it was found that another $6,000 was required but this was also soon found to be inadequate. Repetition of "found" reads awkwardly; choose another word. Also, a comma may need to be inserted before "but" since this sentence reads a bit like a run-on.
• Russo came up with the concept that they would be the recently dead only, because they could not afford to bring long-dead people out of their graves, or at least "we" thought. This almost reads like "we" is all of us reading the article. Please clarify.
• Is the third block quote necessary? It appears to be the weakest of the three block quotes and looks like it could be paraphrased pretty easily and put into the prose. I won't call this a barrier to GA, but I would like you to consider this and let me know your thoughts.
• In fact, Romero would later confess that he felt the film's antagonists were distinct enough from Haitian zombies that they were "something completely new" with Romero actively avoiding any similarities between the two creatures although he notes that he may have subtly been inspired by them. Another run-on sentence. Remove the "In fact" as excessive and break up this sentence with commas or separate it into two or three sentences.
• Combine the first two paragraphs of the Principal Photography subsection; it fits with the first paragraph and doesn't need to be on its own.
• Romero's decision to direct Night of the Living Dead essentially launched his career as a horror director Is "essentially" a necessary word here?
• (that piece of music accompanying each time that George C. Scott's character, a doctor who is secretly a drug addict, is injecting himself with morphine) Is this parenthetical statement necessary? It seems like too much detail for this article, and makes its sentence read as a run-on.
  • Fixed
• Sound tech R. Lococo's choices worked well, as film historian Sumiko Higashi believes that the music "signifies the nature of events that await." Does the source specify that the choices worked well? I don't see a connection directly between signifying the nature of future events and good sound choices for a movie, but if the source says they worked well and shows this as positive commentary, I'm okay with the statement.

Release

• I would incorporate the copyright status section from further down into a subsection at the bottom of this one. It is relevant to the release of the film and covers re-releases, and so I believe it would work better in this section.
• Nationally, it was shown as a Saturday afternoon matinée – as was typical for horror films at the time Just making sure, do the sources specify this part of the fact that this was a typical showing for horror films?
• The MPAA film rating system was not in place until November 1968, so even young children were able to purchase tickets. Use of the word "even" here is redundant.
• According to Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately:[62] If the block quote is from this source, the citation needs to be at the end of the quote.
• One commentator asserts that the film garnered little attention from critics, "except to provoke argument about censoring its grisly scenes".[57] Either blend this in to another paragraph, or strike it. It stands out as being incomplete as a sentence on his own.
• Night of the Living Dead was also awarded two distinguished honors decades after its debut. Use of the word "also" here is excessive and needs to be removed.
  • Fixed
• The paragraph that starts with "Some reviewers disliked the film's gory special effects." seems short. This could be an option for our sentence about the one commentator, since they both talk about the gore and grisly scenes to give it more depth.
• Be careful not to start two paragraphs in a row with "Some reviewers..."
• Could the Critical reception be split into Critical reception and Accolades? In addition to the few listed, an IMDB check has shown two more awards a Saturn Award nominee from 2018 (Best DVD/Blu-Ray Special Edition Release) and a 2011 Horror Host Hall Of Fame winner. --Gonnym (talk) 16:39, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Those awards are insignificant
    • I would agree with MagicatthemovieS on this one, Gonnym. We want to be careful about adding information considered trivial, like a minor movie award without broad recognition. Red Phoenix ^talk 21:16, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Revisions

• The paragraph about the MST3K RiffTrax feels like WP:TRIVIA to me. If more can be said critically about it, great, but if not I would remove it.
  • Removed
• Russo took liberties with the original script. The additions are neither clearly identified nor even listed. However, Entertainment Weekly reported "no bad blood" between Russo and Romero. Very awkward use of "however". There's nothing that implies in the earlier sentences that Russo and Romero had any contention at all.
  • Fixed
• I think it would be okay to have the non-free colorized image here, but I would use a template like Template:Non-free use rationale 2 for a fair use rationale because it's not typical for movie articles to have a shot from the movie that isn't free. I believe there is a good rationale here to demonstrate the colorization, but we need to demonstrate the fair-use rationale better and the template can help.
  • Added that

Related works

• No citations at all in the section about Romero's Dead films. Also no citation at the end of the bit about Rise of the Living Dead.
• I would eliminate the first three subsections totally, and incorporate Return of the Living Dead's see also into the first see also. At one paragraph each, one section will do for all three parts using only paragraphs to separate them.
  • Shouldn't Living Dead should be mentioned here? --Gonnym (talk) 16:39, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
• I would combine the first two paragraphs of the Remakes subsection and the next two unless further expansion can be done.

Copyright status

• As suggested earlier, I would incorporate this into the Release section as its own subsection.
  • Fixed
• I would combine the last two paragraphs in this section as having the same main idea.
  • Fixed
• How can the Criterion Collection restoration of Night of the Living Dead be protected by copyright? The special features on the Blu-ray definitely would be. A re-mixed surround soundtrack probably would be. But the original film with with the original mono audio shouldn't be copyright even though it took a lot of time and money to restore. A faithful reproduction (slavish copy) of a public domain work doesn't revive copyright. Under the rule in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corporation, a mere 'record' photograph of a 2D work of art (i.e. a photograph which is an as-accurate-as-possible copy of the original) acquires no copyright protection. If someone carefully scans the Mona Lisa, even if they spend a lot of money making the scanned image, they don't suddenly have a revived copyright. The Footnote 89 reference to the U.S. Copyright Records database is for the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeoffreyEdwards (talk • contribs) 01:06, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Legacy

• Again, I think Critical analysis could go in here as well. Surely the legacy of this movie goes beyond just zombies? The critical analysis section speaks a lot about political commentary, and those reviews are more modern. I would argue that that is a part of the film's legacy, as well.
  • Fixed
• Otherwise, this short section reads well. Well done.

References

• Please check for possible copyright violations. While this tool is not a guarantee of copyright violations (especially when one takes direct quotes), seeing some articles at 90% or more likelihood is a red flag.
• Checklinks indicates some dead links, please address.
• I recommend archiving your sources to prevent link rot. This tool I linked makes it super-easy, and could help with your dead links as well. Make sure you mark that you want to archive all links, not just dead ones.
• Rolfe, James (2007). Night of the Living Dead. Cinemassacre's Monster Madness (Audio commentary). Is this an audio commentary by someone associate with the movie, or just someone at random? Who is Cinemassacre's Monster Madness and how is it a reliable source?
• Does IMDb meet the standard of reliability?
• Alexander, Chris (July 21, 2016). "RIP: Bill "Chilly Billy" Cardille". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved December 19, 2016. Who publishes comingsoon.net? It looks like a reliable source, but we'll need to know who publishes it to establish that it's not just a fan site.
• Mark Deming, review of Night of the Living Dead, at Allmovie. Retrieved June 24, 2006. Use a citation template for this one.
• Need more info on sources 41 and 42 to establish that they are reliable. Who published them, what website are they from, and what establishes that they are reliable?
• I'm okay with using Homepage of the Dead solely for its interview with Eastman, as a primary source of comments from the interviewees. It is not otherwise a reliable source imo, so source 43 cannot be used. There are others down the line as well, and I cannot pass this article as a GA if they are used.
• Same with House of Horrors, I don't see this as a reliable source.
• HorrorDirectors.com explicitly says it's a WordPress site. Its reliability cannot be established.
• Note the publisher of filmsite.org to establish its reliability.
• What makes Films101.com a reliable source?
• What makes AltFilmGuide.com a reliable source?
• Source 79 needs more information to establish reliability.
• Entertainment Weekly, quoted at Homepage of the Dead. Retrieved June 24, 2006.. Can you find the actual quote from EW? Need to eliminate Homepage of the Dead as much as possible.
• What makes HorrorMovies.ca a reliable source?

I'm going to stop right there for now. A lot of the prose and image issues are pretty easily fixable, I think, with a bit of elbow grease. The references, however, concern me. I'm not even done going through references, but I'm finding a lot of questionable reliability, such as a lot of fan sites being used to cite facts. I'll let you go through what we have so far and come back with more later if progress is made toward getting this straightened out. As it is now, I'll put this article on hold. Thank you, Red Phoenix ^talk 16:05, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Nomination failed

Per a request from the nominator, I have gone ahead and failed this nomination. It's a shame; the potential for greatness is here, but the references really need to be weeded out. We have to be careful on what is a reliable source and what is not, and from reading the WP:FAR about this article, it seems the same issues were brought up there as well. If you get it shaped up and back to GAN, ping me; I'd be glad to review this article again so it doesn't have to sit for 8 months awaiting review a second time. Thank you, Red Phoenix ^talk 21:35, 2 June 2018 (UTC)