User:TaerkastUA/Texas Chainsaw stuff/TCO suggestions

(15JAN10) Overall, I feel this is a very important article for Wiki. You get a HUGE number of hits to the article, daily. That means the project should have good content to serve the interested readers. I am VERY in favor of FAs on high traffic articles. That's much more helpful to mankind than an FA on some snail no one will EVER read about or my sock drawer or a random hurricane that did little damage or a synagogue. I LOVE your hit count!

You've had four gos at FA and really, I'm not surprised. Coming to this thing completely fresh and objective, I wanted to read the article to learn about the movie (after all I've heard a LOT about it, but never seen it). So I'm a good customer for the article. But I still struggled, especially with the organization. I don't think a copyedit that looks for stray commas or even fixes a word here or there, will help if you've got things like "talk about A, under heading B" or "talk about C, then D, then back to C". You gotta make things easier on the reader. You gotta make the logic and org clean.

I do think that there is a very cool "story" in this article and that is the commercial success of the movie. It was done on almost no budget, fought the censors to get shown, and then made lots of money, became a ready phrase on people's lips, and had lots of sequels. That's an exciting easy to understand story. Even for people who don't want to watch Pam get impaled. Make people excited and interested to read the article and watch the movie succeed! Perhaps if you can persist with FA, you can emulate the movie makers and get some success, well the FA star. Use that article hit count to motivate you.

Lead

I'm not sure the style, but I wonder if you could get away with making the first paragraph past tense. Or all but the first sentence. It's correct now, and I can see you did not want a tense shift in the para, but it seems like there is a strain to keep it present tense (very subtle and no biggie).

In at least two places, you have blue link next to blue link. Don't do that! Pick the more important concept to blue link or reword the sentence to separate. But don't run blue next to blue so people don't realize it is two separate links.

I wouldn't bother with the whole cast list. Explain Pam and Leather and then non-professional cast or what have you as a filler phrase for the rest. Listing all those names of people we've never heard of before (with blue to slow us down even more) is just a lot of detail that saps your important start to the article. We have the rest of the article with more details plus the infobox to the right. Keep the lead tight and exciting, not boring and listish.

The sentence about the documentary, that also containst the plot summary has too many different ideas in it and is confusing all togther. If you want to put the plot with anything would put it with discussion of the cast.

This is also VERY subtle and not that big a deal, but "some" people object to the use of "due to" as an adverbial phrase, as a grammar errort. So, I usuall prefer saying "because of" or the like.

move the stuff about the franchise from first para down to last one.

The stuff about innovations in slasher film stuff, I actually did not see in your article. Also be careful: if those wer the only two innovations, just say these were the two. Otherwise, you need more innovations lower down and then those were the most important. (I could have glossed over some content, though, so let me know if mistaken.)

Plot

This needs to be more exciting. There are ways to be very calm and descriptive, but still give your reader the sensation of terror and horror and excitement to find out if Pam makes it. This is a hard nut, but I urge you to try to make this sing. This is a freebie spot where you can entertain a little, if you do it right. I didn't feel much tension until the end of your plot summary. Then I felt some. Make me feel it all the way through.

A little too many stachato sentences and it just sort of reads like event A happens, then event B, instead of more like a story unfolding.

Dessicated is poor word choice. (I totally know what it means, but it has a connotation of science not of horror). I would just say dried-out. Also blue linking that word is a bad idea. If you expect people to know what it means, then just use it. But it's not a concept that you want to drive people to look at or some peculiar proper noun.

Last sentence very good though. I've never seen the film but I can imagine Pam heading down the highway and the Leatherface whippiong his saw around in frustration. Great image.

To this section, I say that is how plot are supposed to be written. They are not supposed to be "exciting" to read because if they were it means we've introduced our own POV word choices in and that makes the plot less objective. Since plots are sourced to the film themselves, we are not allowed to introduce colorful terms and make it more exciting. The only point of the plot is to provide context for all the other real world information. So, unfortunately, that means it typically breaks down to a "event A happens, then event B happens". This is also because we have a restriction on the number of words we can use, and to make it more "exciting" would put us past the limit of words (especially for a film with a seriously uncomplicated storyline). See WP:MOSFILMS#PLOT, WP:PLOT, and WP:PLOTSUM pages for more. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 15:50, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Development

Try the cool blue for the text boxes. gives the page some color.

Avoid wlink in quotes when reasonably possible (very easy here).

I don't know if you have any RSes that say this, but I suspect the use of the "true story" thing was not just 70s political reaction, but was a device to get viewers to suspend beleif and to care more about the story. It's a pretty common mechanism to "lie" about something being true and has been used in literature for centuries.

ditch the comment about mortgage points. Profit sharing is easy understand as profit...sharing.

Casting

Image: make it bigger. Sell. And hone the caption (that is some of the most read text in your article, maybe most read after the first sentence. Make that snappy. At least let's be less PC than "special needs".

split into two or three paragraphs. Too long as is. and wanders around hitting a lot of different ideas.

The stuff about heat seems like it belongs in the next section down where under filming conditions we talk about "heat"

The comment about the short shorts is also confusing. maybe refer to their comfort down in the heat section as well and within casting just say that the short shorts helped the girl get the job. That's enough of a visual, right?

Any more info on the others? Going to the Gunnar Hansen page, it gives a little on how he got the part. Maybe build that up if you have the content. If not, keep it tight on casting and put the heat under filiming conditions.

which actors were NOT relatively unknown. (the way the para is written we expect to hear at least on or two that were well known). I think none were, or?

Filming

Can you just say Austin and surroundings? Don't like three bluelinked towns next to each other (slows reader) and two of them are non-descript. Or instead, can you develop the point with more content? For instance town A for purpose A, B for purpose B, C for purpose C?

land the Leathe heat thing in here. Will fit great.

What's the point of the camera? Seems like a stray fact adrift? And does it matter that it needed more light? Did that make the film worse wquality? Or make more lights needed (thus hotter)? And how did it compare to a period camera? Was it worse than what a frontline film would get?

latex ~~material~~

I like using punchy words, but splat just seems subtley off. Splash maybe? Blotch?

some places with passive voice. Not saying get rid of it everyhwere, especially if you want an object to ne the center of attention, but watch it.

"meat house" (better term)?

cut "used to". With which he littered (make it active and less wordy.)

caused some worry -> worried

cut literally (we can tell the whole para is about filming conditions, we know this is the literal situation, not the story). And definitely when we find out about the saw almost hitting the face, we get it.

Post-production

With the exception of one sentence about the budget going over, the entire section is NOT postprodiction, but commercial stuff related to disctribution. When someone says you are missing a section, sticking content that does not match the header is worse than just saying you don't have it. Don't we have any more info on the editing? Why did the budget go over? Scenes cut or lost? special technical hurdles? Just flesh it out with real content related to actual post production. Or rename the section distribution or commercial struggles or what have you.

How did Henkel and Hooper have 45% after giving away 19% of half? Did they have a piece of the other half too?

"full share" instead of "full percentage" might go better here. Almost stopped and ==wondered if we were talking about a 1% stake.

When did New Line take over?

Release

when did the national screening happen as opposed to the Austin premiere?

It seems a little confusing how we move from the take to discussion of the censoring. Not sure the answer, but this is a really important section and needs to sing. Maybe separating out cencorship into another section? Or if that is not the answer, rename the header? I donno, but 70%+ of the section is on battles with the censors not the details of the gate.

How did it do versus other films that year (relative ranking?)

What is the ultimate take? including overseas, rereleases etc?

Was the conviction in 72 or the DT film? Just get rid of that distractor.

may not go in this section or maybe there should be a summary at the end, but what was the DVD and VHS take?

First para has too many different things going on. Just hard to follow why one sentence follows next.

AS of when did it get the 30 million?

Was it ever the MOST drawing independent film (even for a couple years)? Seems like should be noted but as told was unclear.

Adaptions and sequels need to move to the end of the article and be in their own section, NOT within reception for this movie!

Adaptions

No other comments for now, other than the above.

Sequels

This section is very confusing. We are in the 2000s than next we are in the 1990s? Then back to the 2000s? Someone invent time travel?

Some of the calling a sequel a prequel and remake a sequel and all is just confusing.

Maybe a table here would help the reader. Film name, year, type (sequel, remake, prequel).

reimagining is too cute a term. Just call it a remake. It's obvious from the next sentence that the film deviated a bit (which happens in remakes), so anyhow saying reimagine is duplicative as well as distracting.

you realize within this section, we talk about the critical response to the sequels (fine), but we are actually doing that before talking about critical reaction to OUR movie. move this section BACK.

Why do we give rotten tomato for some of the movies, but not others?

Critical response

"subsequently" (don't get the chronology)

"currently" (avoid, use "as of 2009")

Home media

Does not belong under Reception. Not sure what to do with it, but for now would make it a two equals section

Cultural impact

this section is misnamed is confusing. Should be genre impact. at least for beginning para. There is some cultural impact in center (wish you could get more...have terms or sayings from the movie become common usage, even the term chainsaw massacre?) Lst section is all about awards.

Also the stuff in the lead about multiple innovations (more than two) doesn't seem here, nor are even the two. don't put stuff in lead that is not in article.

Theme stuff

good to see this thing moved further down the page and oout of top billing.

push it down from a two equals to a three equals and cram it down into the Reception section with critical response. Then we probably need to rename the whole thing cricism and call the first part Film critics and the second part theme analysis...or something. But those two belong together back to back inside same section.

skinny it down some. If you can't find more academic critism, that tells us something right away anyhow, no? This thing is not Casablanca. the story here is the film's commercial success and struggles with censors and all. not some deep literary theories.

You go off on a bit of a tangent to explaining womjep itself, vice how our movie reflects it. Keep it tight on our movie, not general concepts.

External links

Do you reall want the portals in there on the front?

just my preference but would add the wikiquote and portals (if kept) to bulletted list (not just floating squares).

Other issues

title: don't like having the article titled after the less used term. If 90% of the world calls the movie an incorrect title (and they do on the poster and on DVDs), then that is the most commonly used title. We should not try to "look smart" or be obscure by going with the technically correct but rarely used title. Keep the explanatory note, but it would explain what real title is. And then first sentence would read. "The Texas Chainsaw (Chain Saw) Massacre* was a 1974 blabla." The other film of the same name, could just have a "remake" added to it's title or some such.

Should the info box list the other films?

Talk page should have Texas project banner, no?