Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ralph Bakshi/archive2

Ralph Bakshi

Self nomination. This article has improved greatly since its last FAC, and I believe it is ready for another chance. There are enough references, the context is pretty in depth, there is only two fair use images in the article, and the article itself covers a significantly important subject. Article is currently listed at requests for copyediting, and as such, any problems perceived by FAC reviewers should be fixed before the time the article makes it to FA status. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 00:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC))

• Nominate and Support. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 00:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC))

• Strong oppose - Despite the superficial impression this article this gives of being adequately-cited, NPOV and well-written, it has a large number of problems:

NPOV

This article passes off lots of POV as fact:

• "with legendary painter Frank Frazetta", "Hunter S. Thompson's legendary novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, done in the style of Ralph Steadman's legendary illustrations."
• famed fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta, famed underground comix legend Vaughn Bodé.
• Hubert Selby Jr.'s controversial novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn.
• this famous cartoon studio during what were to be its final days. - also, awful prose.

"unquestionably aimed primarily at adult audiences" - bad prose, POV; and... no mention of why it was controversial at all.

Citations

• "While Ralph's Spot and Bakshi Productions studios were in production, Bakshi and his crew were always coming up with new ideas for films. Whether it was an original idea or an attempt at portraying an existing story that Bakshi really thought could be animated and make a great film, the ideas were explored to the fullest potential and then most were scraped for other, more immediate, potential projects." - large block of uncited stuff.
• "Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi" - Why not wait until this book comes out before attempting for FA? As of now, I see zero offline refs and that can be a problem for info from the 70s and 80s.
• "produced several experimental animated short cartoons, although none of them had a major impact with audiences. Paramount closed its cartoon studio for good in 1967. In 1968, Bakshi founded his own studio, Ralph's Spot, and headed a low-budget but distinctive animated series for television based on the Spider-Man comic book; new episodes appeared until 1970. After 1970, Bakshi left the world of television and went into full-length animated feature films." - big block of uncited, badly-written, POV text.

Prose

Lots of redundant wording, flow problems etc.

• during the span of his career.
• Top animators of the era took a full page ad out in Variety telling Bakshi to "take [his] garbage back east." - This is followed by a blockquote by Bakshi himself. This is very confusing as first you're taking Variety's opinion then suddenly followed by a big Bakshi quote the attribution of which is right at the end.
• "members of the Congress of Racial Equality, led by a young Al Sharpton, none of whom had seen the movie." - That assumes we know Sharpton as an adult; the sentence itself could be improved: none of whom shouldn't come after Sharpton, it reads absurdly.
• "Sharpton charged up to the screen," What?
• Lots of past/present/future tense issues - Eg: "Bakshi asked why Sharpton didn't come in and see the movie" - use wouldn't.
• "who saw Bakshi's film Wizards as being a rip-off" - to whom does "who" refer to here; Vaughn or Mark? Rewrite.
• "The script he wrote was hysterical, something about a Don Juan Lizard with a wooden dildo because in those days lizards had no balls. At any rate, I loved Vaughn and his family very much and never speak of him because of what he did to himself." - what does all that mean? What did he do to himself? What do you mean in those days lizards had no balls? "I try to erase that whole part of my life out of my mind." - What part? Really, what are you trying to say in that paragraph? It starts with plagiarism accusations and ends with mourning.
• "Noted fans of Bakshi's include directors Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee,[39] who are both credited as being big fans of Bakshi's 1975 feature Coonskin." - you use fans twice there.
• Is "stagings" even a word? Does it need to be used twice in the same sentence?
• "cited as an influence on director Peter Jackson's adaptation" followed by "After initially denying having seen Bakshi's film" seems contradictory.
• "he wasn't initially inspired to read the books.". Bakshi or Jackson? And what does that quote actualy mean in conjuction with the rest of the sentence? Also, two "initially"s.
• "Bakshi attributed Jackson's change of tone towards the film to his own vocal complaints through interviews." What? Again ambiguous "his"? "vocal complaints through interviews" - huh? I just can't understand.
• "One approach I used at the time because it was hard to sell a picture was like shooting ducks in a barrel. I knew what picture I wanted to make cause I could see it visually, so I knew they would work." - again no clue what Bakshi is trying to say. Why not convert some of these quotes into prose?
• ". Though Bakshi pursued the project, the person holding the rights, a girlfriend of Thompson's, presumably producer Laila Nabulsi, refused because she wanted the film to be made in live action (and it eventually was in 1998)" - Rewrite.
• A sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat was produced in 1974, without Bakshi's involvement. - remove, not suitable for Bakshi's article.

These are not exhaustive but merely representative of the problems with this article. The prose is very very choppy throughout and the rarely, if ever, does the text actually flow logically from one thing to another. indopug (talk) 06:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)