Talk:Zack Snyder's Justice League/GA2

GA Review

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Nominator: Dcdiehardfan (talk · contribs) 22:31, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Reviewer: Joereddington (talk · contribs) 16:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Some quick notes for me for a first pass (this is a very big article) In plot:

• "forgets his memories" - seems like a odd phasing... what else would he forget?

 Fixed Changed diction, hopefully it is more clear now -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• "Thus, Barry enters the Speed Force," I don't think this is the correct usage of 'thus'

 Fixed Changed syntax -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• Honestly seems like there is a lot more in the cast section than necessary - compare, say FA blade runner's cast section...

 Comment: I trimmed the prose, let me know what you think. Do note I feel this is a bit of a WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument here, but I think it's good that the article does its best to try to cover as much casting credits as possible while still retaining good size. It's also a really big film (clocking it at around 4 hrs) so it does make sense the Cast section is a bit large. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Given that my feedback here is explicity mentioned in WP:GANOT I will withdraw it :) Joe (talk) 06:43, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Appreciate it. 👌 Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:01, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Later:

• "WB also decided not to delay the film so that executives could keep their annual bonuses" isn't in the source (well, it's one of two conflicting anonmous statements and I don't think the source is weighty enough to cover it)

 Removed Looked at TheWrap source, you're right, I kept the merger part -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

• I feel like I'm missing quite a lot of images. Surely some of the billboards? For an article of this size...

 In progress I'll see if I can add in images of billboards on the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut section, is there anything else you potentially had in mind? Maybe the Vero picture of "ZSJL Director's Cut"? -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Both sound good. Honeslty I think you need a scattering of good images The_Avengers_(2012_film) is a very similar film with a very similar sized (GA) article and manages nine. We can haggle over indivdual ones later I think :) Joe (talk) 17:24, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Hey Joe, I'm very thankful that you're taking the time to review this article and I look forward to working with you. Thank you for choosing to accept this GAN and I hope you enjoy reading it! :) -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Joe (talk) 16:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Proper thoughts

Okay, so my big feeling is:

• Wow, this is a massive article. Massive. I'm really impressed that people where able to pull a coherent article together and cope with all those subpages. Well done everybody.

Here's some particular things. This is a big GA to pick as a first one so be gentle.

• Per MOS:FILMCAST I'm still a little grumpy about the cast section. I think paragraphs describing the two most famous superhero in comics are probably necessarily (particularly when Wonder Women gets only a sentence). On the other hand I don't think there's anything specifically in the GA criteria...

 Comment: I'm also a bit irked by it too. Do note my points above and the fact that again, it is a nearly 4-hour film, so there's bound to be a big cast. I'll see if I can get more content on Wonder Woman as I specifically want to fill it with content that provides commentary of her in this particular film. I also did another trim edit. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Very quick note (I think you've done good work here), I've just noticed a silly typo in my comment. I meant to say: "I think paragraphs describing the two most famous superhero in comics are probably UNnecessarily ", which I appreciate is literally the opposite of what I wrote. Like, I struggling to imagine someone is on this page and doesn't have a rough idea of who Batman is (I think there's room to say things like "the charactisation of Batman in this film is much more X Y Z than in the previous release), but I don't feel particularly strongly about it... Joe (talk) 06:30, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

 Comment: Thanks again, and I understand haha, that definitely does cast a different meaning. I was a bit confused as it did seem a bit incongrous with the overall tone, but I will keep that in mind and continue to work on trimming down the content, particularly the introductory fragments of sentences. I'll condense it into a phrase at most, and get straight into the film-specific characterization and commentary, which I think is useful to have nevertheless, as putting that in the Production section would pile up too much content. I went ahead and did some minor trims just now. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 23:28, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

As per above (and WP:GANOT) I'm happy with this. Joe (talk) 06:44, 27 April 2024 (UTC) Y

• The paragraph 'Snyder continued to work on' doesn't feel like it belongs in this section. This section is about the theatrical version and it feels like that paragraph is a bit of foreshadowing that we don't need.

 Comment: I'm going to slightly contest this. The para still contains critical information of how Snyder saved his material of the cut on his rough drive, which he would later use to finish his cut, which is absolutely essential to the article and relevant. I trimmed the content however, and want to keep it to provide better context of Snyder's departure from OG JL and how he then saved the material

Sorry, I was unclear - I think the paragraph belongs, I just dont think it belongs in this section - later on perhaps. Does that make sense?

 Comment: I understand, I can see where you come from, as one could interpret the flash drive as disrupting the flow about the procurement of the theatrical version. I felt the placement was appropriate since it best reflected chronology, but for now placed it under the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement for thematic connection, hopefully that flows better. If you have a desired placement in mind, do let me know. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

• "Some critics considered superior" is weasel words.

 Fixed I replaced with and instead used "an improvement to". I'll also try to use more clear and direct wording instead of "Some", although I genuinely believe it is a good word to use when exact quantitative information is not always readily available. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Cool. Y

• " In June 2018, fans reached out to executives at AT&T following a merger between the company and Warner; in June 2019, they reached out to new WB CEO Ann Sarnoff, who replaced Tsujihara after his resignation, following that up a month later with a mass letter-writing campaign; and in July 2019 they reached out to WB's parent company WarnerMedia, after the announcement of its new streaming service HBO Max." There's a lot of reaching out here, and I don't know if that's something we need in the article. Looking at the sources: this appears to be things like "One fan on Twitter reached out to AT&T"... I definitely think get rid of this.

 Comment: Really feel antsy about cutting all of it down, so I instead just kept the first two sources and amended the content so it now says "Some members" reached out to WB officials, I think this is better as examples of fan activism should still be highlighted. If you feel this is trivial, I'll also eliminate it. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Good news. Y

• "Following the death of Snyder's daughter and his departure from Justice League, fans from the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement began campaigns to raise money for suicide prevention; these campaigns raised over $500,000 for the AFSP in donations by February 2021." this is a really nice little fact, but is it in the wrong order? Did they campaign first for the charity and then about the film?

 Comment: I frontline this info since it's the first event that occurs and just so it flows better. Based on the source info, it seems to imply the campaign was to raise charity in honor of the film, so they aren't mutually exclusive events but are directly correlated, if that makes sense. I add the descriptor "soon began" to better give the idea of the movement occuring immediately after as the source states "From very early on, leaders got the movement organized ..." in the source: [1]. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Cool. Y

• "Some analysts" suggest you get rid of this sentence. Given that the whole paragraph is 'people who were wrong' I might trim it right down.

 Removed Some analyst sentence is removed, para trimmed -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Y

• Random praise - I think there is some good balance here between the campaign and the toxic elements of it and it's well done.

Thanks! I also want to credit other editors who worked on this article too, since they helped establish the foundation of the article -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

• The first paragraph of 'revival' is very confusing to me and it has a lot of 'he said she said he said' energy.

 Comment: I tried to streamline it, so hopefully the content is more clear, what are you confused about and how can I address the concerns more specifically? -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Much better Y

• The paragraph "The Snyders invited" - when did this happen and exactly which cut did they watch? Surely not the finished film...?

 Comment: The article states the following: "The couple put together a presentation and, in early February, invited a select group of executives from Warner Bros., HBO Max and DC to their house in Pasadena to screen Snyder’s little-seen version that was shown in black and white. ... there were more than a dozen in attendance ... showed the importance of the potentially extensive undertaking. Heads of physical production and business affairs were there to assess what needed to be done and how much it would cost. ... Snyder outlined ideas for not just releasing the cut but the concept of episodes and cliffhangers." I can't provide definite, clearcut answers to the questions based on this info. However, I provided additional clarification by since we know it's in B&W and can state that it was specially made and curated for the presentation. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Much better Y

• "Snyder, who had not yet seen the theatrical cut" I couldn't find this in the source and it definitely needs a citation because it is *wild* that that would be the case given the gamble he was taking.

 Removed Noticed it wasn't substantiated by source, removed to be on safe side -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Y

• "At that point, it was unclear what format Zack Snyder's Justice League would take for the release, whether as a four-hour-long film or a six-part miniseries. The Hollywood Reporter estimated it would cost $20–30 million to complete the visual effects, score, and editing. However, Greenblatt indicated its completion would be "wildly expensive" and cost more than $30 million." I'm not sure what use the speculation is? I don't feel strongly tho...

 Comment: I'm not sure which part you feel is "speculation". I eliminated the release format spec sentence and kept THR budget estimate. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Going a bit beyond GA here but I want to talk about it: this parapraph made a lot of sense to have in the article while the film was being made. However, now that the film has been released we have a budget of $70 million in the infobox, and so including context on some people who were wildly speculating at the time feels like it's in the way of the rest of the article. But it's up to you - it's not GA relevent.

 Removed That's a logical argument and I accept it, I removed THR estimate, but kept Greenblatt's comment. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

• "In February 2023, DC Studios co-chairman and CEO James Gunn officially responded to fan movements advocating for Netflix to purchase production rights for Snyder's Justice League films, stating that neither the service nor Snyder expressed any interest to Gunn in completing the project despite both parties contacting him." this appears to be "Man denies rumour" and I don't think we need it.

 Removed Agreed. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, ticked off.

• Second and third paragraph of 'marketing' stops being about marketing and starts being quotes of people doing wild speculation based on what's in the teaser trailer. I want to read about money spent on advertising, number of views the trailer got, who the promotional partners were, was there a video game tie-in, and how many people pre-ordered the title on streaming.

 Comment: I would like more stats on these things too, but there were unfortunately no reliable sources to indicate the marketing budget, trailer views, and other things mentioned. I reduced some of the quotes, but do note that trailer. I took cues from MOS:FILMMARKETING and other comic book movie film articles since this is a consensus across them and decided to focus on commentary of the trailer, but did go ahead and trim the content since it was a bit bloated, the main reason was to address the last GAR of improvement in the Marketing para by providing more commentary. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@Joereddington  Working Positive updates on this front. I just came back and found 3 good pieces of info. First, I looked at the Rolling Stones bot report, and the source accounted for budgets in its calculations, which I added. I also found a SR source that stated the 1st trailer had 31M views in addition to being removed over a music licensing issue (I also added an explanatory footnote indicating HBO Max's transition into being Max). My final piece of info was talking about tie-in products developed for the film after WB collabed with their Wonderland Restaurants. I could also talk about McFarlane toys and action figures intended to promote the film if more is needed. Let me know if there's anything else that needs to be done. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:51, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

We're outside of GA - but honestly I'd put a subheading "Reactions to trailers" for those paragraphs.

 Comment: I feel that since a majority of the content is about the trailers, I think it'll be oversectioning, but we can work it out later.

• Second paragraph of Streaming - how do you feel about making the countries/platforms thing a table? And then combining the streaming numbers which are pretty hard to read in the 'audience viewership' section?

 Comment: I'll be honest, I don't have experience making a table, but am not opposed to the idea. I think I'd like to cover all the other outstanding issues before coming back to this one. Ditto for the images, since I have little experience with uploading images and am not sure if I could find good photos that comply with the image policy and would like to wait on this, if you don't mind. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I can see your position. Let's come back here.

• Critical Response - this feels super super bloated. Is this literally every major critic's opinion? They all seem to think it's too long, better than the theatrical version, and that it's much more snydery (literally nobody appears to mention the acting which I think is quite funny).

 Comment: Apologies, I did overcompensate since the previous GAR did recommend substantial reworkings of the Critical Response by improving commentary quality and review count. I trimmed it down and think it's better now. I'm also confused by the acting claim, since some reviews do highlight the performances. For example, Jenna Anderson's review had a whole paragraph basically dedicated to praise for the performances, some excerpts include "the performances of the cast do as well. One of the biggest joys of the film is Affleck's continued take on Batman" and "Miller's take on The Flash condenses decades of different live-action and comic characterizations into an exuberant, heartfelt performance, one that leads to one of the coolest visual sequences of the entire film. Fisher's performance brings humanity to some of the film's darkest sequences"., and other ones too. Matt Zoller Seitz discusses Miller's performance in one particular scene by saying "Miller's facial expressions are as perfect as the director's choices.", though Eric Kohn was a bit more mixed regarding Fisher's performance, but even Richard Trenholm's negative review still praised performances by saying "Alongside them, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher and Ezra Miller give standout performances, breathing life into lesser-known characters.". These are the examples I could find. Nevertheless, I think that should be enough info to talk about performances, but just to be on the safe side, I'll remove it for now. And yea, the critic do seem to form a consensus regarding those elements, which is why I also try to highlight specific elements and content from the reviews to distinguish it from reviews, hence me trying to vary diction, syntax, etc. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, that was "none of the included quotes appear to be about acting" rather than "none of the reviews were about acting". We are wandering away from GA critia tho.

• Okay, this is going to be a tricky one. The article has a lot of problems with references. I did some spot checks today and almost half of the (not paywalled) ones I checked didn't relate to the statements they were meant to be supporting. Glancing at lots of the others - lots of things are referenced to breathless articles about the trailer (these presumably date from long before the film's release) when they should be referenced to better sources and there's some examples of [1][2][3] were [2] and [3] have clearly copied and pasted from [1]. The referencing is a real weak spot in an otherwise enjoyable article and, for me, it's the place were we are mostly likely to fail GA. I've got some access to paywalls through work, so I'll come back with a more thorough review.

 Comment: I see. I'll go through the article and see if I can spot any. I definitely would request a lot more clarification and examples regarding this, as I'll definitely try to address these issues and is at the top of my agenda for resolving concerns. I already did a preliminary scan and inserted a ref for the statement that Junkie XL left the Justice League project halfway through production. But yea, take your time and in the meantime, I'll also let you know if I did any substantial edits or addressed changes here. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 23:28, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Examples are mildly tricky because, of course, I've fixed all the ones I've checked. I'm going to put more on this at the bottom shortly.

 Comment: I massively appreciate the help in terms of fixing, and I looked through and fixed all the ones I could find, in terms of what tags there are. If there are any outstanding examples, please do let me know so they can be taken care of immediately. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 01:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

• You have a source that claims Snyder was fired [2] early on but use it to support an 'unwatchable' quote. I'm unconfortable here. If the source is reliable then the article should talk about the claim that he was fired, and if it's not reliable then lots of other similar sources in the article should go as well. As it stands, the section is very "The artist Snyder was held back by the souless executives". Honestly the situation is messy (and you've done a great job trying to record it faithfully) enough that it feels like a timeline would be a good way to be clear what happened without falling into the mythos - but that's vastly beyond the scope of a GA review so I'll be quiet on that. The point about the firing should stand tho...

 Done I added in the source's claim that he was fired. -Dcdiehardfan (talk) 23:32, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Y

Actual Review

Here is the actual review as of Saturday 27th April. We now have seven days to fix. At the moment the article is failing on three counts but should be fixable.

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Definately not concise, but I've covered my issues above and they have been dealt with
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	I've reviewed the MOS and I'm reasonably happy. Some notes above, mostly about "Some people" "Some critics" "Some fans"
2. Verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Fails spot-checks
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The formatting is pretty good.
	2c. it contains no original research.	None Found
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	None Found
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	As per above, I would like more on marketing (rather than reaction to the trailer)
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	This is a sticking point. Lots of comments above (fixed)
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	It's a bit Snyder fanboy but honestly pretty good
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	If anything, its stability is part of a problem - a lot of the article dates from before the film was released.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	I need to check this but I'm holding out until there are more images.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	I need to check this but I'm holding out until there are more images.
	7. Overall assessment.	Pending

The three things I want to see fixed for GA purposes are:

• I want to be able to come back in a few days (by which I mean, either in seven days or when you say "hey, come back and check") and do another spot check of sources including paywalled articles.
• I want a couple of paragraphs on the actual marketing of the film (rather than trailer reactions)
• I want to see more pictures of the cast, the campaigning and ideally of the production. Wikicommons has some more pictures of comic-con panels/premiers and so on. (this is the least important of the three)

Sound good?

FWIW - I think the main thing holding this article back (and this is not GA, this is just me talking) is that the majority of the article was written before the film came out and it really could do with some Serious Sources released in say 2023 that give a sober context to the breathless 2019 sources. If you look through the 250 sources, only a tiny proportion of them are from after the film came out, and that's _worrying_

Joe (talk) 19:44, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Slight deadline extension: I’m going to take a few days away from the internet for mental health reasons (happily unrelated to Wikipedia, obviously)but I’ll to review changes when back. Joe (talk) 17:51, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I see. I hope you take a good break and I appreciate the extension Dcdiehardfan (talk) 22:11, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Joereddington Excellent. I'll be intent on working on addressing these issues. I may also be a bit slow, as I do have AP tests coming up this week. I'll definitely look through and update sources to reflect content post-release. And major apologies for the paywalls, I'll replace as many as I can with accessible links. I do have a few requests of you, if you wouldn't mind answering. First, could you tell me which sections you found in particular failed the spot-checks the most? Was it throughout History? And what should I do if I can't have enough content to make more paragraphs about marketing? Should I instead trim the trailer reflection content further so that those more concrete marketing details are equally weighted? I'll tackle images the last, but I have some ideas. Dcdiehardfan (talk) 22:08, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

For spot checks I'm either doing them totally randomly (literally googling "random number between 1 and 250") or I'm having a look when I see a sentance that doesn't sound quite right. That said I pulled the larger VF article this week (which is cited like eight times) and that was all totally fine.

https://cinematicslant.com/2021/03/17/zack-snyders-justice-league-marketing-recap/ for example has an overview of the marketing along with a lot of sources (after you get past the obligatory fluff) - so the marketing stuff stould be resonably simple.

I'm happy to leave this as pending for a while while you sort out your AP tests - personally I have a big pile of exams to mark so that works for me. Joe (talk) 07:25, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

@Joereddington Appreciate it, my only problem with the Cinematic Slant source is that it might not cite GA-quality sources, such as Twitter or something of the like. I'll definitely take a look at what the source has to offer. I'll probably begin full work on the GAR by perhaps May 24 as that's when my school ends, but see if I can address some stuff beforehand in the meantime, can't make any guarantees. Dcdiehardfan (talk) 21:00, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

@Joereddington I know it's been a while, but I believe that due to my summer being a bit busy and other things on my plate, I believe I won't have enough time to fully commit to solving the issues, so I will be willing to voluntarily rescind the review instead of further protracting it at this point. I appreciate the support and constructive advice you have given, and will definitely be sure to keep it in mind if I submit it for a future GAN. Thank you for all your help! :) Dcdiehardfan (talk) 23:43, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I understand - and I also think the article is in much better shape overall. It feels like the GA backlog was a factor - you submitted way back in December and it's hard to know if the time will be availible six months later... Joe (talk) 05:23, 25 May 2024 (UTC)