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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 not promoted by Ucucha 20:56, 28 January 2012 [1].

Jaws (film)

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Jaws (film) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): igordebraga ≠ 20:12, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This was promoted to FA status back in 2006, when it even appeared on the Main Page. 4 years later, it got demoted for not standing up to the criteria, specially for an article in such a successful and influential production (it got promoted to GA shortly thereafter). Then I decided to return the bronze star to such a classic, reorganizing what was already there, replacing questionable refs, and expanding in all topics I could. So, like Brody atop the sinking Orca, I'll take a shot at something that can take a bite off me. igordebraga ≠ 20:12, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose at this time, unfortunately; great work has been done on this article since it was delisted, but there are still a number of problems. Struck resolved comments per nominator request. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lots of Manual of Style issues. On a quick look I see ellipses in parentheses and hyphen/dash misuse, among other problems
  • File:JAWS_Movie_poster.jpg has an incorrect source link
    • Fixed.
  • File:Mechashark.JPG needs an expanded FUR and info on the copyright of the work,
    • Done.
  • File:JawsJohnWilliams.ogg: sample is too long given the length of the original work - should be 30 seconds or 10%, 10% here since that's shorter
  • Inconsistencies in reference formatting, for example FN 10, 69 vs 83, 104 vs 105, etc
  • Use of sources of questionable reliability, for example imdb, Rotten Tomatoes, and blu-ray.com. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Rotten Tomatoes is unreliable... to give the Tomatometer score? IMDB is because the ACE itself points their Eddie page for past winners. The third, I removed (there's still not a reliable source for that date). igordebraga ≠ 15:56, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, but you also include the commentary from RT. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:16, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Done. Any more refs? igordebraga ≠ 18:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I cut the comment, it's that what you asked for? igordebraga ≠ 14:13, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hi igordebraga. On the use of Rotten Tomatoes, I feel it may be best to exclude mention of it altogether for this film. At Wikiproject Films, we've run into numerous examples where Rotten Tomatoes scores for films made before the site became active do not reflect the critical consensus the films received at their time of release. The website is most useful for gauging reaction for films released in the 2000s and beyond, as most of these are easily locatable online, presenting a more clearly defined critical reaction. However, before the site took off, reviews were not usually available online (all individual reviews in this case would have been in print sources). This means that "Tomatometer" scores for these films are typically skewed, and may, at best, only reflect modern-day critics' opinions, with just a few archived versions of the older print reviews thrown in for good measure, and in such a limited way that they do not return the score to a point where it would reflect the true consensus of the time. As an example, take Alien, which has a 97% score on the site, but which had a rather mixed critical reaction in '79. Similarly, Fight Club, which polarised critics in 1999, but now posts a healthy 81% score, perhaps partly due to a gradual reappraisal over time. I don't think removal of the source would be to the article's detriment; I find it very difficult to believe that such an influential film as Jaws has not had its critical reaction, at the time and in years subsequent, summarised in higher-quality sources. All the best, Steve T • C 23:09, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Hi. I see you've removed the Rotten Tomatoes citation; that's good. However, I believe you've made a mistake with the replacement. Currently, the article says, "The film received universal acclaim", cited to the McBride book (pp. 255–256). However, those pages actually state that "Critical opinion on the film was wildly divergent", before going on to give a rough cross section of opinion at the time, how Universal dealt with that, and the effect on Spielberg. All the best, Steve T • C 20:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Changed again. (my other research showed that while the film had critics, it was mostly positive, the dissidents were just really polarized). — Preceding unsigned comment added by igordebraga (talk • contribs)
          • It seems odd to eliminate McBride entirely on this point, and could come across as cherry-picking conflicting sources to present a desirable narrative. You deem him reliable on 22 other occasions, but not here? On a related note, do you think it would be a good idea to show how Jaws' critical regard has changed over time, especially if the McBride view turns out to be the most accurate? There's little doubt that the film today is praised by a majority of critics; it's on this point that, carefully deployed, Rotten Tomatoes may be of use, in support of a higher quality source ("Based on n reviews collected between the years 2000 and 2009 ...") Steve T • C 00:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Returned the two negative reviews discussed on McBride (while adding a positive one). Most contemporary reviews I found were positive (even though I found 6 that had at least one complaint so far!), so there was no change of opinions. igordebraga ≠ 20:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nikkimaria: all the three sources you raised were removed or replaced. Are there any more examples that you question? igordebraga ≠ 14:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment First off, igordebraga, thanks for taking this subject on. Love or loath the effect it had, Jaws is one of the most important movies in Hollywood--arguably world cinema--history. And it looks like you've done a lot of good research. However, I am seeing issues with the prose throughout. Rather than go back and forth over dozens of words and phrases here, if you're amenable, what I'd like to do is go in and copyedit it over the course of the week, reserving this space for any substantive questions that come up in that process. Let me know how you feel about that. DocKino (talk) 02:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Considering I even put this article at the GOCE requests, I will be most thankful for your copyedit. Go for it. igordebraga ≠ 02:59, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "Box office performance", we read, "It is currently the 94th highest grossing film of all time with $470 million worldwide, and the 57th highest domestically with a total North American gross of $260 million." That's true, valuable, but not all that notable. I believe the film still ranks very highly when its box office figures are adjusted for inflation, a common manner of film history analysis. Could you locate and add the inflation-adjusted figures and rankings? (talk) 04:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I did - though at the time I had done so, Box Office Mojo removed the adjusted gross and listed only the tickets sold (which is described in the following sentence...). Expanded.
  • In "Development", we read, "A small card gave a detailed description of the plot [of Benchley's novel], concluding with the comment 'might make a good movie'." Um..."a small card"? Does any historian indicate, or even suggest, the source of this crucial card? We need to deal with the issue of who produced this card, even if we can't definitively determine who did...though maybe we can. At any rate, we definitely need more here. [edited to describe card as of "unknown origin"] DocKino (talk) 08:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've seen Brown telling the story in a documentary, but seems he never found out.
  • Okay, two more things on box office: (1) "During its first weekend, it grossed more than $7 million, and it was the top grosser for the following five weeks." Box Office Mojo is good for the first part of that, but not too strong for the second. It shows data for weeks 1-4, then skips 5, and shows week 6. Also, i wouldn't be surprised if Jaws was number 1 for even longer than 5 (or 6) weeks. Can you hit some of the higher-quality sources to nail this down? (2) "The release was subsequently expanded on July 25 to a total of 675 theaters, the largest simultaneous distribution of a film in motion picture history at the time." Again, Box Office Mojo is fine for the first part of this, but I don't see any sourcing for the claim that it was "the largest simultaneous distribution of a film in motion picture history at the time". That's obviously crucial, and needs a good, clear source. DocKino (talk) 22:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. Generally the prose is good. Here are a few comments from the lead and first few sections.

  • Slight change of nuance, so up to you, but I'd remove the opening comma. (Again, this is not relevant to the delegates' decision, like all personal pref. comments.)
  • Opening: "high-concept" film, but the linked article on this is most unsatisfactory, and is tagged as such. I don't see reliable sources and I've not heard of the concept. It doesn't ring true to me. Where are the ROs?
  • I suppose there's no alternative to the sexist "man-eating", is there? Women are safe in the water? Maybe there is no alternative. We used not to worry about these terms, but they're increasingly coming into question.
    • Guess there's no alternative to man-eater. And God, I hate political correctness.
  • Personal pref: "utilizing" is pretty ugly. What about plain English "using"?
  • "ominous yet subdued" ... would "ominous" be enough? I'm unsure whether such a threatening theme is subdued in the minds of the viewers. What do you think?
    • Minimalistic is enough? (after all, we have to point out the theme is threatening because it is simple!)
  • "and became the highest-grossing".
  • "the soundtrack" (that would remove another of the many "it"s and "its"s).
  • Consider removing the comma: "that to maximize"
  • OMG, $9M investment brought in $471M???? The good old days.
  • Logic ... sorry to be fussy: "only to be dragged back and forth violently and then under the water". So the dragging under the water wasn't violent? Your recasting may find a way of omitting "then", or may not.
  • "the trio try"—it's ok. You might try avoiding the t t. "the trio attempted a". Not sure.
  • Commas: the shorter the sentence and the more commas already hanging about, the less likely you are to add an optional comma: "A small card, of unknown origin, gave a detailed description of the plot, concluding with the comment "might make a good movie". Why not remove the first two? Flow needs to be balanced.
  • "pages" is odd here: "The script pages were mostly finished the night before the scenes were shot". Perhaps "the script for each scene was typically finished the ..."?
  • Personal pref.: "Nine days prior to the start of production"—plainer as "before"?
  • Could we have the pics (after the top one) a bit bigger? 240px or 250px means the readers don't have to squint to see detail-rich scenes such as the fishing village. I boosted a couple: up to you. Tony (talk) 09:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Media review

  • File:JAWS Movie poster.jpg is too large. Reduce the resolution.
  • File:JawsJohnWilliams.ogg is of too high a quality. Reduce (when exporting in Audacity, click on options and set quality to 0). Is the name of the sampled song "Main Title and First Victim"? If so, include that in the article/sample header. Also, the full stop/period of the audio sample caption should be removed per WP:CAPTION.

—Andrewstalk 10:58, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Nice to see it continuing to improve.

  • So after some copyedits, we have "Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, producers at Universal Pictures, independently heard about Peter Benchley's novel Jaws." That's good. Then we have the interesting story of how Brown came across it. Great. But on reflection, it's a bit odd not to also explain how Zanuck first came across it. If any of the sources provide that information, it should be included, however briefly. DocKino (talk) 06:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, you're using a system for book citations where you have a short ref in "References" and then the full citation in "Bibliography". Great. Except you have another 13 or so full-length book sources in "References". You're going to have to move all of those down into the "Bibliography" and replace them with consistently styled short refs up above. Yes, I understand the idea was not to include books in the "Bibliography" that are cited only once, but in addition to that being an odd idea to begin with, it virtually never works in practice. For instance, there are at least two books currently in the "Bibliography" that are only cited once, and two books that are not in the "Bibliography" that are cited more than once (Wyatt and Muir). So let's be consistent and get them all down there. Once you've done that, I'll do a copyediting pass to ensure the formatting's good and consistent. DocKino (talk) 19:56, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All of my foregoing comments/questions have been addressed. If you'd like me to strike them out, igordebraga, let me know. Here's two more, and they're pretty substantial.

  • With all due respect to "Bruce" the shark, Jaws has three human stars, and it's weird that we're giving readers no idea what any of them look like in this film. An image with Scheider, Dreyfuss, and Shaw in costume (or at least two of them) would be very informative to our audience. See, for example, the group in-costume shots in the Featured Articles Tender Mercies and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. (And note that in both of those cases, the infoboxed poster already gives some minimal clue as to what the lead characters look like--the Jaws poster doesn't even do that.) The article simply doesn't rise to FA quality without this vital visual information.
  • I'm all in favor of citing audiovisual sources, but they need to be cited diligently. There are 25 citations of Spotlight on Location: The Making of Jaws, a documentary that appears on the 30th-anniversary edition of the Jaws DVD, yet none of these give an approximate time marker. That's very much like citing a book without giving a page number, and that's referencing unworthy of FA status. (Similarly, there's four untimed citations of Jaws: The Inside Story, a Biography Channel documentary.) In the Featured Article Sex Pistols, for instance, I cite both the movie The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and director Julien Temple's DVD commentary on it multiple times, on each occasion giving a time marker. In the Tender Mercies FA, you'll find two citations that also follow this standard. Do you have access to the 30th-anniversary DVD to do proper citing? I guarantee you that this effort will improve the article and almost certainly correct some errors, large or small. (I've found, for instance, misquotations--none major, yet--from printed sources in the article. If those exist, and they do, you can be darn sure there are misquotations from untimed DVD refs.) I'm more than ready to help out. I've ordered the 30th-anniversary DVD from my local library and hope to have it in a few days. But I don't wish to verify and time all 25 citations alone... DocKino (talk) 09:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've moved the image you added from the "Cast" section to the "Casting" subsection for one major reason--I think the "Cast" section should go. While simple actor/role lists with no additional info such as this were once standard-issue in Wikipedia movie articles, it seems clear that they are no longer regarded as representative of our best style. Over the past year, three movie articles (Conan the Barbarian, Into Temptation, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) from three different nominators (Jappalang, Hunter Kahn, David Fuchs) have achieved FA status; none has this sort of blank cast list. I know the aforementioned Tender Mercies, the most recent movie article FA with which I was substantially involved, doesn't have one either. (If there's one area where we'll never outcompete IMDb, it's in these sorts of raw name lists--so it's little loss if we leave that field to them.) I believe the thing to do is simply cut the section, and see if you can add a paragraph to "Casting" covering whatever there is to find relevant to Jaws concerning the actors who aren't already mentioned in the section (Gary, Shaw, Scheider, Dreyfuss). I would think there's a decent chance of finding material on the four other performers who are well-known enough to have Wikipedia articles--Hamilton, Gottleib, Kramer, Backlinie. (Benchley's small onscreen role is covered sufficiently in "Writing"). The article will better represent our best style, be more informative, and look tighter, too. DocKino (talk) 06:18, 26 January 2012 (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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