Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Astronaut (2)

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Astronaut

Yeah, so, I got a surprise VFH nom, which it is about to fail at. It got comments such as "not yet" and "Didn't find it funny." Apparently, I have some work to do before I can get it to feature status. And advice will be considered, and thank you. Staircase CUN^t 05:06, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Surprised to see you back here with this one again Stairs, I read the VFH, tough break. I think what is important to consider as your review shuffles ever closer to reviewness is that you could have written the best article ever conceived and really poured your heart and soul in, and you would still get people on VFH who would say that they couldn't get into the article or that it wasn't amusing. Remember that an article does not have to be featured to be considered a success, I remember enjoying reading and reviewing your article last time, and surely that is the point. If you still want the review it would be my personal pleasure and undoubtedly somebody else's to do it for you. --ChiefjusticeDS 18:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd love for you to review this, but as last time you never really said anything needed to be improved. I'm looking for another opinion, not saying yours is bad, but I want to see if they noticed anything that you didn't or if they think differently than you. Staircase CUN^t 00:15, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll give it a go if you want Staircase, I have plenty of spare time at the moment so I'll give it a in-depth review tomorrow if you like? --El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 19:01, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Go ahead. Staircase CUN^t 19:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

K, I had a read through last night, will have another read in a bit, then I'll pee all over it later this evening --El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 14:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, review time (it's quite late here so expect shedloads of seplling and/or grammar error). I'll just start off by saying that, to be honest, I didn't find the concept to be particularly ingenious but, for the purpose of a decent review, I will ignore my own personal taste and try to approach and criticise objectively within the current framework (so you might actually want to also get the opinion of someone who DOES like the concept itself, apart from Chiefjustice, and get a fresh opinion from them if mine is not satisfactory). Anyway here goes: Reviewed postponed for sleep, sorry, I know it's seriously lame of me, I promise you a decent review soon...

Humour:	7	OK, I'll go over each paragraph in turn. The Intro starts well, the first line is snappy and to the point. I think it could be improved if you link the "Naut" etymology to some other English words like "naughty" or even just "nought" (a nothing, the status we grant criminals) but try to make it as authentic as possible because a lot of readers will just think this is a bit silly, since "naut" obviously means "explorer" (i think, as in "psychonaut", or something...) so you really should make the link more authentic. Spinning a realistic-sounding story would certainly make this funnier for me anyway. I do like your delivery on these lines that would seem to go against the reality of what it really is to be an astronaut in a very blunt manner. In Characteristics of an Astronaut you continue the anti-astronaut tirade, which is cool, I guess (it's not my type of humour tbh, but more of that on Concept), and you then start backing it up with some decent anecdotes that carry well. The reasoning for NASA's choice for pilots is funny, it's not quite logical, but I'll get to that under Concept again. The second clause in the sentence about prejudice seems unnecessary, I mean the bit where it specifies airline pilots. Why include this when you then say, "but this is not always the case"? This is fine if you first give a funny example of prejudice or something, otherwise I would get rid of it, it's just an unnecessary detail that breaks up the flow of the article. Also I would get rid of the line about thinking "anything outside of their Utopian society is wrong", or at least re-word it or add "perceived" before "Utopian", we clearly don't live in a Utopian society (but you can mock this perception, perhaps with some obvious sarcasm or something), so this breaks it up for me. Lol @ "they defy gravity" in front of our children", this is a very good line and in general I wouldn't mind if the article was half the length if it had lines like this in. Unfortunately it's ruined by "they have to wear special suits to live in space", I don't get this joke, it's just a fact isn't it? I prefer the jokes where some kind of morality or values are challenged and the holder of said value expresses some ridiculous concern. Thankfully the xenomorph line gets the funny back. Is the last line a reference to a film? I assume it's just Alien, but I think the "special suits" makes it less funny, don't astronauts always where special suits? Ok in Equipment the first line is good, but I would make it "Astronauts have to wear severely restrictive spacesuits and operate a series of very complicated machines in order in live and complete their missions in space" or something similar, just to create a funnier visual image and to add to the authenticity (they don't WEAR machines obviously). I would add an "Obviously," in front of the following sentence and change the link to "spacecraft" just to help the rhythm a little (I know I'm writing about Concept and Prose in here occasionally, but really these categorisations can be quite restrictive). Further down, I would change "two times more" to "twice as", for rhythm again. The last paragraph in this section is very good, only the wording lets you down. In fact this is a fairly common trend, WHAT you have to say is funny, but HOW you say it tends to lose a lot of the humour. In Missions you have more good humour, some unnecessary links make it a little ugly for me and the wording could be better, but otherwise funny. Actually, for this section (which is overly long for the material) I think it would be funnier if you made it snappy, maybe a bulletpoint list of the things that have gone wrong with these manned missions. The material is good, if a little repetitive, it just, as does much of the article, needs to be snappier and more interesting to read. Mix the forms of representation more, not just the same boring 3rd person paragraphs... put some bullet points, some interviews with these astronauts or their families, or the people in charge, basically some justification for the article so it doesn't seem quite so random. In The New Astronauts I think the concluding sentence just about justifies the rest of it, but once again the problem is wording. If you want any help with wording it in a more fluid manner, something that has a better rhythm, I'd be glad to help. It's good to have a fatalist conclusion to this section, in general comedy works best if things return to the status quo, whatever you decide that is, at the end. In Astronauts Today there is a good reference to the AIDS Space Program. Linking to other funny articles is something you definitely should do, rather than including so many links to half-arsed articles no-one really cares about. If you do link to half-arsed articles no-one really cares about, make sure you do it consistently throughout the article. This final paragraph is good generally, I like the line about Americans supporting it for getting rid of homeless people, perhaps you should make more of this earlier in the article?
Concept:	7	I gave it an 7 because if you can pull it off, it would be pretty good. Although I doubt you can make it a 10, a 9 is more likely, at the moment I'll give it a 7.5 which is half way between what I think of it now (a 5) and its potential mark. The only real drawbacks for me are that it seems a bit like a one-trick pony, there's no real depth to it. It's just about how stupid, stoned and drunk astronauts are. The real funny is in that first sentence when the readers preconceptions of an astronaut are radically challenged by what you tell them to believe. Unfortunately after that it feels like it's kind of dragging on a bit, making the same point over and over again before just becoming absurd. From a subjective point of view, this would be fine, like someone trying to persuade you astronauts are stupid, for whatever reason, or if it was part of some whackjobs conspiracy theories, but as a definitive objective account of astronauts, it just feels very shallow. This shallowness can be reversed however if you lose the ad hominem elements (like insulting them directly), make the article more concise and to the point (we don't need such repeated detailed accounts, one will do, the rest can be bulletpoints) and change the narrator more often. Perhaps you should emphasise the reasons for choosing hobos/criminals (this is a bit of a non-sequitur, that the criminals you originally talk about suddenly become hobos), like this is a form of penal colony? Include an interview or two, a letter from a drunk to his ashamed mother upon completing a moon landing (by accident) or something, some views from the general public, a newspaper cutting, whatever, just mix the media up a little bit more so its not just paragraph after paragraph. The main problem with the concept for me (which probably can't be avoiding, and hence is why I feel you must emphasise the absurdist aspect) is that surely NASA have ultimate responsibility and hence this kind of thing would never happen in the first place. The public wouldn't just blame the hobos.
Prose and formatting:	6	The prose isn't good enough for it to be featured yet sadly, I've talked about this before. It doesn't flow too well and there are quite a lot of spelling mistakes and random capitalisations (I'll go through and edit them out when I've finished this review if you want). This is what loses some of the humour, the writing just needs to be a little less dull. Perhaps the bottom three sections need to be re-examined and re-structured too, the reader needs to be clear about why each section exists and what it is meant to be telling him, which he is for the first few, but the latter half is a bit messy.
Images:	4	Sorry, perhaps I'm an idealist (with a very low attention span) but I really value images in these articles, they always really support the message of the article itself. The first one is decent enough, it sets the scene, but the caption isn't funny enough. Since you took the absurd humour option, I would suggest captioning it either like a postcard (photoshop a 6-pack of stella in his hand and say "Commander Blaggard stumbles back from the specially installed Duty-Free" or something, or just write a caption of what he might be saying, in a typically drunken shhhhlurrrrrrrr). Each section should be accompanied by a picture that mirrors and adds to the written description. Perhaps you could include an image of the customised spacesuit, or a NASA attempt at idiot-proofing the space shuttle? I don't mind the explosion one being in there, but it should definitely be in the next section (and with a funnier caption). The caption for the last picture is funnier, it's the perspective of an astronaut on acid, right? I like this one. Yeah, so just get more pics in, it really just goes along with the mixed media thing I said further up. Change the perspectives around a little more.
Miscellaneous:	6	The average. Unsurprisingly, given I've already said far too much, I have nothing to say here.
Final Score:	30	Sorry if my review has come across a bit harsh I just think this article has a lot of potential as an absurd piece, which is why I think you should make it more dramatic and less sterile. I'm trying to be as pedantic as possible really and if you do want any help with it, just leave a message on my talk page and I'll try to lend a hand. It won't be a lot of the VFH crowd's kind of article, so i can't guarantee that it will be featured, but I for one think this article can definitely go places. Galaxies far far away and such--El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 20:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Reviewer:	--El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 20:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I should just add that if you dont want to change any of the actual concept, thats fine, but I would suggest cutting it by around a 1/3 and adding some more pics if you choose to go with it as it is--El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 21:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Also I realise that I may contradict myself a little in the review, but think of it more as a brainstorm of ideas, rather than one united argument, I hope something in it can be of use anyway--El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 21:25, 4 August 2009 (UTC)