Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/December 22, 2012

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December 22, 2012

Funnybony    21:36, May 14 21:36, May 14, 2010 (UTC)

I'm a bit rusty, but I should be able to get this over the weekend. Monday at the latest. --Black Flamingo 18:52, June 5, 2010 (UTC)

Humour:	6	Ok Funnybony, you have some good stuff here, but on the whole I feel it's underdeveloped. One major problem here is how listy the article becomes in places. Although you don't use the bullet style, a lot of the prose is just a long sequence of names. When you talk about who has predicted the Apocalypse for example, you just run off a bunch of random people: "Nostradamus, Cibyl, The Bible, NASA, the Mayan Calendar, Rock, paper, scissors, Merlin, Houdini, Timothy Leary, William Westmoreland, Ann Landers, and Roland Emmerich." The Advantages and Disadvantages sections are also little more than lists, and the bit on Survivors is the same. As you may already know, lists do not make good humour because they tend to skim over information rather than getting to grips with it. This is the case here, and in fact, is probably your biggest detractor as far as I'm concerned. Don't worry though, there are a couple of great ideas in here that just need a little room to grow. I will go through a few of them and explain where I feel you could improve and why. To start with that first list I mentioned, a lot of the names on here are pretty much random. Something I tell myself when writing is that if the joke can be about anyone, it's probably not worth making. For instance, you mention Merlin and Houdini, who of course have nothing to do with the subject matter of your article. You may as well have said Steven Spielberg or Joseph Goebells - as they are about as relevant as some of the names in your list. I feel the same about the 50 Cent based joke later on in the article. Contrastingly, bringing someone like Roland Emerich into it is a good idea. Clever, even. Emerich has made films about the end of the world, so here you're making a satirical comment about prophecy - blurring the lines between fiction and true seeing. After all, what is the difference between what Nostrodamus' books and Emerich's films? Is there one? They both present a personal vision of the future based on what they think could happen. So anyway, my point is, you're on the right lines there. Ditch the unimaginitive silliness of namechecking random celebs and think about who really is relevant, and what's funny about them. Later in the article you suggest that the dinosaurs prophecised the rise and fall of humanity. Now this too was silly, but I personally thought it worked. It's that kind of so silly it's funny thing, it reminded me of something Eddie Izzard might dream up, which is always a good sign. Randomness isn't always bad, I suppose - it just has to be original. And this is. I'm not sure if this is what you were getting at, but I found it quite an interesting satire of the conception that ancient peoples somehow knew more about the future than we do. Which, of course, is absurd if you think about it. If that wasn't what you were getting at, it might be something to think about as again this idea needs development. Even if you just get one more joke out of it, it's always better than rushing. It's always hard to review an article that you feel needs more content, and obviously I can't tell you what to write. However I want to give you another example where I feel you need to go into more detail, and how to tackle this problem. You talk about blame, for instance, in the When section. You mention the annoyance that all the evidence has been destroyed along with the Earth, as have all the juries, judges etc. The problem here (and it's one that recurs several times) is that you just state everything as fact rather than making any jokes. Let me show you what I mean... Try saying something like: "There was a trial to find the guilty parties, however it was quickly abandoned when we realised that all the evidence had been destroyed along with the Earth, as had all the presiding judges, jurors and solicitors. Not even a court room had survived". While this isn't exactly the height of comedy, it's a good example of how subtlety can make something funnier. Instead of just informing the reader that everything was destroyed (not particularlly funny), it reveals it through a humorous situation, and the idiocy of the narrator, almost as a side note to the story itself. The Movie section suffers from the same problem. While I agree it's funny that people who survived the apocalypse should worry about getting a refund on their cinema tickets, this situation is really more absurd that you give it credit for. I mean, Roland Emerich isn't going to be around to give these refunds in the first place, so perhaps you could draw attention to that if you do go any further with it. I hope you can see what I mean. The main thing to remember is to take your time to explain everything. By doing this you will not only make it easier to understand but you will surely come across more things to poke fun at. As a final note here, I will just mention the opening quote from God. This would be better if you could find somewhere else to put it, somewhere in the main body of the text. Most opening quotes just come off as really bad one liners (to me, anyway), but I reckon you can salvage it in a later section. Perhaps it could be presented as some kind of evidence regarding what happened on that date.
Concept:	6	Ok, my main problem here is that you don't have much of a concept. What is it supposed to be about? At the moment it's just a bunch of random observations vaguely related to the end of the world. Is it a story of sorts that you want to tell? Is this some guy who was mysteriously survived and is passing his time writing an encyclopaedic entry on the subject? I really think you need to figure out who your narrator is, or if you have already, work on getting this across more in the text. Then come up with a finite idea of what this article's going to deal with. Once you've done all this, try to establish it in the opening paragraph. All that's really established there now is that it's the end of the world, and mentions nothing else that your article goes on to deal with. Actually, this leads me to my next point... Your intro states explicitly that the apocalypse was a mysterious event about which nothing is known. You very quickly contradict this however, as the rest of your article is about precisely that - what happened, how, why and to whom. You definitely need to sort this out if you want your article to make any sense. I personally like the idea of it being unknown, as I think it's quite original and funny. However this would require a lot of work on your part to get the rest of the text in line, as you'd have to rewrite a great deal of it. The other option would be to change your intro to make it clear that it is about the apocalypse, then present the facts. This would be less funny in my opinion, as it's more of a standard model. Of course, it's up to you where you go. Also, I don't think I'd miss the rambling section on the Soul. As I say above, the 50 Cent and the Song of God jokes are too random and silly, and if anything it deviates from what your article is about. It comes out of nowhere and doesn't add anything. This article isn't about the soul, it's about a calendar date.
Prose and formatting:	6	Now, while spelling and grammar are pretty much fine, I do have a couple of problems here. Your rushed style of writing is the main cause of these problems I feel, and some of it is quite difficult to follow as a result. Your opening lines for example, "GAD! Frightfully sorry," is a mystery to me. I can't figure out quite what these words are doing there, nor what you mean by them. The fact that it was coloured red also threw me, but I assume that this is one of your signature "little flourishes" (which I will get to later). I like the laid back and chatty style of the narrator, and think it suits the topic well. However at times this seems more clumsy than anything. For instance when you say "as predicted by the Discovery Channel" - this is a great joke but it's hard to read. It sounds like you're midway through a sentence when it's supposed to be the start of a new one. Instead, try "This has been predicted by the Discovery Channel," it's clearer and a full, proper sentence. Also, when you make the joke about Catholics being in limbo, what do you mean by this? If your reader has to struggle to understand what you're saying they are probably unlikely to laugh at the jokes. I'll be honest, the Survivors section is the weakest part of your article. I didn't really get any of it. Again it's listy and full of random humour, but the main problem is that I couldn't understand what you were trying to say. What's all this "on" business? What do you mean that Mr T is "on" pity, and Superman is "on" Jimmy Olsen? You can refer to my comments in humour to sort a lot of this out, but again I'll just say that it needs clarification. There is also some confusion here regarding tense, it's a bit all over the place. Figure out what perspective you're writing from. Has the end of the world already happened, or not? At times you refer to it being in the future ("whatever happens," which implies it hasn't happened yet), the present ("this is it!") and the past ("there isn't a single witness left", which implied it has already happened). These are examples just from your intro. I get the impression it's supposed to be written after the apocaylpse, but whatever the case, try to stay consistent with it. The way it is now, it even ruins some of the humour. Where you say "on Dec 22 the History Channel is history!" for instance, doesn't make much sense, spoiling an otherwise fine joke. Should it just be "the History Channel is history", because it's after the apocalypse? Or "on Dec 22 the History Channel will be history" because it hasn't happened yet? You mix the two up, it seems, and the joke loses its flow. Now when it comes to formatting, I'm not sure what to suggest. You regularly use italics and bold at random intervals throughout your text, and often I can't figure out why. This makes everything look quite scruffy, I feel. I remember complaining about this last time I reviewed an article of yours. Ultimately it's up to you how you format it, and maybe I should just stop complaining and come to accept that it's just something you do. After all, we all have our own ideas about what an article should look like. I guess I'll leave it at that. For grammar, just a quick note - the plural of millenium is millenia. In your History section, you say "milleniums".
Images:	6	Your images are ok, but I can appreciate how difficult it must have been to find pictures for this article. Generally, I think that if you establish a better concept/narrator, more ideas for images will hopefully come to you. I really like the one of the Earth blowing up, more stuff like this would be good. Some of your captions suffer from the same rushed, hard to understand style I've mentioned already. The caption for the "welcome to nowhere" pic for instance, doesn't make sense. What do you mean "this is what you have"? - I didn't get that. Also, what do you mean "depending on which race you were"? Do you mean there's still segregation in the afterlife? You need to explain yourself here, because again you're just rushing through good material, ruining it in the process. The pictures themselves are fine, except for one. Your movie poster doesn't look anything like a movie poster. If you don't have any 'chopping skills yourself, you can always get the people over at RadicalX's corner to do one for you. Conceptually, the image is fine, it just looks ameteurish.
Miscellaneous:	6.5	I'll give you a 6.5 here because despite your other scores being lower, there is something about this that I like. It has potential. However, one other thing I'll say is that it seems you're whoring your article on voidism a bit too much. There are, like, 5 links to it in the article, most of which aren't all that relevant. While there's nothing technically wrong with this, my main gripe is that you don't really explain at any point what Voidism is. Just something to think about.
Final Score:	30.5	Ok, so again your main problem here is lack of detail and the rushing. Hopefully with my comments you'll be able to sort this out, but if you do have anything else you want me to take a look at, let me know and I'd be happy to. With a bit of work I definitely think this could be another feature for you, so good luck with whatever decisions you make.
Reviewer:	--Black Flamingo 14:33, June 6, 2010 (UTC)