Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Eric Vale
Someone piss on this, its been awhile now!
Never fear, Underdog is here! (Actually it's just me, but that doesn't sound as cool.) --—John Lydon 17:38, January 5, 2011 (UTC)
Eric Vale[edit source]
The Thriller 02:11, November 27, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 2 | Okay, first thing first here. By looking at some of your other articles like this and this, and the fact you mention it on your user page, it’s fairly obvious that you like to create completely fictional backgrounds in your articles. There is a slight problem with this. When you start to get too far out there (i.e. – Robots suddenly turning into clowns and pedophiles and something about a slut) you begin to lose the reader. Any humor that may have been there is immediately lost in the mass confusion.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love articles that have more fiction than fact, but you have to have some reality tied in as a jumping off point to keep the reader in the loop. For instance, take a look at this article. This is obviously a completely fictional movie that the author dreamed up and created a back story for. What’s the difference, you ask? This author continually references things that any user can relate to. For instance, the author tells us that someone made a 30 minute long film about the life of a sperm. That’s a little difficult to believe. He convinces us of this by stating that it was intended to be used as an educational film for pre-teens. Suddenly it seems plausible. Who doesn’t remember those sex Ed films in junior high. That’s what you’re missing here. When you want to take the story out into left field, you need to have some kind of an “anchor” for the reader to hold on to. I would suggest taking some time to really set up a solid intro for the reader to really understand and relate to who Eric Vale is. Only after the use of Google did I understand why there were so many references to Dragon Ball Z, and I’m pretty sure most readers are going to be just as lost as I was on first read through. If you want to pull the reader into this fantasy world, it’s going to take some clever writing. As a reader, I find it hard to wrap my mind around articles written in “future text”. After all, if I’m supposed to believe that Eric Vale is from the future, how can I be reading an article about him now? I know that you’re intention isn’t to pass this article off as reality, but the more you blur that line, the better it will be. I would suggest taking some time in the intro to build a scenario that most readers are going to be able to relate to. Maybe Eric was born in 1965 Kansas, was visited by a mysterious man in his dreams who told him that a robot war was coming and from that day forward devoted his life to inventing a time machine to stop the war. That may not be very good, but it’s a relatable base that allows you to start making that jump to fantasy land. |
| Concept: | 5 | I usually base my concept score on two criteria. How well known is the subject, and how original is the idea. Now I’ve never been one for anime, so it should come as no surprise when I tell you that I’ve never heard of Eric Vale. However, Dragon Ball Z is something that I’ve heard about plenty. As far as the idea behind the article, well I’m not really sure what the idea is. The best I can garner from it is Eric Vale is actually a Dragon Ball Z character. I’m not sure if the article follows the actual Dragon Ball Z story line because, as I said earlier, I don’t watch anime, but it seems like it might. If that’s the case, with some minor tweaking, this could turn out pretty good.
I think it would greatly benefit the article if you could somehow explain how Eric Vale ended up in the storyline. Your idea reminds me somewhat of Back to the Future. Probably because of the time traveling and alternate timeline aspects, but it’s in that ballpark at least. Now imagine if they didn’t explain that Marty had a time machine and the movie just started with him in 1955. It wouldn’t make much sense and that’s basically the point this article is at. As a reader, I want to know why Eric Vale is in the Dragon Ball world, why he’s trying to stop the teenage robots, and how he plans on doing it. To your credit, you do attempt to explain some of these things, but the explanations leave a lot to be desired. For instance, I am told that Eric Vale comes from a world where teenage robots kick his butt daily, and he wants to go back in time to prevent their destruction. What?! So this guy enjoys catching daily beatings? Things like this are what need to be smoothed out in order for this article to work. Finally, I would suggest going a little lighter on the Dragon Ball Z storyline. Maybe it’s just because I’m unfamiliar with it, but I had a hard time following what was going on. I can’t help but bet that the majority of readers are going to be in the same boat as me. If you really want to follow the plot of DBZ, you’re going to have to make sure that you set it up so the average reader can follow along. |
| Prose and formatting: | 1 | This one was a biggie. I noticed that several times throughout the article the point of view and concept completely change. For instance, the intro reads like your standard past tense biography. This is who Eric Vale is, where he was born, etc, etc, etc. No problems. Then, in section two, we jump to a present tense narrative that reads like a movie plot. Finally, at the end, we are thrown into some kind of story telling narrative. Changing the point of view like that is a very easy way to loose a reader. Pick one, and go with it. I would recommend the present tense narrative which would translate well to what I think you’re trying to do with this article. Basically, just pretend that you a narrator in a movie, describing what’s happening to the reader.
Another key thing here is the constant breaking of the fourth wall. That is a huge no-no, or so I’m told. At any rate, it only serves to add to the mass confusion. Finally, spelling errors are abundant throughout this article. I was going to list them, but after counting my way to 34 of them, I gave up. A trip to the Proof Reading Service is definitely in order here. |
| Images: | 5 | The images you do have aren’t bad. I’m not running out into the streets to tell the world about them, but they aren’t bad. I would suggest using a few more just to fill in some of the dead space, especially in section 2. Not sure how familiar you are with Uncyclopedia, but if you have an idea for an image and lack the skills to make it so, the crew over at RadicalX's Corner are wizards with the photo shopping. Just ask them for help if you need it. |
| Miscellaneous: | 3.3 | Averaged Score |
| Final Score: | 16.3 | All in all, what I see here is a fairly good idea with poor execution. Fortunately, the idea part is the hard part. Execution can always be improved upon but a bad idea is just that. Don’t give up hope on this and just ignore the scores for now. They’re just an arbitrary way for author’s to key in on the problem zones quickly. If you can work on the execution of this article it will be a quality piece. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it has the potential to be a keeper for sure. If you need any help or just want to tell me I have no clue want I’m talking about, my talk page can be found here. |
| Reviewer: | --—John Lydon 18:54, January 5, 2011 (UTC) | |