Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Fire
Fire[edit source]
I rewrote this previously terrible article quite some time ago. I forgot about it and now I want a review, please. Thanks! • • • Necropaxx (T) {~} 22:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
|
A big mug o' reviewin' strength tea? Why, that must mean this article is being reviewed by: UU - natter  (While you're welcome to review it as well, you might like to consider helping someone else instead). (Also, if the review hasn't been finished within 24 hours of this tag appearing, feel free to remove it or clout UU athwart the ear'ole). |
Here goes. --UU - natter 08:27, Oct 11
| Humour: | 6.5 | This is an interesting one to score, because there are some good ideas and lines in here, but there are also some bits that had me frowning somewhat - it doesn't feel that cohesive. Looking at the history, that's probably due to the number of contributors, but I think this needs to be a bit more clearly defined.
So, what works? Well, referencing the Promethean legend is good (perhaps have a little more fun with his punishment?); the uses of fire are good, and I particularly like the "extreme" bit (but they are buried away a bit - give this its own section, helping with the whole "expansion" thing I'll be mentioning soon); and the "so pretty" section is good for what it is, although it feels incongruous, as you kind of go into it with no warning, hence the comment about cohesion earlier. And what doesn't work? Well, I'm not a fan of that intro. For a start, 3 quotes is a little too much. And having Edison in there makes no sense, and not in a good way - it just feels random. Much better to hold up Ugg as the Edison of his day, and possibly have fun with the idea of how the caveman community reacted to his discovery (cave paintings as the scientific journals of the day? whatever). Not crazy about the wife burning either - seems tacked in there for no reason - might work better if you'd established the wife already as a nagging, shrewish type through her reactions to Ugg's invention, or her nagging him to invent something that would help her with the housework or something, but I don't really see the need for it here. And then there's that long, random thing about being chased. I gave up reading that due to the weight of random - the absurd can be very funny, but if you go too far, it's just random. Oh, and that bit about the Ohio players feels totally out of place, but that was added recently by an IP by the looks of it. So that's about half what you have there working, and the rest I'm not sure about. So what can you do? Well, you can prune out the chaff, and expand what's left. There are ways you can go. Make the uses of fire bit a section in its own right, and expand it - I'm sure you can think of more fun things to do with it. And after the intro, you could start with a section detailing life before fire, to explain why it was so needed. Perhaps there were all these other inventions that were just waiting for fire to come along? Some enterprising cavemen had invented cigarettes, or joints, or whatever, and were just waiting for something to arrive to allow them to use these inventions? ("We know these will make us feel good if we can get them inside us somehow, but eating them feels weird - if only there were a way to convert them to smoke, so we could inhale them! Shame such an idea is pure science fiction!" - that kind of thing). Also, if you're gonna have the narrator collapse into a pyromaniac, you'll need to set that up a little - hint at it in the prose leading up to that section. Having that section come out of the blue just seems odd - it jars, and feels like it's been pasted in from something else. So drop a few little hints in the article before this. I hate to name-drop my own articles (no, really) but the only example of this I can think of off the top of my head is Bubble Wrap. I'm not suggesting you do it in the same fashion, but it illustrates what I mean about setting it up. |
| Concept: | 6 | I'm going with a 6 here because it doesn't feel like there's a consistent central idea here, again, probably due to the number of different contributors. Fire is, of course, a great subject for an article, and you mine some of the potential, but I think you need to spend more time making it really consistent. See the above comments. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | No real spelling problems (except "solidiers"), so the score here is mainly affected by that sudden surge of random, and the inconsistency in the voice (sorry to harp on about that). Address the points above, and I'm confident this bit'll follow. |
| Images: | 8 | Plenty of them, relevant to the article, not intrusive, fine. Several even work with the accompanying text, which is good. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6.9 | Averaged. Again. |
| Final Score: | 34.4 | The main thing to say here is that this is an article with potential. And you, Necropaxx, are a good writer. What I see here is some good ideas in need of a little coherence, and some bits in need of a pruning. Give it a bit of attention, have fun with it, and see where it takes you.
Hope this helps. Don't forget - this is only my opinion, and others are available. Good luck! |
| Reviewer: | --UU - natter 09:14, Oct 11
| |