Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/G-Rex (Sog & Fbony)
G-Rex [edit source]
| Humour: | 6.5 | Hi guys. Ok, so there are some really good ideas in here. To be honest though, at the moment it does feel a bit like a first draft. This is for a few reasons; one of which is that the article can be rather inconsistent at times. There are also times when it gets a bit too random or silly. I should also probably point out that I have a problem with any article that focuses on how "awesome" something is, especially if that awesomeness is fictional. It always reminds me a little of the Chuck Norris Facts craze, and is a kind of humour that overdone on the internet in general. Make of that what you will.
Now I realise the concept as a whole is "out there", but I'll talk about that in the concept section. For now, let's just look at some of the specific jokes that in my opinion are too random or silly to work. References to Alfred E. Neuman don't really have a place here. What does he have to do with palaeontology? It's also a bit of a silly thing to determine; that a creature is an idiot because it has a massive tooth - it makes no sense. The obviously made-up Shakespeare quote is the same; it's just a bit too silly to be funny in my view. For the most part the article takes quite a dry approach, and this is definitely something I recommend you maintain, and jokes like this just distract from that and make the whole thing look unprofessional. As for inconsistency, there are a couple of jokes in there that contradict what you've said previously, or simply don't fit in with the overall tone and concept of the article. The joke about them being made of glucose, while mildly amusing, is such an example. I suppose it's not so bad as a throwaway reference, but it definitely sticks out. It's up to you what you do with it obviously; I'm just pointing things out. There's also the joke about the "stoned age", which again is fairly funny, but does break the flow and tone a little. Perhaps this one would work better as a footnote? The part about humans being too small for G-Rex to see doesn't really fit in the section it's in either. I'm not sure what it has to do with evidence, which is what that section is purportedly about. After this short break, you jump right back to the matter at hand. I would either take it out or find a more relevant place for it. Other parts are simply confusing. In the intro for example, you reel off some other large dinosaurs among them the Gigantosaurus which is "thought to have been up to 12m from nose to tail and to have had only limited ability to fly" - the first time I read it I thought this was the G-Rex that the rest of the article talks about, because you don't really introduce it properly. This may need to be made clearer. I don't really understand how the article is proof of the G-Rex's existence either, again that seems a bit of a stretch. It's all very well that the narrator is biased, but they're convincing nobody by saying that as it's simply nonsense. As some rather broad advice, I would suggest you avoid nonsense whenever you can, simply because the subject you're trying to present is scarcely believable. I will move on to concept now as I'm just dying to go into more detail about this... |
| Concept: | 6 | Ok, the way I see it, the G-Rex idea is a bit of a silly one, however the idea of the palaeontologists wanting to go to Las Vegas is quite good; and actually makes the silliness of the dinosaur work because it makes them look desperate. The problem is, I feel that right now the article has way too many ideas in there, which at best makes it seem inconsistent, and at worst unfunny. The way I see it, you need to shift the focus on to just one of your ideas, the most obvious two being:
My favourite idea of the two is the second, as it's quite funny and already has a lot of nicely played jokes within the article. The first, though interesting, doesn't work as well and I can't say I really enjoyed as many of the jokes about it's bigness and oldness due to the fact that they were asking me to suspend my disbelief a little too much. Now I'm not saying you have to totally eradicate one of the ideas, because you can probably keep both without much trouble, but one has to be the focus as I don't think the two ideas really complement each other (one is a fairly satirical real world idea and the other is pure absurdity). So for instance, if you concentrate on the palaeontologists’ holiday idea, you can still have hints that G-Rex was huge, but perhaps play it so it looks like the palaeontologists are just making it up to incite interest in their work. Should you do it this way, I would suggest cutting the parts about it being around before time began - they're so silly I can't see a way to make them work. It really does descend into nonsense at times (eg. you say it's blind because there was no light, so it used its sense of smell to hunt; but why would there be smells if there was no light?) You're already asking us to accept something fictional here - don't push it. It might even work better without the whole "enormous size" thing, but that's up to you, I would always be hesitant in suggesting such a radical change to your article. My only advice with the palaeontologists’ holiday angle is that I would try to avoid directly asking the reader for money. It's just been done so many times before on this site, and, for me, the way it breaks the fourth wall is a bit distracting. If, alternatively, you concentrate on the sillier aspects, I would again suggest you minimise the stuff about the palaeontologists’ trip to Nevada - even more so than in the first example. If you're going to be totally silly, stick with the silliness and don't let up. A silly article like Fire hydrant wouldn't have worked if it had attempted real satire or any semblance of sense. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | A few issues here. I'll just go through one section at a time and give you an overview.
Intro
Only existing trace of G-Rex
Scientific Fact
Some of these problems, particularly the last one about the tone, are repeated at other points throughout the article. Keep an eye out for all of them if and when you revise it. |
| Images: | 9 | I personally love the images, although who wouldn't love a space-shot of a giant dinosaur walking over a diminutive Earth? There aren't really any issues here, but I suppose I would like to see more images, and perhaps a greater variety as well. It all depends on where you intend to go with this, whether you want to juggle the two approaches or narrow it down to one - then you can probably just find more that fit with whatever you end up doing with the article. I only say this because there are a few blank sections where images could go. One note though, the images are another example of how the whole "being around since before creation" thing doesn't make sense - how could G-Rex be on Earth if Earth didn't exist? |
| Miscellaneous: | 6.5 | Overall impressions. |
| Final Score: | 35 | So overall there are some excellent ideas in here, I think they just need sorting out a little. In my opinion, the most important thing to work on here is the concept, it's hard to comment on the humour at this point because humour usually comes after the concept. I would spend some more time developing the foundation of the article, then either resubmit to pee or ask me to take another look. It's up to you of course, if you'd prefer to keep the dual concept you have here, there might always be a way you can make it work. If anyone can clean this up though Funnbony, it's you; I've seen you work such wonders as this so many times in the past. If there's anything I've said here that you want me to explain better, or if you want my opinion on anything I might have missed, please let me know on my talky page and I'll try to help. I hope the review is ok. |
| Reviewer: | --Black Flamingo 12:48, April 25, 2011 (UTC) | |