Wikipedia:Peer review/Manhunter (film)/archive1

Manhunter (film)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because, although relatively new to the assessment side of Wikipedia, I have hopes of eventually bringing this article up to FA status (it's C-class at the minute), and have never been very good at working solely from criteria lists - as such, I'd greatly appreciate any critical eyes cast over the article for weak points to shore up, areas to expand or add, and identifying which parts, if any, should definitely be retained as they are. Of course, I know to take these things a step at a time, so the current yard-stick I'm hoping to measure up against is GA status, rather than FA status, for now. Even a few pointers or criticisms would help to identify where to focus next, so I'm not expecting or requiring anything too in-depth.

Thanks, GRAPPLE X 16:22, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments from Belovedfreak

Hi Grapple X, this looks pretty good so far, but needs a bit more work to get to GA, I think. I have seen this film, but a long time ago, so I'm not very familiar with the plot. Hopefully that will help here. I'll go through each section and make comments.

Infobox

• I'm not quite sure why there's a reference added to the image caption. I haven't seen that before in a film article. You don't need to add a source in the article as it's sourced on the image page.
• The image rationale etc looks fine.
• Would you really say that there are five "stars" of the film? I can't really remember how prominent the characters are other than Graham. Something to think about.
• You can now add a location to the release date parameter in the infobox. You can do this with {{Film date|Year|Month|Day|Location}}
• You can also add the | studio = parameter now
• You don't need the {{Other uses}} template. The article title is already disambiguated, so readers shouldn't accidentally end up there looking for a different Manhunter.

Lead

• Consider stating that it is an American film, not all are... (don't link "American" though)
• I see you expanded the lead a bit. It still needs a bit more, to adequately summarise the main points of the rest of the article. It certainly needs some details on production, release and reception.
• "Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor (Hannibal Lecter in the novel)" seems slightly awkward to me. Perhaps just "Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor"? I'm not sure you need to mention the spelling change in the lead. Although readers may be expecting a different spelling, it's still basically the same name.
• Perhaps make it a bit clearer that this is the first of a series of films to feature Hannibal Lector (although, I believe Silence of the Lambs was not considered a sequel to this one?). Or, the first film adaptation of one of Harris' Hannibal novels. Readers may well be more familiar with Silence and the more recent films.
• Is Red Dragon considered a remake of this film? If so, that could be clearer in the lead.
• Having mentioned the above, I don't think you need to state (in the lead) that the cinematographer also worked on Red Dragon. It's interesting, but I wouldn't say it's one of the major points of this article.
• "Manhunter deals with the FBI manhunt..." - "deals with" sounds slightly awkward here, to me. Perhaps "Manhunter follows..." or start it with "William Peterson plays Will Graham, an FBI profiler who..." or something like that.
• You have a hyphen which should be an em dash (WP:DASH). Also, the dash/hyphen seems to be parenthetical, but is paired with a comma: "...lend his talents to the case - and in doing so, must confront..." - either use two dashes or two commas, not one of each.
• Will Graham and The Tooth Fairy can be linked in the lead

Plot

• The plot is a little long and, per MOS:FILM, should ideally be 400-700 words long. This isn't an unusually complex plot, so shouldn't need to be any longer. To be honest, I think there's a bit of wordiness, and a bit too much detail in places, that could be cut without hurting the meaning.
• Some of the language used is a little informal or colloquial, eg. "figuring", "spook", "checks in on", "frazzled"
• The first sentence doesn't quite work for me. Its a little unwieldy. Maybe start by just saying who Will Graham is in that first sentence without introducing the plot. Eg. "Will Graham (Peterson) is a former FBI criminal profiler who ..." rather than "Will Graham, who blah blah blah, sat down with Jack Crawford and xyz." Save the new plot for the next sentence. (Hope that's clear!) Don't forget to mention at the beginning that they're FBI.
• "cannibal serial killer" → "cannibalistic serial killer"
• "is seated on the beach" is an example of extra detail you don't need. You don't need to describe every scene, only include what is needed to understand the plot.
• You might also consider starting with Crawford. Say who he is, what role he plays in the FBI and then go on to say that he visits former profiler Graham to ask him.... etc.
• Although not vital to the plot, it might be interesting just to mention why the killer has been dubbed the Tooth Fairy.
• "...after Graham's insight revealed that the killer opened the corpses' eyes with his bare hands" - not sure you need this as the killer opening their eyes isn't mentioned again. In fact, the fingerprint isn't either, and I'm not sure the plot would suffer by losing that sentence altogether. If you keep it, I'm not sure that fingerprints are "extracted". "Lifted" perhaps.
• I think it needs to be made clearer why Graham visits Lektor for help, ie. that he is a brilliant psychiatrist as well as serial killer.
• Do we need to know that Lounds is photographing Graham? I can't remember how important it is to the plot, but it doesn't seem vital to the synopsis provided here.
• I'm not sure that you need to link "manipulate" to phreaking. Readers will get the gist of what's gone on, and specialist knowledge isn't required for understanding of the plot.
• "Crawford brings Graham back to Quantico", perhaps "Crawford brings Graham back to the FBI Academy at Quantico"
• National Tattler should be in italics (WP:ITALICS)
• "a homosexual sadist who molests his male victims" - I'm not sure what molest means in this context, it's a bit vague. It's perhaps not necessary either. I think we can gather what a (supposedly) homosexual sadist serial killer might do.
• This is down to personal taste, but I feel there might be a few too many dashes in the article as a whole. Overuse can be a little distracting. Obviously, how many is too many is open to interpretation, but you might consider replacing some with commas or parentheses.
• Is it The Tooth Fairy or the Tooth Fairy? Be consistent.
• "Crawford brings Graham back to Quantico, where a missing section of the note is analyzed to determine what Lecktor has removed – finding an instruction to communicate ..." - this is not quite right, grammatically. What subject does "finding an instruction" apply to?
• "They also include a press photo staged..." - a photo of what? (also, "photo" → "photograph")
• "Lounds is approaching his car when he is kidnapped by the Tooth Fairy..." - simplify to "Lounds is kidnapped by the Tooth Fairy"
• "Waking in Dollarhyde's home..." - who is Dollarhyde? He's not been mentioned yet.
• "At his job in a photography lab..." - make it a bit clearer that he develops home movies, as this is relevant to the plot later.
• "William Blake's Great Red Dragon paintings" - is The part of their name?
• Does Lounds die?
• "A police officer checks in on Graham's family, and the mood is tense when he arrives home." - when who arrives home? Graham, or the police officer?
• "...Graham comes to realize how much Dollarhyde's desire for acceptance ..." - does Graham know Dollarhyde's name at this point, or is it the Tooth Fairy?
• There are two instances of "it's", which should be "it is" (WP:CONTRACTION)
• "Graham returns home to a warm welcome from his wife and son, who have come to terms with his career" - who have come to terms with his career sounds a bit odd, as it's not really been mentioned that they have a problem with it. To be honest, I'd leave the family background stuff out (such as explaining his breakdown to his son) because it's not essential to understanding the plot, and it's difficult to do it justice in the space you have. Just hinting at it might make it more confusing for readers.

Cast

• Consider whether or not a cast list is really necessary as the main cast are already mentioned in the plot and some are mentioned in production. (See MOS:FILM for more on this.

Production

• This section seems a bit disjointed, with short paragraphs of loosely connected facts. If possible, it would be nice to see more information here than there is.
• If you're going to link William Peterson (which would be ok as you haven't done so since the lead), do it on the first occurrence. At the moment it is linked later, and too often.
• "aeroplanes" → "airplanes" (US use)
• "The pool of blood forming around Noonan's character ... was intended to allude to the "Red Dragon" tattoos ... but this shot left Noonan lying in the corn syrup stage blood so long that he became stuck to the floor." - why the "but"? the second fact seems unconnected to the first. Him becoming stuck to the floor has nothing to do with the purpose of having the pool of blood.
• "TV series" → "television series"

Soundtrack

• I'm not sure this image is really necessary and really qualifies under fair use (particularly as it's nearly identical to the film poster), although you may get away with it at a GA review. In any case, the fair use rationale needs beefing up a bit.
• Hyphens in the track listing should be en dashes
• This section is completely unreferenced
• "Currently, the film is ..." - currently is vague, and will date. If I read this in two years, will it still apply?
• Definitely need a source for the film being a cult classic. Can you really view the film almost daily?
• The external link in this section should be unlinked

Reception

• newspaper titles should be in italics (eg. New York Times)

Home media

• The DVD cover is really stretching fair use and should probably be deleted.
• The section could do with more references

Legacy

• "it experienced something of a revival " - Silence of the Lambs? Or Manhunter?
• I think the films that followed this one could be mentioned more explicitly, even if Manhunter is not considered part of the series (and if so, that can be explained).

References

• Dates should be consistent. Pick either iso-format, day month year or month, day year. As it's a US film, I'd go with month, day year.
• Some citations need more information. They should all have dates, publishers and authors where possible. If they are a web-only reference, they need retrieval dates.
• Why does the article use different references for the financial details in the infobox, from those in the reception section? I'd just use the Box Office Mojo ref for all.

External links

• There are too many. You don't need unofficial/fan/commercial sites, and you don't need links for the musicians on the soundtrack. I would lose them all except the first four.

Categories

• It's not at all clear why this is an LGBT-related film.

Ga Criterion 3

• The article needs to be "broad in coverage". While this is less demanding than the "comprehensiveness" required for FA, we still need to make sure that the main aspects are covered. This is of course open to interpretation, but I don't feel that the article's broad enough yet. One thing that stands out is the absence of a section with release details. (Again, check out MOS:FILM for a good overview of how the structure should look.) I would also expect a slightly more developed reception section. There appear to be a large number of reviews available, so some more should be used. I also wonder if there is any usable material in scholarly sources. There seem to be a great number of hits in google scholar and books. It's not clear how many are in depth about the film, and how many just mention it passing, or are more about the director, but it's worth looking into this. I imagine that the film might have been one of the first to focus on criminal profiling/criminal psychology, or at least one of the films that helped popularise the subject. of course, we don't want to add any original research, but it's definitely worth seeing if there is any literature on this. You might feel this is straying more into FA-land, but certainly the release/reception sections should be present and well-developed for GA.

I hope these points help. Let me know if you have any questions. I don't know if this is the first film article you've tried to get to GA, but it's always helpful to read as many other GA and FA articles on similar topics as you can to get a feel for what's required. --BelovedFreak 15:18, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, Belovedfreak. I've addressed as much as I can at the minute - which is everything bar the sountrack album's section (though I did tidy it up), and the last point you mention, the expansion of scope based on GA crit 3 - I have a few things to add when I can source them, regarding award nominations and wins, but my only source so far is IMDB. I'll try to find more scholarly sources for the reception section within the next day or so, in order to flesh that out as well. Thanks again for your pointers, they were a big help. GRAPPLE X 23:15, 27 February 2011 (UTC)