Talk:Mothra vs. Godzilla/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ffranc (talk · contribs) 14:18, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Happy to take this on. I'll post a full review tomorrow if nothing unexpected happens. Ffranc (talk) 14:18, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

• The lead section is currently not written as a summary of the article. Several statements only appear there, especiallly when it comes to the film's place in the Godzilla franchise, and several important sections have no info at all summarised in the lead.

Which important sections you feel are missing? Armegon (talk) 18:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm mainly thinking of Themes, Special effects and Critical response.

• In what way does Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster follow Mothra vs. Godzilla? Does it pick up where the story ended or is it just the next Godzilla film? There are several later films that feature both Godzilla and Mothra, which could be worth mentioning (without listing them all).

It's both a direct sequel to the film (Ghidorah makes references to events in this film) and it is also the next film. Armegon (talk) 18:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

If there are sources for this, it would be good to have it in the article body.

A source has been added to the lead a while back. Additionally, Mothra vs. Godzilla and Ghidorah are part of the Showa era, a single series consisting of 15 films (1, 2). So it's worth noting that the film was followed by the next Godzilla film. Considering the franchise consists of 35 films and many of them belong to their own era (Heisei, Millennium, Reiwa, MonsterVerse). Armegon (talk) 19:41, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• The revenues only appear in a note attached to the infobox. They belong in the article body together with the ticket numbers.
• The plot section would benefit from a little bit more detail. It's currently 367 words long, whereas WP:FILMPLOT recommends 400-700 words for feature films.
• The Shobijin escape and meet with Sakai, Nakanishi and Miura. They explain that the egg belongs to Mothra. It's unclear who "they" are here.
• Basic descriptions of Godzilla and Mothra would be helpful at their first appearances in the plot.
• When Honda first is mentioned in Themes, he should be introduced as the film's director and with his full name. Given the comparison between Godzilla and Mothra, it would also be helpful to mention that he did the original Godzilla film.
• The article relies heavily on quotations and most of them would be better off in paraphrase. Unless the statement itself is discussed in the article, a quotation is mainly useful if it works as illustration, by giving insight into an attitude or a way of reasoning. Many quotations here just deliver normal info about the production.
• For the quotations that are left, make sure there is always a citation to the source right after the sentence that contains the quotation.
• I'm not convinced the Crew list is a good idea. The key people from it are mentioned in prose as well, and crew members not worth bringing up in prose are probably not central enough to be mentioned in an article like this. It's database info rather than encyclopedic info.

WP:PERSONNEL gives precedent to include a crew list, and since it is an effects-driven film, I felt it was appropriate to add a small crew list. Articles like Edge of Tomorrow and Interstellar (where I got the idea from) lists film crew credits in their body and both passed GA nominations with the crew credits retained. I added film crews to Godzilla, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, and Godzilla Raids Again and all three passed GA nominations with the crews retained as well. The crews for effects-driven films where such a crew is essential is notable to note. Armegon (talk) 19:08, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Edge of Tomorrow and Interstellar don't go as deep into the credits as this article does. They list people who are in the infobox plus two or three additional names, all of whom are also mentioned in the prose, so it's clear why they're relevant. The lists still come off as unnecessary but there is a good argument for the information. In this article we have several people who only appear in the list, with no specifics of what they did, and presumably they just followed what the director and special effects director wanted.

• Mention what The Peanuts were and what they were hired to do. Right now it could be read as if they only did promotion for the film, or did the soundtrack.
• Explain what Rolisicans are when they're first mentioned.
• Same as with Honda above, Sekizawa is first introduced in the prose without any explanation of what his role was and without his full name.
• Is there no info available about where and when the film was shot? Or anything else about the filming, other than the special effects and the US-exclusive footage.

No. At least not in the English books and commentaries I own. More than likely, the Japanese books have info like this but I don't speak/read Japanese, nor have direct access to such expensive books. Armegon (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Are the Fairies the same as the Shobijin? This needs to be more clear.
• The plural of larva is larvae.
• Make sure the grammar adds up when you put a quotation in a sentence. For example, Variety commented that the film was a "Japanese sci-fi long on special effects but lacks appeal for general trade" doesn't fully work. Some of this can be solved by simply having fewer quotations, as mentioned above.
• In the reception section, mention when the comments by Ryfle, Godziszewski and Maltin are from, to make it clear that they are looking back at an older film.
• The home media section has too many sentences that begin with "In [year]". Many of them can combined into the same sentences, especially the older releases where the only info is a year, distributor and format. Some of them can probably be removed; it's mainly relevant when the film first became available and what the major releases have been. And there's no real need to have subsections for Japan and the US/Canada, since there are only three short paragraphs in total.
• Where does the English-language title Mothra vs. Godzilla come from (as opposed to Mosura tai Gojira)? Most DVDs seem to use this title but some use the US theatrical title. Is there a distinction here, like the US edit is called Godzilla vs. the Thing, or is it more diffuse? The lead section seems to imply this but it could be more clear.

Mothra vs. Godzilla is Toho's international English title for the Japanese version and this title is reflected in all English sources referencing the film. The American version was initially released as Godzilla vs. The Thing but was changed to Godzilla vs. Mothra when it was released on VHS and DVD (the 2002 DVD) in North America. The 2007 DVD restores the original US title Godzilla vs. The Thing for the US version. I made efforts to clarify that in the Home media section. But the original Japanese version has been released on DVD under the title Mothra vs. Godzilla (1), and recently on North American Blu-ray and HBO Max under the same title (2, 3).

I'll take a few more looks and might add some more comments, but that's it for now. There's some need for copy editing throughout the article but nothing too serious. I would recommend that you look over the prose in general but I'll probably go through it myself and fix the issues I find once you've addressed the other concerns. The article overall looks good and I'm sure it will pass without much trouble, like your previous Godzilla articles did. Ffranc (talk) 10:57, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

@Ffranc: I added the changes, tho I may need a bit more time on the plot. I may need to rewatch the film to add more details. Armegon (talk) 19:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

No problem. Take the time you need. Ffranc (talk) 11:55, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

@Ffranc: I have expanded on the plot summary, and have added many of the GA recommended revisions. Armegon (talk) 17:53, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Armegon: Nice work, the level of detail in the plot is excellent now. The article is close to passing as GA, but there are some things that still need to be done.

• The plot still doesn't introduce Godzilla and Mothra properly. Readers who aren't already familiar with the characters won't know what they are. Just add some short descriptions, close to the ones in their respective articles, like "enormous reptilian monster", "colossal imago" or similar. Something brief that isn't just a name.
• It remains unclear that The Peanuts are the actresses who portray the Shobijin. The connection is never made between the actresses in the cast list and the band mentioned in the production section.

The additions to the lead section are good, although it still needs work to comply with MOS:LEAD.

• Everything in the lead should be a summary of something that is found and supported by sources in the article body. The current version still has info that only appears in the lead.
• If you are going to have quotations in the lead, they need to have inline citations there as well as in the article body. Although I really think it would be better if you skipped as many quotations as possible and just summarized the points instead.

Like I said, it's close to GA, but some things go against WP:MOS or remain unclear to those who might read the article with little prior knowledge of the franchise and characters. Ffranc (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

@Ffranc: I added the new suggestions. Armegon (talk) 20:09, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I began to copy edit the article. Haven't finished yet, but feel free to revert anything I may have misunderstood or you don't think was an improvement. I added a couple of citation needed tags for quotations where I wasn't completely sure which source they're from. Ffranc (talk) 12:47, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster was still only mentioned in the lead section. I moved it to a new section called Legacy, which might not be an optimal title and there's currently nothing else there, so it's not really motivated to have separate section for it yet. But I do still think there should be something in the article about the other films that feature both Mothra and Godzilla. First something along the lines of what you wrote here about how Ghidorah references events in Mothra vs. Godzilla, and something about later films that feature both characters. The book Japan's Green Monsters: Environmental Commentary in Kaiju Cinema for example has some comparisons between the 1964 film and Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) here and talks about Mothra's appearances in Godzilla films from the 2000s here. There doesn't need to be any in-depth coverage of this, but I do think the article should address that the two title characters have continued to be teamed up in later films. Ffranc (talk) 14:17, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
• There is no explanation what the Champion Festival cut is. I've added a clarification needed tag. Ffranc (talk) 14:52, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Looking at the source it appears to be the version that was released in 1970, which is slightly shorter than the original cut. This info would be good to have in the release section when the 1970 release is first mentioned. This is the only real issue left in the article, add this and I'll close the review as a pass. Ffranc (talk) 13:13, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@Ffranc: I expanded on the Champion cut in the Theatrical subsection. Armegon (talk) 21:52, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Excellent work, Armegon, and sorry for the bickering about some points. Everything important has been addressed and the article fulfills the GA criteria. The prose reads well and the article follows the manual of style. The sources are good enough, everything is cited properly and I've found no copyright issues. The main info and discourses that can be found in sources are addressed. I do think the article goes into unnecessary detail with the crew list, but it's not important, and otherwise the focus is fine. Language is neutral and the critical response section covers how the reception has varied and evolved. There are no ongoing edit wars. The only image is the poster which has the proper non-free media use rationale. The article could be improved by having some free images of the cast and crew, but this is not necessary. Nothing more to add, the article passes. Ffranc (talk) 11:26, 20 March 2022 (UTC)