Talk:Samurai Jack/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: ArcticSeeress (talk · contribs) 14:15, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Hey there, Paper Luigi. I'm ArcticSeeress, and I'll be your reviewer for this nomination.

From a cursory glance of the sources, most of them seem okay (except for one I'll get to later). There are also two sections I've tagged that need citations. Anyhow, I'll get on with the actual content of the article.

Premise

This section currently does not include a synposis. How do the seasons of the show progress the story?

Comments on prose:

• The note in the first sentence does not need to be there, as it's explained in the second paragraph anyway.
• a feudal Japan kingdom - "A kingdom set in feudal Japan"
• voiced by Sab Shimono as an elder man and Keone Young as a young emperor - comma before "and"
• Is the main character's father the emperor? The parenthesis with voice acting credit seems to suggest so, but it might be good to explain that. E.g. "[...] whose father, the emperor of Japan [...]"
• sent away [...] to travel to the world - remove "to" before "the world". He is already in the world, after all.
• there have been rare instances where he is able to wear a full set of armor. - This seems like an unnecessary level of detail, unless this armour is somehow plot relevant.
• , and even a Scotsman who wields an enchanted sword - Again, unnecessary level of detail.
• Areas may have advanced technology... - "Some areas may have advanced technologies likes". I use "some" here because they would specifically be contrasting with "others" in the later sentence. I also use the plural form "technologies" because the singular form would indicate the collective organisation and employment of knowledge, rather than individual developments, which this sentence seems to suggest.
• while destroying the habitability of the alien planets - "after destroying the habitability of their home worlds"
• of all kinds and/or forms - This seems like an awkward sentence. Perhaps change it to something else.
• I feel like the second paragraph in the setting section needs a rewrite:
  • What is "however" contrasting here? The first paragraph? You might want to write that as "Despite [whatever it may be], there are a number of uninhabited regions depicted in this world, like [...]"
  • Further rewrite: "A few communities of intelligent creatures, like Shaolin monks, have also remained largely untouched in spite of Aku's reign."

I'll be coming back and adding more comments later, but these are my initial thoughts. I'll be looking forward to working with you. ArcticSeeress (talk) 14:15, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Episodes

Nothing to comment on here.

Production

• The show is meant to evoke 1970s cinematography - in what way?
• The Japanese manga Lone Wolf and Cub and films by Akira Kurosawa were also an inspiration - "were also inspirations"
• The premiere received high praise and four award nominations, - this should be in the reception section.
• and was released as a standalone VHS and DVD on March 19, 2002 - the source does not state a VHS or DVD release. Here's the quote "a March 19 video release of its 90-minute premiere".
• As production of the fourth season was ending, [...], Tartakovsky and the crew moved on to other projects. You might want to specify that it was due to burn-out.
• with four seasons of 13 episodes each or 52 episodes of Samurai Jack in total - this a really unwieldy sentence to read, especially when it's included in the middle of another one. Either remove it or simplify it.
• The show ended with the airing of the four final episodes as a marathon on September 25, 2004. - No it didn't. It has a fifth season, so this is just a false statement.
• previously aired - when?
• currently airs - this is not a statement that will last. Rewrite it so it won't be outdated.
• I Miss Bionix is a self-published source. Remove it.
• There is a claim without a citation. Find one.
• Something can't "air" on All 4, it's a video-on-demand service.
• The sentences don't need to be on separate lines, as that gives them emphasis they probably don't need.

You should add the airing of the fifth season to this section; A "Conclusion and revival" section is not necessary. You might want to add when the show was made available for streaming, and on which platforms, as this currently doesn't cover it. ArcticSeeress (talk) 15:28, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Conclusion and revival

As mentioned earlier, I don't think this should be a section onto itself. Maybe a subsection of the previous one. I will still make comments about it here, though, as that is where this content currently resides.

• The first subsection contains two lengthy quotes. They should be paraphrased.
• had been in development at different times by four different studios - he said "probably four different studios". That is not the same as definitively stating that it went through four studios.
• Tartakovsky said in a 2006 interview that the live-action version of Samurai Jack was thankfully abandoned, and that "we will finish the story, and there will be an animated film." - Change this to something like: "In a 2006 interview, Tartakovsky expressed relief that it was abandoned, commenting on he wanted a film that was faithful to his vision, which he thought Hollywood would not do. He also said that they would finish the story, and that there would be an animated film."
• with a budget of 20 million dollars - the source states a budget under 20 million dolars.
• Add a paragraph break after Bad Robot Production. It's quite lengthy
• The long quotation does not need to be that long. Paraphrase it.
• and eventually, the series concluded with a fifth television season. - "would conclude".
• the story takes place fifty years after Jack was cast into the future. In despair from the years of fighting Aku and from Aku's destruction of the remaining time portals, Jack—who has not aged as a side effect of the time travel—is haunted by warped visions of himself, of his family, and of an enigmatic, deathly warrior on horseback - This should be somewhere in the "premise" section, perhaps under a synopsis subsection, like I mentioned earlier in the review.

The last subsection on the 2017 revival needs a lot of citations. Currently, it only has one non-primary source. The production of the fifth season also needs to be included in the "production" section, as it currently has no information on it. ArcticSeeress (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Reception

• Samurai Jack received generally positive reviews from critics following its 2001 Cartoon Network debut - you only follow it up with the reception of one critic. This is then not a verifiable sentence.
• The quote from the Los Angeles Time is excessively long. Paraphrase and shorten it.
• Lengthy quotes from IGN need to be paraphrased.
• The review aggregator should be higher up. Also, the links to it are dead, so you'd either need to replace them with links that do, or find working archives of them.
• Samurai Jack would later be included in Seitz and Alan Sepinwall's 2016 book TV (The Book) as an honorable mention following the 100 greatest television series. - The citation does not say that is received an honourable mention. Also, just cite the book instead of some website.

Overall, there just aren't enough reviews here. 1 for its initial release, and zero for the ones after? There are a lot out there for the fifth season, which should definitely be included here (there are seven reviews on Metacritic from 2017 that you could draw very easily from here)

Accolades

• Annecy Official Selection: Genndy Tartakovsky was not the nominee, but Samurai Jack.
• filmfestivals.com (source for Annecy award) is a blog, i.e. self-published. Replace it a better source.
• The Emmy does not state that it was for "The Beginning, Parts 1–3", but just "Trilogy (Samurai Jack)"
• The Emmies from 2003, 2004, and 2005 do not state the specific episodes they won the awards for, just "Samurai Jack"

Other media

• A year after the series was concluded - Might want to provide a year for its conclusion, i.e. 2017.
• A Twitter post is not good enough verification of the release of something. Even if it were, it still doesn't mention the release date.
• Tartakovsky does not consider the comics part of the story of Jack. - Would be better explained as not being part of the main canon
• Is there a reason to include region 2 and region 4 for the 4 Kid Favorites DVD release?
• Similarly, is there a reason to include Region C in the Blu-Ray release?
• The release date of Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is not verified by the sources.
• Elements of the Samurai Jack concept were reused in other Cartoon Network video games - What does this mean? The character is reused?
• The MMORPG FusionFall features Jack, the Scotsman, and Demongo as non-playable characters, while Aku is a Nano. - Several things:
  • The Scotsman and Demongo do not seem to be important characters, and have not been introduced earlier in the article (beside a brief mention of a scotsman in the "setting" section). Just write "Jack and two side characters as non-playable characters"
  • What is a "Nano"? A reader will have no clue what this is, and neither do I. Replace it with something else.
• Bradcook.net seems to be self-published. Either replace the source with another one, or just remove the content there.
• The source does not mention Aku's role as an "assist character" or as a boss.

Overall assessment

Overall, the article has some problems with its prose. It has a lot of information without citations, and some of the sources are self-published. The article is not nearly broad enough in its coverage, lacking coverage in a lot of areas, most noticably its reception and a synopsis. It is, however, neutral, stable, and well-illustrated, but unfortunately, that is not enough to make up for this article's downfalls. I'll have to quick-fail this article due to its lacking scope and verifiability. If you feel like the issues here have been resolved, then you can nominate this article again.

As a quick side-note, there was a biography released on Genndy Tartakovsky not too long ago (April 2022), and there's probably a lot of good stuff for covering the production in there: "Genndy Tartakovsky: Sincerity in Animation" (2022) by Kwasu David Tembo (ISBN: 9781501356278). ArcticSeeress (talk) 17:23, 3 June 2022 (UTC)