Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Peer review/The Devil Wears Prada (film)

The Devil Wears Prada

This is my first venture here with an article I created ten months ago and have done about 99% of the work on since. I have thoroughly researched it, cited everything I possibly could, saw the movie when it came out and then rented the DVD, and this is the result: the most comprehensive source of information on this film anywhere on the Internet.

This is the first step toward taking it to what I hope will be eventual featured status. I have carefully watched other peer reviews here, FAC noms for film both successful and unsuccessful, and GA noms, to see what expectations we have for film articles. I believe this article meets them.

The only issue I would see people having: It's long. At 86K, it is the longest article on Wikipedia about a single film, in fact.

But that is not due to unintended cruftiness (I promised on the talk page to-do to avoid a trivia/miscellanea section and I did). There is just an unusual amount of information out there (again, I think I set a record for most footnotes in a film article (which, I understand, don't count for an article's length, so that might help). Consider that the DVD's commentary track features the writer, producer, director, editor, cinematographer and costume designer all talking about the things you'd want for a Wikipedia film article: their creative decisions and why they made them. Then the deleted scenes have the director and editor talking about why they deleted them. Then there's all sorts of interviews and press coverage, quite a bit of it online, some of which I discovered in the course of doing the research. And, again, a great deal of it relevant and useful.

I have let this mostly sit for a month after I finished most major work on it (and until after the Oscars) while I took a break and worked on other stuff. I am proudest of my work on this of anything I have done on Wikipedia so far. Let me know what you think. Daniel Case 03:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Crzycheetah

Comment Wow, I am really stunned at the length of the article. After skimming through the article, I have found several minor things I didn't like.

• Image:Anhathaway.jpg should be moved to the right side so that the first four bullets of the Characters section could be seen.
  • I put it there (or, well, someone else did) because I tend to believe very strictly in alternating images from side to side for readability's sake, as it mirrors the sweep of our eyes across the page.

    But at the time it was placed, it was a lot closer to the infobox. That doesn't apply now.

• Image:Stanley Tucci in DWP.jpg should be moved down to the Cast section.
  • Will do. It was placed there before things got so long.
• {{wikiquote}} should be moved down to the External links section.
  • I had that there because it's next to the writing section and to give the readers' eyes a break from what was a long block of text. I'll move it, but I may have to get another image, which will have to be fair use.
• Commercial, Critical, and Local marketing subsections of International section should be merged under International section. In other words, get rid of those subsections by putting the info under International section.
  • Good idea.
• 2006 in film link should be removed from See also section, since it's already linked in the lead.
  • Someone else put it there. I thought it had something to do with project guidelines; didn't make sense to me and I'll take it out.
• Citation #42 should be fixed.
  • Yes, someone else moved a reference to the intro without bothering to fix the followups. I hate when that happens. At some point we'll have to make it a blockable offense :-).
• Image:The Devil Wears Prada DVD cover.jpg should be under DVD section.
  • I have it where it is so it displays the way it does. I can move it, and will, but if it becomes necessary to move it back to the left again I'll put it back above so it doesn't cut the hed off from the text. I hate when that happens; it looks ugly.
• Question: what does ibid mean in your references?
  • Same thing as in everyone else's references.

That's all from me for now. I am sure others will give you more help in improving this article. Crzycheetah 23:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. These were helpful suggestions. Very good to have another pair of eyes on it. Daniel Case 04:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Wiki-New

Let me just congratulate on the effort, and for not letting a film you like that could be forgotten in a decade's time not happen. So, effectively you need to make more use of summarising.

• Plot: Are you sure you can't squash down things, or connect elements together better so as to feel less than a retread?
  • Believe it or not, someone else felt it wasn't detailed enough and added more. Are you looking at today's version? This was the way it was before today ... I had worked on getting it down to less than a thousand words before submitting it here. Think we should go back to the shorter version? I do.

Indeed, cut it down. WikiNew 13:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Differences from book: Does anyone care if Andrea isn't blonde? I suggest keeping the most important information, such as Lily's character. What do you think are the most startling changes? Looking at the writing section, you could merge some information together as to why there were done, so as to not be so listy.
  • The hair info could certainly go ... a few weeks ago I decided that some anon's addition of the twins' hair being red in the movie and blonde in the book was waaaaay too trivial to be in the article, particularly since their role is even smaller in the movie. I just followed the examples I saw in other recognized film articles, where that level of detail was given.

    Certainly the changes to the ending, Lily and the other main characters are significant are important and should stay.

Well good luck with that. Structurally it'd be best to walk through the plot and describe the differences. WikiNew 13:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Would it? If I'm reading a section headed "Synopsis", I want to read a précis of the plot, not a précis constantly interrupted by explanations as to how the book was different. That would work when there's minimal differences between the two; not here.

Besides, many other recognized articles about films based on books have this separate section describing the differences (see V for Vendetta and The Lord of the Rings. Although, now that I think of it, I could probably prosify it, which could shorten things up.

• The Production could lose a lot of sectioning. Axe storyboards information: trivial at best, the only notable thing it's used for is mostly big budget and Spielberg's films.
  • Fine. Frankel says it on the commentary like it was a pretty significant decision (maybe it is in TV, which is where he's done most of his work).
  • A caveat on losing the sectioning: If during a later review a consensus emerges to restore such sectioning (I did it in response to common complaints on FAC ... I created {{subsections}} for a reason), I will do it. Daniel Case 06:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
• All quotes need to be boiled down to a few sentences.
  • You mean quotes from the movie? It doesn't really have that. You mean other people's quotes? I do think (perhaps it's my journalism background) that having someone's actual quote as a way of explaining something is better than some interpretation you might write.

    Or do you mean the long quotes?

Long quotes regarding the making of the film, such as the one at the end of the costuming. WikiNew 13:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Can do on that one.

• Locations is a list. Try writing it in as a timeline of when things happened. Look at my work on Jurassic Park (film).
  • I looked at that, and there is no source that describes what they were doing on what date that I could use that way, the way you used that "making of" book. The locations, as cited, all come from the DVD commentary, where they're sort of just tossed off. Under those circumstances, I can't see how you could do them as anything but a list. Daniel Case 00:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
• Surprisingly well needs to be deleted from Reception opening paragraph.
  • I do think someone said that its box-office performance was surprising (an early summer chick flick was not supposed to gross almost as well as, say, Superman Returns did. And it had legs, particularly overseas. Perhaps I should cite that?

Indeed.

It's in one of the DVD reviews. I'll put it in.

• Nab critisism with Anna Wintour for overall look at the film as a satire.
  • Nab? Did you mean to use another word?

Yes, do merge to an overall section on the fashion industry's reaction. WikiNew 13:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Remove see also and references in other media, it's original research.
  • We have that for quite a few other film articles. What if it were cited (Most of it was added by other editors, anyway)? I can't see how someone explicitly referencing the film in an episode of Ugly Betty is original research.

It could be trivial and considered original research: WP:A says this isn't about what you notice. WikiNew 13:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I looked over the style guidelines and, indeed, there are neither section. But let me just warn you that that sort of thing will likely be restored at some point, given the similarities between DWP and UB and the fact that they both succeeded.

Funny Face was a film mentioned in some of the reviews ... I suppose I can integrate it into the article. Ditto with the Glad ad, although I'd like to have a source for it, like whatwasthat.com (but it is the same music). Daniel Case 03:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Images: how often does the satanic shoe need to pop up?
  • Probably less, but since the article got as long as it did, I felt they were necessary to break up the text and make it easier on readers' eyes. Daniel Case 00:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Overall, very good work. Just needs to definitely be more readable before a GA. WikiNew 17:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I have proposed to split off the production section (which accounts for more than a quarter of the article's total length) as a separate article on the talk page as a way of bringing the article into manageable length. If any reviewers have any thoughts on the idea (which might be a first as far as I can tell), bring them up there. Daniel Case 04:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Konstable

Just a brief comment (might add more later):

• You need to check your image details, a lot of the fair use ones are missing fair use rationales
• I think you are probably using too many images. They are mostly fair use so you should be limiting their use to only instances where they add to the content of the article significantly. For instance, the shoe image is repeated 4 times, different situations, but quite repetitive and probably not really necessary.

--Konstable 11:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I know I put {{fair use rationale}} on all the screenshots or publicity stills (actually, they're all stills ... I really think those should have a separate licensing template to reflect that they are created and distributed by the film distributor, as opposed to user-created screenshots). While my original justification was that it demonstrated the iconic power of the image, I was aware that some people might see it as overkill and accordingly I'm ready to remove two of them ... probably the soundtrack and the teaser poster (the former is already in that article; the latter has just been kept since it was first used before the film's release).

It will also help to split off the production history section ... I think I'll keep Frankel and Streep there, and maybe Streep and Field since they're easier to justify as not having been part of the movie. Daniel Case 13:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)