Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ronnie Rocket/archive1

Ronnie Rocket

Ronnie Rocket (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• Featured article candidates/Ronnie Rocket/archive1

Nominator(s): ᵹʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 16:23, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Following on from a pre-Watergate conspiracy that never happened, we move on to a film which was never made. Ronnie Rocket is one of cinema's better-known items of vapourware, a David Lynch project periodically invoked throughout his career and never realised. Spent a few years searching for any further information to be had on this and I believe this is as complete as an article on a non-existent film is likely to be. A copyedit and peer review were both conducted ahead of coming here so I believe the prose is suitable but as always I expect it to be my weak point. Thanks in advance to anyone having a look at this one. ᵹʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 16:23, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• Image review pass no licensing issues found (t · c) buidhe 16:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Support from Aoba47

I have participated in the peer review for the article, and I think it is in great shape. I have a few suggestions, but they are relatively minor. I will list my comments below:

• The infobox has two cast members (Dexter Fletcher and Michael J. Anderson), but it does not include other people attached to the film at some point (Brad Dourif, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nance, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton, and Dean Stockwell). Is there a reason for this? From my understanding Fletcher and Anderson were only considered for roles in the film and were not formally attached to it (as it did not progress to that stage) so they do not seem necessarily more important than the other names mentioned. I could be missing or misreading something though so feel free to correct me.

  As every consideration was tentative, I just listed the two names considered for the title role as they seemed like the most obvious potential "stars". I could omit that field entirely though and it would be no real loss.

  That is understandable. I am honestly on the fence about it. I could see arguments for and against their inclusion in the infobox so I will defer this matter to other reviewers if that is okay with you. This will not hold up my support for the FAC in any way. Aoba47 (talk) 00:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

• I have a clarification question about this part, feeling he would be unable to find financial backing for the project, from the lead. This wording implies to me that he did not think backing would exist so he either gave up on the project prior to looking into it further or something along those lines, but when I read the article, I got the impression that they did look for financial backing, but they were just unsuccessful. If that is true, I'd recommend something along the lines of "when he was unable to find financial backing for the project.

  I've reworded it to "due to an inability to find financial backing for the project", which I think conveys that he had tried across a span of time.

  That looks good to me. Thank you for addressing this point. Aoba47 (talk) 00:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

• This is super nitpick-y so apologies in advance. For this part, feature many of the elements which have since come to be seen as Lynch's hallmarks, I think "many of" can be seen as filler words and it might be stronger and more concise to say "feature elements which have since come to be seen as Lynch's hallmarks".

  Done.

• For this part, while Coppola and musician Sting, I do not think the descriptive phrase is necessary. From what I am seeing, a majority of the people do not have this kind of phrase so I would remove it for consistency's sake and there is a wikilink for anyone who wants to know more about Sting.

  I had included the qualifier as Sting is not primarily known for acting or filmmaking so it felt like useful context, but I've taken it out.

• This is super minor, but for this part, forced Zoetrope to file for bankruptcy, I would say American Zoetrope instead of just Zoetrope for consistency and to avoid any potential confusion that American Zoetrope is a subsection of Zoetrope or something alone those lines.

  Added.

• I would highly encourage you to archive your web citations to avoid link rot and death. Citations 11, 20, and 21 are some examples of web citations that would benefit from archiving. I only suggest this as it can be a major headache for a link to die (or in case get hijacked) only to find out that there was not a viable archived version of the citation. To clarify this, I would not archive the newspapers.com citation as that is not necessary given where the platform.

  Beginning this process now; currently waiting 173 minutes per page--eep.

  URLs now archived.

  Thank you for arching the citations. While it is not a requirement for a FA (at least to my understanding), I believe it is very helpful in the long run even though it is a pain. Aoba47 (talk) 00:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

• I would encourage you to link Titan Books and Plexus Publishing in the "References" subsection as that would be helpful to readers and it would keep it consistent with the other ones that have their publisher linked. Kamera Books does not have an article or a redirect link so that would be okay with leaving alone.

  Linked.

• For the "References" subsection, I would be consistent with either including the location for each citation or not having them for any of the citations. For instance, Lanham and London are included in the Scarecrow Press and Macmillan citations, but the other ones do not have a location. From what I have been told, it is important to be consistent with this kind of thing throughout all of the citations.

  I removed the locations that were there--I think the publisher is sufficient information here so taking two out feels better than adding them all.

  Thank you. I agree that the publisher by itself should be clear, especially since a majority of the publishers are linked to articles so the readers can look them up further if they wish to do so. Aoba47 (talk) 00:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I hope my review is helpful. I hope you are having a great start to 2022! Aoba47 (talk) 05:56, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for taking another look over this one. I've gotten almost everything raised above--I am currently archiving the URLs used but archive.org is taking its time so I will return to this to note when it's completed. Here are the changes made so far. Hope your year is off to a great start as well. ᵹʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 19:58, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for addressing all of my comments. I understand that archive.org can be temperamental (for seemingly no reason). My 2022 has been pretty good so far so no complaints here. I will re-read the article again sometime tomorrow to insure that I did not miss anything, but I will likely support at that time. Have a great end to your weekend! Aoba47 (talk) 00:43, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

• I have read through the article again and it looks good to me. I support this FAC for promotion. If possible, I'd greatly appreciate any input on my current FAC although I understand if you do not have the time or the interest. Either way, I enjoyed reading this article again and I wish you best of luck with the FAC! Aoba47 (talk) 06:31, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Coordinator comment

Three weeks in and just the single general support. Unless this nomination attracts further interest over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll take a look. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 16:32, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments from Kavyansh

• "of his 1977 film Eraserhead, Lynch" — should there be a comma after 'film'?

  Hmm. I don't believe so (the title is not meant as a gloss or an aside but as the direct subject here) but I can change it if I'm wrong on that.

• The lead should mention that the film was also titled ' The Absurd Mystery of the Strange Forces of Existence '

  I've added it to the second mention of the title in the lead--this isn't uniformly mentioned in sources naming it so I don't know if it's undue to include it at the first mention of the title, maybe I'm overthinking this?

• "oil slick, smokestack, steel-steam-soot, fire-sparks and electrical arcs realm" — The prose does not make clear where this quote comes from

  Added the book's author in prose.

• "the director had seen previously" — I'd replace "the director" with Lynch.

  Done.

• "Both Dino De Laurentiis' De Laurentiis Entertainment Group and Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope were attached to the project at different times, but both went bankrupt before work could begin" — Repetition of 'both', I feel that removing the second 'both' would not change the meaning.

  Have dropped the second "both".

• "in the ’50s and ’60s" — Fix the quote mark (’ to ')

  Good catch, I would never have spotted that by eye.

• "It was still really alive ... ruined the world for Ronnie Rocket" — this quote is long enough to deserve/warrant a block-quote

  I've wrapped this in the blockquote template and changed the leading sentence to introduce it with a colon, let me know this is correct.

• The short description is "American film". How about changing it to "American unfinished film"?

  Not hugely familiar with short description norms, I've gone for "Unfinished David Lynch film project" as I think perhaps Lynch is more pertinent than a nationality.

Perhaps, that is it! Short but comprehensive article. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:55, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for having a look at this. I've been a little awol this week or so but I believe I've addressed the above; let me know if anything else needs to be looked at. Here are the changes made. ᵹʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 17:20, 24 January 2022 (UTC)