Unreleased Work Page Cleanup (Speculation, Spoilers, ZCE etc.)

Once a work is available to the public somewhere, it can be troped.

Birds of Prey (2020):

• Action Girl: The whole friggin' cast, just like the comics. ZCE
• Amazon Brigade: The titular Birds of Prey consisting of Black Canary, Cassandra Cain, and Huntress obviously enough. ZCE
• Adaptational Origin Connection: Quinn, Montoya, and Cassandra Cain had nothing to do with the Birds of Prey in the comics (though in Cass's case this was entirely due to invokedExecutive Veto from DC Comics higher ups, as Gail Simone wanted her on the team but was told she couldn't use her) ZCE. AOC is about a villain being tied into a hero's origin in an adaptation. This lists three characters. Who are the villain(s) and who the hero(es) in this scenario, and how are their origins connected?
• Black Comedy: Cathy Yan has said Christina Hodson injected a lot of dark humor into the script, which seems to have been corroborated by the tongue-in cheek nature of the title. The speculative language ("seems to have been") makes this one suspect. It's also a ZCE; it says that Word of God says it happens, but doesn't actually give context to how the trope plays out.
• Breakout Character: The biggest draw of Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn, is front and center here and even has her name in the title. Shoehorning. A Breakout Character is a minor character who is rewritten as a main character. Harley was already a main character in Suicide Squad.
• Children Forced to Kill: Black Mask has Cassandra under his custody and is using her to commit assassinations. Speculative. Where does this information come from?
• Costume Evolution: Harley Quinn will be sporting a new look this time around. Speculative; written in the future tense. We trope things that have happened in works, not things that "will" happen. It's why we use the historical present tense when discussing fiction.
• The Fantastic Trope of Wonderous Titles: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. This seems okay.
• Legacy Character: It has been stated that the Black Canary who appears in this film actually inherited the mantle from her mother. Passive voice. Who stated this?
• Long Title: The film's full official title is "Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn". This seems okay.
• MacGuffin: The plot revolves around Cassandra Cain somehow coming into possession of a diamond belonging to Black Mask. Speculative. Where does this information come from?
• Superhero Origin: This film tells how Cassandra Cain becomes a superhero. Speculative. Where does this information come from?
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Or interestingly enough, Batman stays out of Gotham. The film is set in Gotham, but Batman isn't protecting the city this time around, the story reason yet unknown. Speculative.
• Token Super: Black Canary, with her signature Canary Cry, is the only metahuman in the team. Speculative.
• Wolverine Publicity: Harley Quinn is now so popular that she got her name in the actual title. Shoehorning. Wolverine Publicity is when a character is so popular that they "get used in gratuitous and/or inappropriate ways purely to enhance marketing." How is HQ's name in the title "gratuitous and/or inappropriate"? She is, by all indications, a main character.

Some of the above might be salvageable by adding context or stating which tropes are present in the trailer, but as it stands right now, this page has problems.

Edited by HighCrate on May 17th 2019 at 6:51:46 AM

I feel that "citation needed" and "speculative" are two highly different categories. There are plenty of examples here where they could be valid if cited.

Depends on what's being cited. If it's a trailer, then sure, but unless there's a newer trailer than the 20 seconds of Harley Quinn posing under a spotlight that I've seen, I don't think most of the above are going to be fixed by citing trailers.

When it comes to citing Word of God, context becomes a problem. It's one thing to say, "Word of God says this trope is totes gonna happen!" It's another thing to actually flesh that out into a full entry writeup with proper context based on a half-sentence quote in an article or whatever.

Case in point is the Black Comedy entry, which is a typical "trope happens" ZCE with the only difference being that it says, "Word of God says trope happens."

Or take the Superman Stays Out of Gotham entry, which straight-up says "we don't actually know the context of this trope yet." The strong implication being that we also don't know if it actually applies. Is this based on something concrete, or is it being assumed because that's how it worked in Suicide Squad?

Can anyone here take a crack at adding some citations and/or context and see if that fixes the problem? Because I haven't been following the news on this film (other than watching the teaser trailer) and I straight-up don't know where 90% of what's written above is coming from.

Edited by HighCrate on May 18th 2019 at 8:26:16 AM

I've deleted the two entries that appear to be straight-up shoehorning, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done on Film.Birds Of Prey 2020.

At this point, my inclination is to comment out everything but The Fantastic Trope of Wonderous Titles and Long Title, which, as Title Tropes, don't require much context and are unlikely to change before release.

That would technically bring it below the three-example limit, but since folks seem to think that some of the entries could be rehabilitated with context and/or citations, I'm fine leaving the page up for a while to see if that happens.

Edited by HighCrate on May 20th 2019 at 1:40:24 AM

There having been no objections voiced, I went ahead and commented-out everything but the two Title Tropes from Birds of Prey (2020). Moving on to the subpages.

Characters.Birds Of Prey 2020 seems to have a lot of the same problems as the main page. A lot of Zero Context Examples, e.g. "Action Girl: Every single one of them." A lot of speculation (e.g. "Ambiguous Situation: We don't yet know if Cass will have a superhero identity, either as Batgirl or Orphan."). A lot of information with no sources cited, and a lot of what appears to be assumptions based on previous incarnations of the characters.

Some of the casting tropes could be okay, e.g. Race Lift / Age Lift (it's not like Montoya in the comics is going to get any older or Rosie Perez is going to get any younger), but the majority is just bad.

I'm willing to go through trope-by-trope here in the thread like I did with the main page if necessary, but unless there are any objections I'd prefer to just get on with cleanup and worry about rehabilitating anything that just needs context or citations later. I can leave things commented-out to make life easier for anyone who cares to try to add context / citations.

Edited by HighCrate on May 21st 2019 at 12:40:28 PM

Since Aladdin (2019) premiered on the Grand Rex in Paris back on May 8 and will be released in North America two days from now, should we go ahead and add more tropes to the film now or when it happens?

Edited by gjjones on May 22nd 2019 at 8:57:46 AM

The only thing I'm worried about is a bile duct rupture affecting the YMMV page due to the passionately Broken Base surrounding the nature of the remake.

The rule is "released anywhere in the world", but just because it can be added doesn't mean it should be added. I'd hold off for two days just in case.

Edited by bwburke94 on May 22nd 2019 at 9:42:45 AM

Given that, we'll take a precaution and wait two days until that time comes.

Regarding the E3 convention, the schedule has just been posted. Square Enix is going to livestream their panel on June 11, while Nintendo is livestreaming their own panel the next day.

Edited by gjjones on May 22nd 2019 at 10:12:02 AM

Dark Phoenix has many of the same problems as Birds of Prey: lots of ZCEs (especially of the "Word of God says trope happens" variety), lots of speculative language, and lots of stuff that's not cited. I've given it a thorough cleaning, leaving most of the bad entries commented-out in case anyone cares to try to fix them with context and/or citation.

Edited by HighCrate on May 23rd 2019 at 6:22:21 AM

Oh and there is a new article regarding The Rise of Skywalker. Do you think we should add new tropes to it?

Edited by gjjones on May 23rd 2019 at 1:57:54 PM

I'm not really sure. It looks like there's only a few stills and "words from creators" that could be misleading.

@ Dark Phoenix: Well, I'm fine with the cleanup. I still wonder if the Captain Obvious Reveal on the YMMV page might be speculative as well. I'm not sure if predicting the death of a character counts as a "reveal".

Edited by Silverblade2 on May 23rd 2019 at 9:34:12 PM

Production stills are part of the marketing, but not the work itself. As long as we trope only exactly what the production images show, we're technically fine. No Speculation based on what the image might mean.

Troper patriciovalencia117 has reverted some of my edits on YMMV.Dark Phoenix without leaving an edit reason, which is kind of... not kosher. That said, I did kind of go at the page with a hacksaw, so let's go through the ones under dispute one-by-one so that we can make sure there's consensus before doing anything else:

• Hilarious in Hindsight: All the way back in the first X-Men film, Wolverine questioned the X-Men wearing black leather, with Cyclops responding that it was either that or "yellow spandex". Now the final mainstream X-Men movie is having the X-Men wear yellow uniforms! This could probably be okay if it were reworded to cite the trailer; as written it's speculative.
• Newer Than They Think: The shift from the unique costumes teased at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse to the traditional black-and-yellow X jackets in Dark Phoenix is, technically, keeping in line with the comics. Jim Lee's iconic 90s Uncanny outfits◊ were replaced by Grant Morrison's New X-Men uniforms◊. The Watsonian justification for that was that the Xavier School had become a public center for mutant activity, much like the X-Men are now publicly hailed as heroes in Dark Phoenix. The Doylist reasons however was because Morrison wanted his characters to look like the movie versions to better attract new readers^note New X-Men rolled out in 2001, a year after the first film. This entry just seems poorly written to me. I'm not sure what element is supposedly newer than "they" think, and it does a bad job of establishing that "they" actually think it's newer.
• Nightmare Fuel: These could maybe be made okay if they were reworded to cite the trailer; as written they're speculative. Personally I think it's a bit of a stretch to consider anything in a trailer meant for general audiences "nightmare fuel," but I guess since it's YMMV....
  • The shot of Jean Grey bringing down a helicopter and using her powers to seemingly use the still swinging blades to mow down some soldiers all with a look of utter dispassion on her face.
  • Jean in a disturbing Call-Back to Last Stand this time attempting to kill Erik by squeezing his skull with his own helmet. And two of the helmet's points end up being dangerously close to his eyes.

Edit: And yeah, after looking at the definition of Captain Obvious Reveal, I think that one's less speculative and more just plain shoehorning. A character dying isn't a "reveal," it's just a think what happens. COR refers to a twist or a mystery that people figure out, not something that happens that they know happens because they see it happen in the trailers. That's Trailers Always Spoil.

Edited by HighCrate on May 23rd 2019 at 1:51:11 AM

Maybe we can ask on the locked pages thread about adding some of the tropes to the main The Rise of Skywalker page based on the production stills?

Which non speculative tropes would you like to add about stills that might not even be part of the final product? I'm genuinely confused.

Edited by Silverblade2 on May 24th 2019 at 9:35:13 PM

And it looks like Sega and Paramount had no choice but to move the Sonic film to February 14, 2020. Given that, I think we should move the film’s pages to Film.Sonic The Hedgehog 2020 to accommodate the year change.

Edited by gjjones on May 24th 2019 at 2:16:02 PM

Aladdin (2019), is out in theaters now, so is it okay to start troping it as normal?

Probably fine, as long as you give the YMMV stuff time to settle. Same as any high-profile film.

Go ahead.

Edited by Albert3105 on May 24th 2019 at 9:30:30 AM

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is chock-full of the same old problems: "trope happens" style ZCEs, speculative language, and entries without citation. Gave it a thorough cleaning.

You went a bit too far with that; you commented out non-speculation and trailer tropes.

Are there specific entries that you feel should be reinstated?

Edited by HighCrate on May 27th 2019 at 12:28:27 PM

Here are some of the tropes we should reinstate from the trailer:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: Robotnik looks much more dashing when played by Jim Carrey. He's in better shape, has a full head of hair, and his mustache is well-groomed. Ultimately averted by the end of the trailer where he's the bald, goggles-wearing, and bushy moustached man we expect Eggman to be.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In addition to his trademark spin dash and super speed, this incarnation of Sonic has electric quills and can enter Bullet Time to redirect projectiles fired his way. His rings also now have the power to grow and form portals, functioning similarly to the Giant Rings that teleported Sonic to the Special Stages in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
• Godzilla Threshold: In the trailer, the military considers bringing Robotnik into the fray as a last resort, because of how obnoxious and insufferable he is.
• Government Conspiracy: As if Sonic had nothing else to worry about besides Dr. Robotnik, the United States federal government is seeking to kidnap him as part of an effort to study extraterrestrial life, and it turns out Robotnik is on their payroll.
• Human-Focused Adaptation: As per the trailer, it's set in a rural small town with Sonic as presumably the only anthropomorphic animal, rather than either the World of Funny Animals setting (with Robotnik/Eggman being the Token Human) or the Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My! settings of the games.
• Insult Backfire: After Sonic takes out one of Robotnik's vehicles, we get this exchange.
  Sonic: Ho-ho! Is that all you've got? [Speeds back into Tom's truck]
  Robotnik: [Behind a control panel] No, but thank you for asking. [Launches a second vehicle at the duo]
  Sonic: Uh-oh.
• Human-Focused Adaptation: It's set in a rural small town with Sonic as presumably the only anthropomorphic animal, rather than either the World of Funny Animals setting (with Robotnik/Eggman being the Token Human) or the Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My! settings of the games.
• Layman's Terms: In the trailer, Dr. Robotnik gives his long-winded opinion of what he thinks about Major Bennington's importance, he asks his assistant Agent Stone to summarise for him.
  Agent Stone: The doctor thinks you're basic.
• Logo Joke: In the trailer, the Paramount logo replaces the stars with Sonic's rings.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Or supervillains in this case, but it's Zig-Zagged. Robotnik is introduced in a black suit and looking fairly normal, with a neat mustache, while in various shots through the trailer he's shown having adopted his trademark look piece by piece (red coat, round goggles), before finally fully embracing his game counterpart appearance (bald and with a wild, bushy mustache).
• That Came Out Wrong: While Tom and his wife try to sneak Sonic into a building through a luggage bag in the trailer, the two people next to them can hear Sonic and ask if his child is in his bag. Tom says no, but then clarifies that "yes, it's a child, but it's not mine", which prompts the other two people to walk away looking visibly weirded out.

Does that sound reasonable enough?

Edited by gjjones on May 27th 2019 at 1:55:26 PM