Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gerudo Rock Band]

Solid Effort; Encouragements and Mild Praise

I'm impressed that the file size is incredibly small, given the artwork. It's crude but passable somehow. The concert flair is intact and the characters are drawn decently--they resemble the Gerudo from the game.

The characters, however aren't terribly well animated. It would be terribly ambitious to synchronize their movements to the beats and tones of the soundtrack. That would also mean increasing the noticeably slow frame rate... painfully slow, actually. Doubling one's workload via a faster frame rate might sound harsh, but the payout would transcend one's expectations in the long run.

For a first effort, this is exemplary. It probably took a great deal of trial and error, though. The author should try two hands at a larger project (or submit small stuff on par or even better than this) to gain some discipline that would justify a measure of notoriety. In other works, good job--not stunning, but it works--so keep it up!

zoesaday responds:

You are right, should have done more frames but .. I make animations with the mouse, and it is very difficult draw, but this does not justify that I should do more animations that last longer .. thanks for the comment helped me a lot, and they learn more!

[cupcake?]

Psych-a-delic

This is reminiscent of the old Atari 2600 games that would start messing with the color hex-codes throughout the whole color scheme. By that, I mean when you weren't playing a round in the game, the game would start changing the colors on the television strictly to prevent wear and tear on the screen. Pair that with electronic scrambling of a criminal's face on the show Cops (or the fade-out effects from the Super Nintendo) and you have a cartoon that would only entertain someone who smoked Silverleaf and Stranglekelp over a bonfire.

Didn't the green creature remind you a little bit of E.T. for a moment? E.T. was the worst damn game on the Atari 2600, incidentally.

Despite all this, this was a pleasant diversion for some ungodly reason. Good luck with the contest!

TheBoogley responds:

You are a knowledgeable fellow, and it has been a pleasure to read your review.
We must do this again some time.

[An Unfortunate Girl:Lapse]

Shuddering Should Stop Soon

A Firth-laden atmosphere, coupled with a dissonant voice-over casting and liberal application of blur effects, manages to hammer down the dark fantasy elements of "An Unfortunate Girl" rather nicely.

If the synchonization between voice-overs and animation failed, then splitting the flash into two parts might have been unavoidable. A full version, however, would erase confusion generated by a convoluted plot, or background. The narration either lacks linear chronology, or it goes out of its way to hide it.

Furthermore, like a speculative/science fiction work, it plays "What If" games. Science fiction is a sub-genre of adventure story that introduces unorthodox or complicated concepts with stories about how these concepts interact with characters and protagonists. To prevent audience confusion, literary science fiction rarely uses stylistic innovation. In fact, it's utterly conservative.

Not everyone will immediately correlate medieval pandemics with this flash's postmodern context. Seriously... how many Newgrounds folk actually study history, in or out of school? Pair that with an approach to film-making akin to David Lynch ("Eraserhead", anyone?) and a portion of the audience "simply doesn't get it." The use of abstract film-making is great for portraying a disheveled mind, but not quite for explaining the "how" and "why" behind that disheveled mind.

And cutting the flash in half--according to TheFabs, at least--stemmed from a minor technical issue! Frankly, a little more effort to edit, optimize and otherwise tweak the initial full version would have grant an easy +.10 to this flash's batting average, guaranteed.

On the other hand--and rifledark1 figured this one out easily--slicing it in two leaves the audience begging for answers, like medical or police procedural television dramas such as CSI, NCIS, or House. By design, these shows slash their narratives between the times whenever something grotesque or horrific happen, to build the suspense right before some corporate sponsors numb our minds into soup with countless promotions for their products. Consider the author's editing to be the surgeon's best efforts; it covered any risidual stain left behind after slicing the flash into two parts. Leaving us right before a scene of intense, painful surgery is, triumphantly, among the best cliffhangers in Newgrounds' catalog of serious shorts.

Voice-overs are a mixed bag. The author's comments suggest that casting revolved around cheery-sounding voices to kill the potency of already-potent macabre sequences. That sounds like hand-holding to me, sorry to say. On ther other hand, casting young-sounding voice-overs ironically enhanced the overall macabre mood. The semblance of youth makes the audience feel for their plight. It would be a hard sell (the approach would differ, that is) if the author picked any couple past their twenties. Actually, the characters look and even sound pre-teen. Even so, while the lady voice-over is excellent, the two male parts sounded either wooden or thin; the doctor didn't sound authoritative enough (or old enough...).

"An Unfortunate Girl" has problems, but no glaring ones. And as the title of the review suggests, it has a creepy enough aura to throw-down with the likes of Firth and some of the Noir or horror shorts. I recommend Newgrounds to take five minutes of his or her time.... once the completed version debuts, of course.

TheFabs responds:

Music to my ears.

[The Pretenders]

A Pleasant Surprise

There were people who got miffed into thinking this is a serious production, but this is exactly how my brothers and I used to play around in the house, if we weren't playing (and endlessly analyzing) video games.

With the exception of jumping around for the advent of delicious grub (we devoured most everything and didn't care as long as it wasn't poisoned), it was dead-on in its portrayal of young kids who take on different roles. To have grown idiots perform the leads makes it funnier, although you could have had someone who knew how to play a father/elder sibling figure for the third character. That was the weakest link, and instead of poor production value, it was a sour actor.

I don't get why ads had to be placed onto the final product, but so be it.

This was actually pretty fun, and it surprised me. I almost overlooked it (mostly due to a few sour reviews before me), but I'm glad to have viewed it. Maybe if I peruse my old entries and reviews, I'll remember the other locale and view it there as well for the best effect.

Fro responds:

Wow, thanks a lot.

I do agree about the father figure, but we had to work with what we had. So instead we used the angry brother.

As for the ads, they are put there because.. we make money from them lol. Why wouldn't you want ads put on a submission?

I'm happy that you enjoyed it and thank you for the well thought out review.

[Brawl Funnies [dick 3]]

Political Satire is Not a Bucket of Fish

I don't get how, on one hand, people blow their talent on lampooning a popular intellectual property, and the other, others will lampoon those who do the lampooning. It's just bitter, a complete waste of time. There are better ways to address the issue, isn't there?

As for the cartoon, it set out what it wanted to do. It's on the Front Page, meaning someone figured it'd be fun to present something that doesn't amuse everyone. That same person might wonder about the same issue, but the flash is such a joke unto itself that maybe it is a waste of time after well....

There is a written diatribe in the author's comments that doubles as a disclaimer--a statement that covers someone's sorry butt. Such a tactic spells "incoherent" in a critic's eye, since it goes out of its way--all thirteen paragraphs worth--to describe why the cartoon is bad in the first place. If you read the comments, why then must you suffer such a banal cartoon?

The cartoon resembles the shallow intricacies of a political cartoon. The sad thing about political cartoons is that they are fleeting since the currency of the context--the subject matter--fades over time. South Park is a topical cartoon by design as well--Parker and Stone can improvise a new episode in a week's time--but those guys are professionals. They keep at their jabs on a routine basis. This one, in contrast, is nothing but a monochrome, rough-and-tumble lark that lacks artistic merit. In other words, it's done so quickly to make its statement that it put a foot into its mouth in the execution.

Essentially, better effort next time... if given enough time! There are other ways to compete with nerd culture spoofs: create a cartoon or a series... something so enthralling and magnetic enough to make fans create spoofs of it. A political cartoonist should be able to pull that off without a hitch... right?

dreftclub responds:

A few months ago ashford pride made a movie with a foreboding title. It was called "Awesome Grounds".

Well ladies and gentlemen, that's might as well what this site should be called (at least right now), with the top row on the front page slot dedicated to an "awesome" movie and an "awesome" parody, an "awesome" t-shirt in the newgrounds store, and pretty much every "awesome" movie in the top 100, along with han's "awesome's creed".

I can't go to newgrounds with seeing something not about egoraptor or his coveted video game parody series. It makes me wonder sometimes if pursuing anything but half-assed cartoons making mildly funny observations about video games laced with profanity is even worth it. Truly, they are what bring the masses of 13-year olds to this site, and thus increases traffic and competition in the internet world. But you have to ask yourself, with this sort of two-bit audience increasing in numbers, are they really interested in watching anything else?

I understand that it's a dog eat dog world in the online entertainment business, and to compete you have to pretty much put up content that a majority of internet browsers would click on. This includes either women or video games. Things they already know they want. And that's all they want. They sign up, watch more, and come back and do it again later. They're trained to know that what they want is easily accessible and is promoted all over the site.

Original content is often shuffled off to the bottom of the page, or never gets any attention to begin with. Now comes into play the whole 'they won't click on it unless there's a boob for the icon', etc etc. That's because they've been fashioned to think that way.

I'm not saying i have all the mysterious answers to the way people's minds work. But this much is true - if all people click on are breasts and video game icons, and you give them breasts and video game icons, you're not pushing the envelope.

Newgrounds is the epitome of user-generated content. We already have a massive advantage over youtube in the fact that making a cartoon involves so much more creativity than snappily editing your webcam footage. So instead of 200 cartoons coming out every minute, we have 200 cartoons coming out every day. That gives someone a better chance of breaking out and being discovered for his hard work, and a reward for a job well done.

But in the same way that viewers are trained that they don't have to go out of their way to avoid original content they would otherwise enjoy, authors are becoming more and more disenchanted with their personal creations and are turning to nerd culture icons and cheap tactics to get viewers.

I can't tell you how many animators I have spoken to that have shunned their own creations in favor of sub-pop culture parody and disjointed scripts sprinkled with toilet humor and profanity. a cartoon catering to everyone who's forgotten what cartoons are all about. And here we are shoving away everything about cartoons that was originally appealing and magical, because we're pretty much forced to.

I'm not pointing the finger at any one person here. I think it's part of the bigger picture - bigger than Newgrounds, too. But if people really care about the future of cartoons and animation, we wouldn't be seeing this kind of blatant favoritism.

People will find what they want if they want it. They don't need to be spoon fed it all.

For thirty years animators who strive to create something genuinely unique have gotten nothing but a slap in the face. It's sickening and it has to stop someday, before they all disappear.

Lastly, this post is not about me. I'm not writing this out of self-pity, bitterness or spite. I'm being honest. I care a lot about the future of animation, and what I see around me is very troubling. The industry is bad enough, but where the future lies is in the small corners of the animation world. Newgrounds is one of them. I spend a lot of time trying to encourage and teach frame-by-frame animation, and creating your own characters and scripts. That is what is important

[Penguinz Intro]

Pretty Cool

Now this should have been left in the full version of the game. Since the game feels unfinished as it is now, why not include this sequence in the second version (or sequel)?

Jimp responds:

Nah the next game has a back story already planned out. Its gonna be a lot more complete, i think people are gonna love it.

[You Love This Movie]

Best NG Satire Yet...?

Applaud the two authors: this is by far the harshest, most poignant satire on Newgrounds. Why is that? More than fifty percent of it is true. The fact that they employed interesting organizational techniques in developing the cartoons doesn't hurt their standing, either.

While it helped in making progress over nine months, it's hard to see two different artistic styles side-by-side. Perhaps each style is too primitive to make any distinction between the authors. Not that it's a failing; the two styles blended together perfectly, which ironically became a strength, even if the artwork is generally primitive.

Artwork isn't the concern--this is all about fun. Most people first entering the world of Flash have one or more weak links when handling the program; conceptualizing is hard enough, but actually making it work... well, those that did are creative and aesthetic, true, but they also kept things simple. Flash authors who become famous often get criticized for the simplicity of their cartoons, or how their cartoons use themes and artistic styles over and over, without expanding their technical repertoire. Yet, they repeatedly come out on top, because the loyal audience immediately sees the quality of those author's works, while neophytes usually end up scratching their heads.

The tale of two kids who resort to terrorist actions against popular authors, including a hostage situation mediated by the site founders and admin, all to create a guaranteed "Daily First" entry and lucrative merchandising deal, is perhaps the best satire plot in Newgrounds. It's also long and exhaustive, at exactly five megs--the site's original file size cap--hence carrying a certain irony along with it. The sequences of slaying Clocks, running down Retarded Animal Babies, and executing Tommorow's Nobodies, are all excellent examples of where the flash shines. The ending, ever leaning towards an utter lack of realism, manages to let the authors act out everyone's fantasy of fortune and glory through standing tall over the corpses of countless Newgrounds pet peeves and disillusionment. How poignant.

The only gripe is excessive sexual humor. Everyone masturbates to television and pornography; it's overplayed in this cartoon. Granted, flash authors aren't associated with romantic relationships, but it's stereotpical and overplayed here. Most cartoons work better without sexual humor anyway; it often detracts from the main message.

Still, this is Newgrounds. Everyone uses this stuff too much. They had to display it.

The jokes express frustration and jealousy over popular flash authors. Incidentally, the humor often leaves the authors themselves painfully exposed, as if to say the more aspirant authors harbor jealousy over popular ones. Such jokes tell the audience that all Flash authors prefer lazily masturbating over working on Flash (can't be the case if they've won portal awards); a gross, condescending misconception. There are lapses in an author's submission cycle for other reasons... like not being glued to the computer like we might assume them to be. It's trite to restate that, but remember how easy that is to forget about when you're frustrated over how popular authors excel.

It's just personal enthusiasm... something the community has in spades anyway.

Despite the masturbation/misconception issue, as well as crude styles rendering the audience unclear about who's doing what (without the credits), this collaborative satire and plot is an excellent cartoon... as well as a good example on how to collaborate in a team. By specializing and prioritizing tasks, the authors pulled through. This is an example about how to organize a project. Hence, if this idea catches on (being Front Page and featuring satirical content, it's hard to say it won't), then future submissions will have a new standard to surpass, with a new set of techniques to learn in order to surpass it.

So it's okay to be a little jealous sometimes. Like the authors, let's spend that energy on showing those popular authors something to fear...

RSQViper responds:

tl;dr
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Kidding.

Well, first of all we'd like to give you a 10/10 on your review.

The two styles mix together well mostly because there isn't a ton of detail in them. If too much detail was put in, then they would become awkward. The big differences are in they way I shaded mine and the mouths/lip sync.

The whole playing with yourself things were used for comedy reason, not because that's what artists do all day. I mean, I'm an artist and I have a sexy fiance who I have hot, lurid sex with all the time so I NEVER have to masturbate. [That's my story and I'm sticking to it ;) ]

And I would say that a lot of artists are jealous of very popular artists. Like, I KNOW I can't draw and animate like Adam Phillips. It's not part of my DNA. At the same time I don't have that kind of time to animate, either.

For the most part this movie was just taking NG and situations and exaggerating them.

Thanks for saying that we basically made a new bar for collaborators to reach and surpass, though. That's a cool way to think about it.

[DevilSlayer V-1]

Stylish, but with Major Bugs

For all the things I could say that are good and the ones thaat are bad, the bad would seem to outweigh the good. Fortunately, nothing from the multitude of bad things are well beyond repair, and should be cleared up in future episodes of the series.

For the plus side, Nightgun has an interesting urban style, with cool visual effects and decent animation complementing a good Anime/American hybrid of art design. The voice talent is varied and fairly competent at delivering lines. There is a sense of tension and also personality among the various roles, which immediately immserses the audience.

However, Nightgun's plot grows murky, plagued in constant confusion. The brief conversations offer little to clarify things, and the voice talents had to slough through a few awkward phrases (the discussion about height is one example). There's also a lot to swallow within six minutes of airtime, further adding to confusion.

Finally, and perhaps the biggest difficulty of all, is the utter lack of mixing, or mastering, of the audio track. The voices and sound effects often overpower the music, and certain terribly recognizeable sound effects are overplayed during battle sequences. It's hard to stay immersive when you hear the same slashing sound over and over as three separate hits strike the worm creature in the opening fight sequence.

None of the bad stuff will deter the audience, so long as they are remedied. Several hours of experimentation with a program like Audacity--a free sound editing application--should help tone down certain sounds, improve the music's bassline (a suggestion to add dramatic effect), and keep the voice talents from crackling over the recording registers. Adding further polish to the dialogue will also strengthen this series.

Currently, the concept and art style of Nightgun provide solid proof that the authors' faith and devotion are paying off in spades. WIth some added technical precision, and these episodes might just top the charts in the Flash Portal. Keep your fingers crossed.

JazLyte responds:

Wow, detailed review. Ok, I appreciate the advice, and will work on it in future stuff. Thanks.

[Wayward Animals - Part 1]

Finally! Someone who tries a cohesive plot!

This almost looks groundbreaking compared to the drudgery of filtering all the evil abusive crew spam submissions and wayward and repetitive stick fighting scenes that abuse and rip off all the ultra-power ultra-violent animes. With that said, seeing your submission is like a gift from God. I'll still stay fair on technical points, as this could be better in a few things.

Graphics: 7. The only faults here were trying to maintain correct perspective and proportions in the human characters. It's probably a style thing, but remember that the legs are about half of someone's height. Or maybe the hair threw me off.

Style: 8. This covers both art style and writing, and even voice-overs. They're all good.

The style of art is a cartoony blend but isn't afraid to get serious (I expected a more funny cartoon to be honest). A few issues with the proportions might only be stylistic, but if you can draw that well in flash, no doubt you draw on paper. Either digital photographs or scanned images of your drawn work and then tracing them in flash might help you out--provided you have either a scanner or digital camera.

The writing doesn't try to be too smart or witty (honestly, a zookeeper steps in droppings), but sometimes you can get too clever for your own good, at which point you start ostracizing the audience. Trust me: the kids around here go for simple and crude over complex and witty. In the brief time we have, the writing reveals enough about the main characters to make us feel for their fates. That's impressive, considering most around here dodge any sort of plot.

As for voice-overs, they are believable. You clearly got good help backing you up, and it shows.

P.S. about style: I love the product placements, from coca-cola to Pantera T-Shirts. I figured this could also get airtime as a completed piece--once both parts are combined--on a big-time for-profit site. You might even get advertising cash out of things like this....

Sound: 8. Everything comes in clear. You even avoid the wind effects from people's voices. Few people remember to avoid that. If you want crunching metal in a chase scene, the Audio Portal has excellent metal musicians. Look for Xenogenocide, Bad-Man Incorporated, or Rocker206 for prime examples. Golgoroth and GoreBastard are also noteworthy choices. You get bonus points locally at the site by doing a little research in the audio portal. Still, everything sound correct, and it fit, so however you go about submitting at this kind of quality is perfectly your business.

Violence: 6. Subjective, true, though instances of blood and dragging the tiger into a back alley are pretty violent. This is probably why you'd request a move to the Serious Shorts section. I agree.

Interactivity: 0. Objective, actually; only a replay button. No need for fancy DVD bonuses when it comes to an animation; the designation is chiefly for games.

Humor: 5. The beginning is funny... then it gets serious. I laughed when the old bag gets swatted. I used to play Zeebarf and Fulp's "Disorderly" in the day, but these days I live in a building filled with old people... so some kind of karma thing occurred. Anyway, it has its moments.

Overall: 10. Overall ain't an average. This is more than just worthy of the portal. I hope you had fun making it as much as I had watching it.

Chemical-Disaster responds:

wow thank you best review ever. I love how you realy thaught about this and ways to improve, thanks

[Mashi Gear Solid]

You Created a Time Paradox!

Graphics: 8. Everything flows easily and it is a cartoon through and through--a crazy one at that.

Style: 10. I love that window filled with Major Zero stills. They are all insane! Everything's insane, actually.

Sound: 7. Well-acted, but sometimes you screech against the register, resulting in popping in the audio. Watch that.

Violence: 10. Oh, yes!

Interactivity: 0. Yeah, this has a few buttons... yeah, it's a movie. I use this heading to comment on a game's play control.

Humor: 10. Self-explanatory....

Overall: 10. I'm surprised this went to the bottom of the list without any fanfare. It's one of the really good modern MGS spoofs.

Austineo responds:

Hey, I really appreciate that, mate! Always nice to receive a positive review that's actually specific...! Haha, the Major Zero stills were definitely very fun to do.