Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Night of the Redead]

Promising First Effort; Requires Coloring Overhaul

If you get past "web 216 for the coloring and try some real ambient or subdued color work, you can really dig the horror element into the audience. You can play with a color palette by importing random .gif files into the swatch palette. There's even a grayscale one if you look around, ideal for film noir work.

Another great example of a soundtrack being used to its fullest. In this case, it's a custom commission, which throws an immense plus to an otherwise merely passable piece. Voice-Overs and other niceties could have been present but nobody will kill a first-timer over it.

Good job in capturing the original character design from the Zelda series. That makes a difference in properly identifying the source material. Even the sound effects and even some music is present, helping to immerse the audience.

Overall, a solid effort for someone new to handling the program, an obvious treat for the fans of Zelda, and a decent entry into a genre that few people bother with around here anymore (not without the really cliched zombie pathos). Don't be a stranger.

Eastbeast responds:

Really appreciate this review, thankyou for the advice! I don't know if I am the horror type, but I enjoy making things with substance regardless of its genre, but I am grateful for your comment. Yes this was a treat for me to make, being it was something I've always wanted to see as well. Thankyou for the constructive comment :) I will definately learn some lipsynch for my next projects

[The Cupcake Collab]

I Prefer Sweet Potato Pancakes

Being that it is an art gallery, there will always be a few pieces that stand out above the others, at least in the beholders' eyes. Here are my highlights:

BlackmarketKraig - EVERY FUCKING TIME!
CosmicDeath - Skull Cake
Decky - Lot of Cake Mix (I was the batter boy for a fundraiser recently)
Luwano - RECIPES!
Fifty-50 (both of 'em)
J-qb - "Technicality"
MasterMerol - Animated!
ReNaeNae - Cupcake, My Lil' Friend (Say 'Allo!)

There were others, but these either stood out or made me laugh. Props to all participants and keep up the good work!

ReNaeNae responds:

...and the nice thing is, every person has different tastes. So hopefully there's a little something for everyone in the mix! ;)

[When Romba Attacks]

This Sucked

I have to watch an old piece of crap Flash to "understand" this? No I don't. I already understand that this is a piece of utter garbage. Why? The jokes didn't pan out well and the premise was ridiculous. Also, it's loaded with deus ex machina and in-jokes describing the incompetence of the author.

Those aren't funny. I didn't laugh once throughout this whole mess. The only consolation in "When Romba Attacks" is that it probably had a storyboard and was shot according to a script, so the author has some sense of how to compose a flash. Then again, if only he can compose something that people will actually care about....

Rubbertje responds:

I've read your profile. You take this shit too seriously. It's almost as if this is your life goal. For me this was a side project. Haven't been here in ages.

I read that you're 28? Well, according to your behaviour I'd guess you'd be a little younger. ;)

Don't think you're righteous because you're honest, kiddo. Some ugly bitch might kick you in the balls for that one day.

[Hover over CIty]

Justifiable Suicide/Homicide/Whatever Comes First

Wow, it bobs up and down!

Wow, there's a cityscape!

Wow, there's no point to this!

Wow, some people just need killing....

oladitan responds:

i am glad you like it. check out my other videos too.

[Phase 9 Episode 3]

Solid Effort for a "Lull" in the Plot in "Phase 9"

Thank God you got a voice crew. Their takes could have been sharper, though.

Shorten the length of the intro to near-nil, because long intros to series with more than a dozen episodes tends to grate on the nerves after a while.

Compression is evil. The images are blurred and boxed and everything. It is a cop-out to escort people over to YouTube, a proposition that most loyalists on this site would frown at. There has to be a better balance to compressing and submitting a piece with admirable quality.

Sometimes, the music should transition to something moodier... to befit the mood better. When Pinstripes arrives, inquiring the tavern, the music HAS to change. The selection of music is very pop and jazzy, evoking a cheery sort of epic. While pandering to the youths and teens isn't a bad idea, it might detract from the seriousness of the plot itself. In other words, the music tends to clash with the scenes.

Some parts of the script could use a little polishing too, but on the whole this is actually an interesting trip--far ahead of most of the garbage churned out by so-called "peers"--so having that much a grasp on presenting an animated feature is paying off so far. Be aware of the flaws in this episode as you revise future episodes in "Phase 9".

Kel-chan responds:

the thing is i'm using flash optimizer and i just can't get it below 10mb without loosing either visual quality or the voices become so warped you can't hear anything.. do you know of any other programs to convert and optimize flash?

thx for a serious critique because this is what i really need other than- "oh i dont like it or oh its awesome"

[The Pi]

Yay! I Like Pi! You want to Have Some Pi? Ugh....

The only thing this "joke" is good for it putting people to sleep. The voice-over sounds like a disenchanted dork, just like every other mathematician I suppose.

I'm going to find the scientific jack-wagon responsible for Pi day and disembowel him with a wooden cooking spoon.

AmethystApple responds:

hahahha you're so funny.

[Green Glob Conques Earth!]

Classy

Ironic how this thing has any rating beyond .05. Seriously.

First of all, this was made poorly, then the author "cops out"--an admission of guilt in exchange for better treatment... look it up--by claiming it was his intent. Thus, this review is a zero strictly to avoid a political fiasco: what if EVERYBODY said "Hey! It's meant to look like utter shit! Give me Fives anyway!" and we somehow felt obliged to bend over? And the author parades his comments as required reading, borderline fugging curriculum, as though we are obliged to read those exalted passages in order to "get" the joke. When you have to use author comments to describe why your flash is meant to be funny, there is an alarm that goes off in the heads of the NON-gullible that makes them predisposed towards NOT finding anything in the flash funny. When will authors get that?

Now the comments themselves conjure up this story about one hapless scumbag named Derek Starch (a name riddled with suspicious satire that possibly floats over everybody-who's-not-a-Brit's heads) who penned and produced what was meant to be a grand production. Sadly, nobody cared to assist or even proofread the screenplay (which would have made all the difference), leaving Derek with the arduous task of doing it all himself. Then, like Timmy before him, upon finishing up his production, Derek was brutally raped by the friends he originally petitioned, and their ringleader, a true psychopath, stabbed himself repeatedly in the face. Anyway, the main issue with Mr. Pixel's story is that YOU CANNOT CORROBORATE ANY STORY OVER THE INTERNET! There's no way. You need to provide names, addresses, phone numbers... contact information, ya know? And nobody's stupid enough to try that, lest they get pranked out the wazzu by the delinquents running this site. That great conversation with the real Mr. Starch was very likely a fabrication. Again, don't bend over.

The possibly fabricated "origins story" compromises the vision of "Green Glob Conques Earth!", because it is likely just an elaborate hoax by some listless Brit with nothing better to do than spray his weird humor upon the rest of the planet. It's a joke on the audience... a bad one at that. It was fun to laugh at all the bad parts and try to decipher the alien voices, or to keep a straight face during the "lovers" sequences with an inflatable doll, or to wonder about how many stupid effects shots got butchered before they were even attempted.

Derision upon homemade film projects is a staple for Newgrounds to derail twelve year-olds. Perhaps the recent flash treatment of a thirteen year-old's awful "D00M" fan fiction, "I am the Demons!" prompted the use of D00M II music covers from the Portal, as a reference and a reminder of what this flash's theme and objective are. Trouble arises, however, as this flash's jokes had to drink two bottles of Ensure. See, Stamper already covered this territory far better and devised over half of the jokes that this flash rips off. Those segments were funny. The rest of it kind of... well, I don't know, sucked! Finally, the author rubs salt in the wounds of his audience during the credits, proving that the British are at the cutting-edge of class.

Thankfully, the author is not completely happy with this production. Good thing, because he might not attempt something so lame and abrasive again! The mission was completed--it looks and feels like a horrible homemade film--but it is possible to make no technical mistakes and yet still lose. That's not a weakness, that's life.

Hopefully the satire is taken another way, as a grim warning to the flash community that doing everything yourself is an exercise in futility, embarrassment, disappointment and wholesale self-destruction. If people look beyond the deliberate awfulness of the piece, maybe life will change for the better! Unfortunately, this context is only if you ever bother to read the author's comments, because the filmmaker's plight is not effectively represented in the cartoon itself! Still another reason this gets a zero.

ClockworkPixel responds:

wow i read the whole thing and you make failied points and believe me i'm not doing this again, as soon as i submited it i thought not doing this again.. i finished it for the sake of finishing and did not enjoy one minute of making this, this review cut alittle deep (the insult towards brit humor may well be true when trying to do a serious review not really needed) so yes i won't atempted this again or indeed even bother making anymore flashes i'm sick of people finding my work shit but finding a 20 secound short of sonic "AMAZING LOLOLOLOL" so why bother, you know what? keep my name on your rader (if you read this reply) if you find my next toon crap then well whats the point of doing this anymore,

luke

[O&A : Rocky Balboa]

They Will Never Disappear....

Like the latest MK Spoof on the Front Page: "OMG! We haven't seen one of these in years!"

Nice to see our old friends Opie and Anthony in top form... relatively speaking. The visualization for their audio byte was done okay, though it's hard to say it was a professional job due to the subject matter.

Eeh... it was decent. Good caricatures of everybody involved.

YoinK responds:

thanks! glad you liked it.

[How I rescued my girl]

Cheesy, but Clean and Somehow "Cutting-Edge"

Well, that was pretty cheesy. This doesn't have to be a Valentine's Day submission. One can only hope the girlfriend was impressed. A good bonus is that the cartoon is clean enough for General Audiences, almost unheard of around Newgrounds.

What stands out is the ability to watch the movie in color after watching it in silent film mode once. I don't see too many people talk about making an attempt, or how, since it looks like such a hassle to change all the colors. Is it an AS trick we're not aware of? Or it's something really simple, like restoring the saturation of the camera so that every layer beneath it has color again. Oddly enough, "How I Rescued My Girl" is "Cutting-Edge" in adding this feature. The viewer response between the two versions is likely to be different.

Nice work overall!

EugeneToons responds:

Oh, I simply converted the movie to a movie clip and changed saturation so that it turned to black and white. Before that I spent a lot of time looking for a way to change the colors to black and white.

[Singing Flaming Gerbils]

Kinda Sucks, but Still Trippy

Okay, this is just messed up. Okay? Messed up. It's not great, but doesn't have to be. Nice work, you finished something for someone. Now go make another, far better flash!

BigAlex responds:

Heh, yeah. I knew it was pretty bad upon submission. I'm still new to flash, but I hope to do something with this when I'm more familiar with action script.