Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[George Lucas' Farewell]

"Because you're forty years old, I can't fucking make you goddamned seven again!"

That hits it right home. That settles the whole issue. When you're older, you can dismantle something, but then you find the bigger bomb to dismantle is yourself.

"George Lucas' Farewell" addresses firsthand the phenomenon known as "Unpleasant Fanbase", one that can never be truly satisfied across the board with whatever you do. With the recent transfer of Lucasfilm to Disney, George Lucas can finally be absolved of responsibility (or rather, stop being a target) to the fans of his movies, chiefly Star Wars.

This cartoon takes it even further and, despite trying to make George a cantankerous strawman, ends up giving some valid points in his favor. The fans really are like this. They fail to appreciate the sorts of things he has done for the industry at large. Don't forget that his brand of business (Summer Blockbuster) evolved from the excesses of 1970s filmmaking, where several notable films had flopped and were overpriced. Bringing back the adventure serials of the 50s was something of a goal of his from the beginning, one he struggled to achieve when he branched into special effects artistry, which became lucrative pending the success of his initial trilogy. Once he got the chance to finish years later, people had lost the point and also grew up. This meant his movies would be received not just by his target audience, but also a bloc of suckers who grew up with the initial trilogy and had unwarranted expectations that it would reflect upon their grown-up attitudes.

Recipes for disaster. You could pen them even smaller, but this one pretty much feeds millions.

KurtToons burst the bubble of fan hubris and meddling in one deft stroke, bringing a darker motive for Mr. Lucas to submit to a perceived machine like Disney. All in two minutes.

It's not without flaws. The voice of George is far from the mark, for instance, and it's not well acted in terms of voice. Sure, he's angry, but the fans fell flat and there was no shouting at the fans when he was tackling the guy. Sorry, doesn't work. It's like that alien from DBZ that sucked out people with that stinger and shriveled them up. That was sci-fi horror territory until he decided to imitate the Predator near the end. Sorry, the Predator gets away with the laugh because you didn't expect such a gross face to be capable of laughter like that. And yeah, the voice acting. In other words, KurToons could do well to consult with voice talents.

Two more issues are appropriate. Hans or Greedo shooting first is an endless debate. At some point, Lucas wanted Greedo to shoot first and miss--perhaps in an earlier draft--but to save time and money, they wrote it so Hans did so first, which was a nod to realism and to establish the character's modus operandi better. Lucas insisted, but recreating the footage from stills was all he could do even with the technology at the time. In other words, it was doomed to failure and probably shouldn't have happened. Yet, somewhere in the original manuscripts, it made sense, and he wished to defy the expectations and include it so he can show how you can splice new footage with the old and achieve a new effect. It's a special effects failure translated as a narrative one. Wrong for the wrong reason, in other words. Taking the "Word of God" route to address the issue, however, is far-fetched, as even Mr. Lucas probably understands the measure of success and (largely) failure in Greedo shooting first.

Profanity is another issue. It's self-evident that dropping excessive profanity leads to the notion of an Animation Age Ghetto, which you can argue has invaded Flash cartoons, but here, KurToons takes it to eleven with Lucas, which shatters the illusion. It is no longer considered George Lucas' voice, but the author's in a tract that shows unbound bitterness toward the fans for setting unrealistic expectations and denouncing all avenues toward acceptance.

"If I were George, I'd tell 'em to feck off 'ardcore!"

Not everyone agrees, Kurt.

KurtToons responds:

I love this analysis. Thanks so much for sharing!

[SLenderman in the forest]

FunkMation is the rare breed that says "Less is More". Grunge exploded onto the scene this way. This hearkens back to the old Newgrounds that would release occasional minute jokes and gags with a minimum of production quality.

"Slenderman in the Forest" is all about a simple, stupid gag. He trips and falls face-first into shit.

Sound effects are overplayed. No replay button and little graphical splendor combine into a pretty harrowing image of where we have come from, and where we still are. Let's be serious: Tom Fulp and the rest of the Admins will throw this stuff onto the Front Page because, face it, this must have gotten several chuckles out of them. They figured it'd be even funnier if they shared the joke. So there: this is Underdog of the Week, or Turd of the Week receiving publicity. Don't get carried away just because you don't think it deserves Front Page. If it makes you chuckle in some way, it counts.

Also consider the irony. Slenderman is a boogeyman creature of reprehensible talent at stalking his victims, but if he's not doing that, is he one of us? Prone to the same sort of ridiculous mishaps? This author thinks so, and it says a lot about us when we think this is stupid on grounds of its technical inferiority and lowbrow humor. It's a statement about even the most heinous figure being fallible to some degree. Even if I'm reading too deeply into things, the same could be said of everyone else: failing to get something out that shows them just how stupidly they're taking this. If you think you're somehow above watching Slenderman fall face-first into a pile of freshly minted shit, then you're somehow below appreciating Newgrounds' all-inclusiveness and lack an open mind. Even a shit gag can be an aesop if you think hard enough.

Not that it's perfect, of course, as the tweening should have an actual bounding step to the rustle sound effects and falling should have a sound to accompany it. This is also terribly ghetto; despite the relevant charm, it's still ghetto and not for everybody. "Slenderman in the Forest" should be a quick cheap thrill for some, although your reaction determines how far you have come with the Newgrounds site as a whole. Perhaps someday you will check out older material and then back again to see that FunkMation has a certain charm all his own.

FunkMation responds:

Thanks for the endoresment, i guess every animator has to develop their own style and ideas, and its nice to read that you appreciate i may be far from the best quality on here, yet at the same im just as far away from some of the worse stuff that people upload, its great that an average animator can get a little spotlight, lol, even if it does feel like most are willing to bash my testicles with a mallet! XD

[Mike Stanley Soundboard]

Shouldn't this be under the Game heading?

Sound quality is good, although it's tricky to figure out how to use this one to prank-call someone. There is no catchy intro that pulls the other line into the conversation and gets them interested.

ZanderRBR responds:

It's not as much as a tool for prank calls right now as it is a tool for Red Bar fans to enjoy Stanley-isms. I went though a bunch of episodes to get these clips and these are the result of cutting out about 250 other clips that I deemed not usable. Sorry if its in the wrong section, I've never used this site before. I do plan to eventually go through every episode Stanley is on to get a better arsenal of clips. But that's a long term plan that will take me months.

[Parody Parody Parody]

In a nutshell: summarizes everything.

Perhaps the most painful realization I've had about Newgrounds parodies is that, for the life of me, I cannot tell when it's going to stop. Does anyone remember glam/hair metal? I equate the rise and fall of Glam/Hair Metal in the 80s and 90s with the Parodies seen on Newgrounds.

Look it up, on YouTube if you have to. I'll wait. Okay, fifteen minutes, you back? Let's start:

A bunch of snarky artistic/geek cultural hustlers came together and devised a means of controlling means and fame on this brand new site that awards quality cartoons and games made through a nifty Internet content generation program called Macromedia Flash. They assumed that most people are stupid and will get a laugh, rise, and hard-on from almost anything that pokes derisive fun at their preferred intellectual properties, and by doing so they can get a load of people clicking five on their creations. This causes instant gratification upon release, for no matter how awful the thing looks, it will get accolades because of comfortable familiarities invoked by the piece.

But, like anything with mass appeal, somewhere there is a breaking point. In the case of Glam Metal, it was the saturation of it. When Music Television found certain acts like Twisted Sister appealing, they signed whoever could top those guys. So, you had idiots dressing as women and singing about love and going acoustic (which pissed off the Thrash underworld to death), and somewhere, the message was lost in a bid to market something. Just like when X-Men hit at the box office, everyone sought and bought up every marketable comic book property possible, and in due time, saturated the scene with all manner of comic-based superhero films. Now ask yourself if you remember any X-Men movie past the second one with any fondness.

So the Greasy Moose have established a formula from all the Newgrounds/Internet Parodies: draw a popular character, put them into any oddball situation, watch people point and laugh, rinse repeat. Of course, one of the chief issues with making so many parodies (and you could probably view this through a few of our guys here) is that the audience expects that shit--or anything like that shit--and you find yourself typecast in a way, not to mention begged to continue placating their demand (or addiction) without establishing yourself as anything beyond that range, and thus a credible author with original material as well. The other issue is that using such characters beyond a parody might not be constituted as fair use, because at some point, you receive some form of benefit from it, even if it is not an immediate monetary benefit; people will buy your originals by associating it with your parody portfolio.

You can't help but feel a little bitter that your artistic integrity is now thrown into question. It's even worse when you are already bitter enough that you take your aggressions out on established characters in shameless, irresponsible, derivative ways.

Sexual Lobster has managed to pop the whole fackin' balloon in one deft stroke, from the monotonous musical number, awful singing, ridiculous animation that mirrors every overused foible in the written scripture, to the sheer fact that most of these imbeciles are emotionally hollow with zero empathy and deserve to fucking die in a black hole of their bitterness. What more can you possibly ask for in a cartoon?

For its size and scope, "Parody Parody Parody" is a fairly slick, well-animated send-up and a horrifying wake-up call to the folks around here and beyond that there will be a growing movement of Grunge (something that ain't quite parody) that will sweep away any appeal that the old hair-bands had and expose them for what they truly are: bitter, cynical sell-outs aiming for the mass appeal and failing to regard anything else that's already conceived as a mere source of derision. And I doubt it'll be a movement where we just sit around and pick on the fact that nothing is sacred anymore. Who knows. It might even be actually funny.

Sexual-Lobster responds:

re: your last paragraph there's a gold rush going on for parodies on youtube and i can't see it stopping any time soon.

there are some great parodies that add to the source material or strive to make some kind of social or political point, and some are just hilarious even if they use some of the cliche ingredients listed in my film. i don't want to criticise them, and i hope people don't stop making these types of films. i only want to criticise authors who make unimaginative parodies to make a name for themselves.

also.....you don't like my singing??? mmnaw.

[Coyote and Rattlesnake: No Evil 005]

After reviewing the legend provided by the link, I concluded that the tale is about civility and accepting oneself and others' strangeness. It's not too difficult to understand, although there's a massive clash of what we generally expect animals to behave. But animal behavior is not the point. This is all about getting mocked over nothing. "Coyote and Rattlesnake" is another in a series of cartoons by Warlord of Noodles that brings you back to when Flash was damn fun to watch.

If you read it or watched it and you're still not sure, here's the essential story: after Coyote invites Quetzalcoatl (pronounced Ketz-al-coat-al) to his home, he is appalled at the odd requests of his new friend, enough that he decides to emulate (with half-asked flair) the creature's strange antics. However, Quetzalcoatl had prepared for the Coyote's arrival by preparing things based on his customs, including the soup, and is so tickled by the guy's carrying on that he struggles to refrain from outright insulting him with his laughter. Being an adaptation by someone with her own stock of original characters, there is a little running commentary among the Warlord's personal retinue, which breaks up the need to follow the story perfectly. It was also a dirty excuse to incorporate anthro furries and such, but that's beside the point.

One thing the Warlord continues to this VERY DAY to struggle with is with sound mixing, since everything remains muffled to some degree. Also, solid as the performances are, mispronouncing "Quetzalcoatl" threw me off a great deal. There were moments even in professional works where a lot of voice-overs are involved, and one of them manages to throw you off. It should be noted. Still, the southern voices tickled the living shit out of me.

Aesthetics are often a matter of taste, but this is a delicious, aromatic affair. The guys, hate to break it to the anime enthusiasts out there, are a bit on the thin side (note: I've been watching the Primalords/Primal War series recently, so a comparison was bound to happen), yet it's a colorful, oddball world that goes straight to the point and ignores all the clutter. There are a few effects, such as entering the thick, tall grass, that needed some extra effort, but for the most part, the characters have an obvious life of their own, well-animated overall and with a very simple approach. The Warlord might not be a student of Adam Philips, but she might not have to be, really.

As for the actual adaptation, I've poured over the story and the cartoon and must say the cartoon is a pretty faithful adaptation. What will throw people, of course, is that one seems to resolve, the other does not. Even if most everything clicked, the payoff wasn't very lucrative; the Coyote had to end up leaving without any dinner, defeated in his scheme to make Quetzalcoatl look bad, and set out to fend for himself. You know... approach Kitty and complain about his failure. That would really make her happy, huh?

This has a few flaws, but nothing severe enough to undermine another production by the Warlord. If the sound can get out of that muffled phase....

Warlord-of-Noodles responds:

Thanks fer the fair shake, wall-o-text man.

[Contagious]

Part of a greater potential project called "Manwhore Industries", Chris Voigt's Greasy Moose have done it again. This is where storyboarding with a cartoonist background pays off in spades, people: watch and learn.

Adapted from a comic found on the Greasy Moose website as usual, Fernando has contracted an STD and finds himself at the center of a web of sexual intrigue that hits closer to home than he wishes to imagine.

With the rate at which new Greasy Moose material debuts, it should be established that the so-called "Sexual Lobster" has attained a pattern of consistency akin to the Neurotically Yours web cartoon series. In other words, his repeated and constant cartooning and development, performing his own voices and doing all the major work, has made him into a competent, affable gentleman whom we can take hints from.

"Manwhore Industries" also has another cartoon that could be adapted into a series. Politely petition Mr. Voigt whenever possible, because some of these are too goofy to pass up. Oh, and they are not goofy as in stream-of-consciousness absurd, like much of the Greasy Moose world; there often seems to be no true binding to the segmented, capricious plotting, so it's an adult variation of Looney Tunes that has no consistency except for the general traits of the characters. None of the situations they get themselves into seem to pan out with any repercussions. In other words, Greasy Moose lacks any core of realism or sequential consistency to it.

The cartoon that Chris linked up in Entry 53 can work as a Flash, but here's a lesson on adapting cartoons: you have to edit them. This one has an initial subplot that establishes Manwhore Industries but lacks a stunning punchline: Gooseman discussing with Fernando about the latest Music Video (quite literally a nod to the ones displayed at Newgrounds and that Fernando does have a legitimate business). Afterward, the hilarity ensues. Now, if I were Chris, I would either slice down the opener or rewrite it, perhaps lengthen and adapt it into a separate cartoon in the same continuity, while keep the remainder for an actual cartoon. Reworking and planning the comic in question for animation may prove a bitch, but don't slap Mr. Voigt for trying. In "Contagious", he has his priorities straight as the whole comic rests on a single theme carried unto the end with flair and sass.

As for future installments of "Manwhore Industries" assuming Mr. Voigt cares to continue them, I would recommend installing an actual antagonist, and it's on display at this site: the law. A three-part cartoon featuring Gooseman and a seductive undercover police detective on his tail for body harvesting (a recurring theme in his motif). Combined with maintaining an illicit business and inter-office politics threatening to destroy them inside-out, and you have the semblance of an actual episodic comic or animation series. I suppose the drawback is keeping a continuity/consistency bible because Greasy Moose, other than general character/caricature profiles, never seems to do so.

It might not fly with the Sexual Lobster, but it's a given that he has the capabilities to create a brilliant series out of this set-up. He has the abandoned office building and the three crazies who can make something out of it. It's just a question of whether he wishes to pursue it or not. In any event, Contagious is an excellent adaptation of a comic and classic example of escalation and punchline working together flawlessly. Say what you will of its content, but you cannot deny its ingenious execution. The Greasy Moose are the sexiest guys and girls on Newgrounds thus far, with all due respect to Mr. Stamper.

Sexual-Lobster responds:

"a competent, affable gentleman" haha i like that.

i have to agree regarding the manwhore industries comic, it does not end on a solid punchline. and it would require some knowledge of fernando's music career to make sense, what with the music lyrics and the yoghurt.

i have a massive fernando story that i've written with a very formidable antagonist, but its very long and action heavy, i might tackle it some day but not any time soon.

as for the manwhore industries scenario, i have come up with several other scripts for shorts set in the building other than the comic, but i guess i'll wait and see how this one does. also, i should probably make another manwhore song at some point to remind people of what its about.

glad you liked it and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on it.

[Stickman Can't Fight 6-2]

Stickman CAN'T Fight is the antithesis of countless stickman movies, in which there is a central conflict aside of survival and a parody, or hook, that makes for an interesting watch.

The central premise is that there is a stick figure who willfully refuses to engage in bloody combat with anybody and has the uncanny ability to survive countless gallons of punishment, even from those who have taken it upon themselves to nurture his development as a warrior, or indoctrinate him into becoming just another stick figure plunged in a Newgrounds Flash.

While not the most fluid or visually engaging feature--though close-ups of the sticks between their frame-by-frame brawls provide a good departure from most authors' stick figure beat-em-ups--it relies on slapstick, buffoonery, casting the poor wretch as a whipping boy plunged into a setting where he must evolve or die. Or, does the world have to evolve? Goofiness aside, I got something else out of this series and it is this: if Stickman can't fight, it might be because he won't. There's a difference. Perhaps this wimp is actually a pacifist at heart, or perhaps someone who finds no reason to fight, someone who recognizes the futility and banality of his world as nothing worth fighting for, including himself even, being the whipping boy.

The only thing I could advise guitan11 about is that his tale should have a reasonably complex ending, which explores the reasons behind this useless Stickman's lack of motivation. Will he ever learn to fight? Will he reject this tutoring and refuse to participate in this frankly coarse world he is subjected to?

You can also observe the "Black" character as someone unbreakable by his sheer stubbornness. He isn't stupid, just overwhelmed by what goes on around him. Everybody accepts it at face value and takes it for granted, but he probably feels no compulsion to join in. By his refusal, he becomes both tragic and heroic at the same time.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a clear message from the author outside of watching a guy foul up repeatedly when learning how to fight. After at least seven entries into the series (unless previous episodes were broken up as well), "Stickman Can't Fight" should have some kind of message or resolution dawning by now. If there are no further developments to the characters in the seventh episode, it is fair to assume the author has run short on ideas and is running this gag into the ground. It would suck, considering the premise is novel and should receive a solid execution.

"Stickman Can't Fight" could be above the fart jokes and visual gags the series exemplifies thus far. The spotty dialogue should also be amended, which includes the balloons paraded over characters' heads. We patiently await Episode 7 to prove me wrong that this cartoon series is becoming nothing more than the sum of its flaws.

guitan11 responds:

this is quite the review. i have never had anyone take these animations this way.
like any art form, it allows the viewer to give it its own interpretation or meaning. i do have a purpose of making this and a goal. but what you get out of it is entirely up to you bro. as long as it makes you laugh, think what you want :P

[Attempting to snipe]

What is this?

So this is about a guy who fires his gun at random and hits people. Is this for real? I don't get the joke here. It's goofy, but I don't find anything else in it. Nice job for a first time, though there is a lot of snap-crackle-pop in the audio at the beginning.

VSAworld responds:

erhhmm the sniper is killing all the soldiers ;)