Galneda's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[an axem ranger story ep.1]

It ain't terrible, I've seen worse.

But, as far as content goes, this is completely unoriginal. An entirely interchangable plot, to characters who already have stories attached to them, dragged into a situation that's been told, (and told in this format) time and time again.

It goes double for the Axem Rangers; Alvin-Earthworm took from something that's already been done, and created them for his flashes, and you took from him, so those guys have been triple, or maybe even quadruple filtered through the originality spectrum.

While Brolly is a decent antagonist, look into his lore, and look into the Axem's lore. Brolly destroyed whole planets, with greater ease than even Frieza. The only reason Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan survived was because they were the strongest on earth...and even then, they only just BARELY got away.

With that said, what defeated the Axem Rangers (Mecha Sonic) is established to NOT be that powerful at the time he killed ALL FIVE (not just two)...so if this is a prequel of events, and the Axem's will clearly survive, it doesn't add up.

But we could get into how "your version of Brolly is different" or "this is my version of the Axem's, it's totally not linked to Alvin-Earthworm's Axems" all day. The point is, these characters have been done. This story has been told. These fights have been fought....and if you've been paying attention, these were all done years ago, and with fewer grammatical errors.

As an animator you're trying to tell a story, with content. This content is stale...and by being a storyteller, you're showing us the extra-ordinary happening within the ordinary.

This flash is the ordinary happening in the extra-ordinary. It just doesn't work. Give us, the audience, something new.

blackreaperr responds:

you are absolutly right about story been told etc but i really don't care if someone makes a movie like this with for example naruto i don't look at the story he already has in the anime i just look at what that person made and that is how i work i just make what i come up with no strings attaced and maybe you'll like the second part better since there will be a more deeper story who knows i just do this for fun and i still liked it plus when you said alvin's axems you where wrong they ain't his he just re-maked them there from mario as i said in my fun facts but anyway thanks for you comment

[Counter-Strike vs Pokemon]

That was epic as hell!

This was incredibly well done. The humor is sewn into the concept itself, as a terrifying bloodthirsty Pikachu leaps off a blood-stained wall as it calls out it's name all cute-like...but it was really well shot for a flash.

Most other flash authors, even JohnnyUtah, have a tendency to keep things in a profile view, as if shooting a play on a stage. You displayed an array of shot diversity in this, and it translated beautifully. I was most impressed by the dynamic angles like the Charmander ambushing the entire squad before getting gunned down.

You can really tell you put a lot of effort into this. The soundtrack was perfect for the suspense, and you chose the appropriate sound effects for everything suited. However, the Counter Strike voice clips are a tad dated, and lacked diversity. You could've obtained much more flexibility with the dialogue if you had voice actors on bored...more on that in a bit.

The flash in itself was short and sweet with a good ending (with a hilarious twist ending...I seriously laughed out loud). My only REAL complaint is the lack of a replay button or, at the very least, a preloader with a play button so it doesn't just loop.

Keep up good work like this and you'll be the new legend in our midst...I voted 5!

In the future if you require voice talent, audition me, and I'd be happy to lend a hand! Once again, keep up the great work!

DoomzDayChikn responds:

thank you so much!

I'm a film major in school right now, so I have a tendency to do my flashes just like a real film. (The hardest part of this animation was going INTO Counterstrike the game and finding the right angles in-game to tell a story)

I wanted to keep the voices for the CS people as the radio-bot sounds, since everyone knows them : / but thanks for the suggestion! :)

and I'm kinda new to newgrounds and the 'preloader' so I dont know how it really works. Tips would be great!!

thanks again for your criticism, it means a lot

[Christmas with Dad and Me]

Nice!

You did a really good job with this flash! Those 2-3 weeks paid off! The characters look great, and as difficult it is to display emotions through skull-masks, you pulled it off very well. The body-language was animated beautifully to carry the story along...it was some really nice work!

I lol'd that their chainsaw was right there by the door with the umbrellas and I lol'd at the ending as well! The rest, I genuinely felt pathos for the kid...his sulked over depression with the bag of coal and his murderously upset face extracted an "Awwww" out of me....same as the final embrace.

Because even homicidal internet maniacs can have touching family moments...

Dialogue was proportioned out perfectly in my opinion. Though Santa only had one line, it was necessary to the plot, and any additional dialogue wasn't needed. Sound effects were great! Especially the start-up of the chainsaw as Dad's approaching.

My ONLY complaint......ONLY single solitary complaint:

That preloader screen is really boring and bland....this one complaint is set back, however, by it's quick load-time! Still, I can't give it a ten because the preloader was weakly executed, but I most certainly can vote a five.

That I have no problem with at all. :D

Great job! Keep up the good work, and gratz on Daily 1st!

EM549 responds:

Haha, you're right. I was so excited to get it submitted I just kinda threw the preloader in there at the last minute. Glad you enjoyed and thanks for the great review!

[Death's Shadow 1]

I'm having difficulty believing this is your first

...because it's pretty damn good.

-There are a few minor spelling errors you should check up on. (Off the top of my head, I knew there was "longe" instead of "longer" , but there might be others.)
-There were also a few minor inconsistencies with the character designs. When the black guy first went down, he had that photorealism to him like the other faces did, but from then on he was vector drawn. Although the photorealism added to the gritty details, and only complimented the rest of the flash's very "Noir" feel, I would try to keep designs consistent throughout in the future.
-The green font...it's not that I outright have a problem with it, but there's just something I don't like about the look of the fonts. Possibly because that shade of green didn't mesh well with the background, or maybe it's just the design of the font...I would switch it up in that area.

Other than that, though, it was very interesting. Like I said, it had a really nice "noir" grit to it. The garbled voices were a little odd, but unique to the flash's credit. If you were to build on this, I'd love to see how deep you could make the story arch in this red-sun, bleak world of lawlessness.

In other words, keep up the good work! You'll only get better from here on out by doing more and more! Keep pumping out flashes for the experience of becoming more comfortable with animating, and challenge yourself by focusing on animation techniques you're not particularly good at.

Once you attack your weaknesses in animation, you'll quickly become a power-house, because if this REALLY IS your first flash, that's pretty incredible.

jabasil27 responds:

Haha, damn, I did miss that one letter. Thank you for the feedback though, it definitely gave me more direction. Thanks to all.

[Two Strange]

Heh

Not bad stop-motion, actually...it seemed to go really smoothly, and if you keep it up, you can be an absolute master at this kind of stuff.

What crippled the flash's score, though, is the audio of the characters were WAAAAY too soft...even if they are mumbling gibberish, I want to hear it, because it's a method of the character's to display emotion, or human reactions to what's going on...so when I turn it up, THE MUSIC IS BLASTING!

It's like, say the audio for the voices are at 5...the music is at 15 or some shit...balance them, don't make the audio disproportionate.

Also, it's on a loop. I'd highly recommend throwing a preloader on there at the very least; just use one of the available ones in the download section, and there ya go. I STILL don't know how to make a replay button, but as long as you have a preloader with a play-button in the beginning, that's really all you need.

Great fun, though. Keep up the good work!

Flapjak responds:

Yeah I know what you mean. The problem with the sound was to do with the mic which was really soft at pick up. I have a new one now it's all good. Thanks for the review

[M.O.T.O.R]

Absolutely Badass

-The music was awesome.
-Blew my mind for a Madness flash.
-The action was really well done, as well. My favorite being the suspended lightsaber above the trooper, and being force pulled through it.

I also dug the hell out of using the grounded starships cannons before he got out in the hallway

But what completely blew my mind was how you incorporated 3D into it...the lighting and the dynamic camera angles were brilliant.

I have to ask, since I'm taking basic 3D rendering with Maya every Thursday at college, how did you manage to import the 3D animation into flash?

Like, what all did you have to do?

The only constructive criticism I can provide is the action could have been more rapid. I'm looking forward to your response!

Voted 5!

DutchinLive responds:

I did maya in my digital media course, and it makes my brain hurt, but I wouldn't mind learning it again. Swift 3d is basically a 3d flash engine, same system as Maya, no NURBS, all polygons. It has an exporting feature which makes your rendered scene a .swft which gets imported into flash on 3 layers (depending on settings), object, highlights and shading or something.

So it basically comes in as a frame by frame movie clip in flash, ready for you to screw with it how you wish.

PM me if you want.

[XCOM Series Trailer]

Nice.

The only advice I got for you is to never stop animating; like any art, you become even better with practice...so that should clear up any doubts you have for yourself in your drawing ability.

Onto the criticism:

(Pros +, Cons -)

+The music was epic and well chosen!
(Not a con, but I would suggest finding an abundance of sound effects NOW for future projects...audio other than just the music is encouraged. Even in some music videos they'll add other sounds or voice-tracks to match what's going on in the video.)
+You have a keen attention to detail, and the character designs were proportional!
-Cheesy anime elements killed the mood in certain scenes. Generic Crew Member #5 studies his screen with the calm eye-darting of a gamer, and although he's reacting to bad news coming up on the readings, literally shivers like he just shat his pants, and spins around, maw agape like he's either shrieking like a monkey, or ready to inhale a grapefruit.

...What did he see on the screen to make him react in such a way? Obviously the audience isn't supposed to know to provide a hook, but whatever it is, with a mouth open in such a way like that, it's not like he's going "Commander! Independence Day is happening at the Church!" or not even so much as an open-closed-open, "OH SHI-" ...he just see's the screen, shakes like Michael J. Fox, and turns to apparently scream at the top of his lungs.

"AAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
"Oh for the love of- WHAT THE HELL IS IT, Generic Crew Member #5!?"
"...There's some aliens attacking on the screen...they're big, and they're probably going to beam down a couple of their troops to start cappin' civilians."
"There...wasn't that easier than just screaming at us all?"
"I get excited!"

-It's not a huge con, but I'd recommend not outlining fluids and liquids in black. Say if it's gushing blood, outline it in a darker shade of red...Light blue tears? Outline it in slightly darker or slightly lighter blue. White beam? Some hue of gray. Y'know what I mean?

-Also there was a scene in there when Captain Cowlick saved the girl, tumbling out of the way of an oncoming death beam. While the alien promptly refuses to keep shooting at them a little to the left, we see the Captain LIFT HER THE FUCK OFF OF HER like she was nothing to check to see if she's okay.

I understood what was going on...he saves her, and he wants to look her right in the eye, and check to see if she's safe. But a slight lift, where gravity still comes into play would be sufficient...He grabs her by the shoulders, does what I would liken to an upside-down pushup, and LIFTS HER parallel to him like she weighed lighter than Styrofoam.

...Hey, you asked for reviews, you got 'em. I still enjoyed the flash. And for your second ever, it's REALLY DAMN GOOD.

To gain complexity in future animations, be sure that if the buildings are shaded, shade the trees and street lights too to give it that added detail. When the scene is on the face, have the eyelids narrow and widen accordingly with face as it studies the screen...Like, seriously, just watch different people's faces and notice subtle movements in the eyebrows, eyelids, cheeks, lips, and especially head-position...if you can master realistic body movements at an early age, you'll jump so high in your animation ability, your nose would bleed.

Again, I can't stress this enough, keep doing what you do. Just keep it at a steady pace of outdoing yourself constantly...

...So this flash was better than your last one...your NEXT one should be better than this!

P4D3LL05 responds:

You can't imagine how much fun i had reading your review, especially with generic crew member #5.Literally i rolled on the floor laughing.
You cannot be more true about all the things you mentioned.
Thank you for your priceless review and i'll try to implement all the information you
gave me.

P.S. i loved the Dick Neck trailer :)

[WTF_Action]

BADASS!

How did you get the camera to waver like it was falling, but looking horizontally?

Everything was amazing...the only constructive criticism I can provide is to:
-acquire a female voice actor for the reporter
-make it longer

Really, ridiculously badass and funny...I can never figure out how to manipulate the "camera man" in a flash...a response would be so appreciated, it hurts.

andreasng responds:

hey thanks. and it isnt really that complicated. what i do is to merge everything down into one graphic, then move the whole graphic from side to side, then mark all keyframes in the timeslider, go down into properties, click on the timing button (i think it just says edit, or something) but click on all the buttons till you reach the one with a curve inside -> then click the little dot in lower left corner, drag the "tangent" down till the bottom and to the right. with the upper right dot, click it, drag tangent up till edge and to the left. that should give you exactly what i got.

However it is limited in many ways, and doesnt really work as well as other animation applications i think.

thanks. good luck.