Galneda's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Korean Missile Crisis]

America.

Fuck Yeah.

Fived and Faved for much needed Patriotism and Truth.

/salutes

Sh0T-D0wN responds:

/Resalute.

[Vampires_test]

Not bad.

Fluid animation, good premise. The pace is a little slow, try cutting out unnecessary pauses, and make it flow more.

Also, you NEED more than just one gunshot. Throw in a shuffling noise for the vampire walking, ambience like the soft bubbling of the pot in the background, the monster growl, crashes, footsteps, cartoony noises like whistles and clangs and what-not...

...and also, VOICES VOICE VOICES! Speech bubbles with an animation is a no-no!

Looking forward to seeing the finishes product!

megaener responds:

I know... I was just testing... and No I'm not going to use balloons for the finished work

[Brawl Funnies [dick 3]]

Nobody wins in this city...not even GOD.

Have patience; as we shall lead by example.

I've been guilty for falling into the trench of unoriginality...or rather, moat...but the difference is found in those who learn from their mistakes.

I say give it time...the fad will be over with, and maybe...just maybe...something will happen to inspire most to try something from themselves. I mean, hell, Hollywood's running out of ideas...it's true, I think they're the one's to blame for degrading the idea of an expanding imagination...the thing is, if they aren't going to set the example, let us.

I think if you look for it you'll find it...unfortunately, that's not difficult to do with the beaten horse that is video game parodies on this site, and again, I'm guilty by one account...but y'know...behold the turtle, it makes progress by sticking out it's neck and all that.

Chin-up...the message was delivered well enough through the other two Brawl Funnies, and I read it loud and clear the first time. :D

(reading back on this review, I hope it's coherent enough to convey my point; I've been up for hours actually...and I'm taking a break animating. Please understand. lol)

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