Esn's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Guide to being review mod]

Didn't like it.

If you're going to berate review mods, the most effective way to do this would've been to be on topic and to mention specific cases of how they don't do their job well. That could also have given the film some comedic value. As it was, your, uh, "criticism" can theoretically apply to pretty much any Newgrounds employee with no variation. Some job-specific descriptions would've been nice. The film was obviously meant to rely on the humour factor, and this failed for me.

I must admit that I don't much like review mods either, but for a different reason... and... not one which I'll mention here, I think. Too dangerous.

Sir-CannabisClock responds:

oh please, like that will get you anywhere on NG.

Let me tell you something. You know what they have under the review rules? "DO NOT COMPLAIN TO THE MODERATORS ABOUT YOUR BAN."

Now what the hell does that tell ya? I'll tell you what it means, mods don't give a shit if your review deserved it or not. Fuck pointing it out logically, BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS HAD A REVIEW WRONGFULLY DELETED. Period.

[Evolution !]

Very funny.

Graphics, pacing, and the story really impressed me. This was really quite funny too. However, I do think that it would have been better if there was an actual voice doing the explaining - it seemed a little... empty, somehow. Don't get me wrong, the music and sound effects fit the flash very well, but I didn't like having to read everything; it just didn't work for me. Chang Heavy Industries (google them) does a good job of using timed text in flash; there are no images to distract the viewer and it lets your imagination to the work. Similarly, I don't mind when I have to read in comics, when there is no time limit. But here, something didn't feel right. It was an odd mix of the two worlds; I wanted to look at the pictures, but I had to read the text or fear missing something... I don't think it was the best solution. Of course, text is better than a bad voice actor, so perhaps you have a good reason for using this method. ;)

Despite my critique above, I really did like this piece. Well done!

[Pootytang Adventures #030]

Unappealing except to a small few, I believe.

The flash consists of Wade Fulp's head pasted on top of Batman's body, the flashing words "Wade is the God Damned Batman" and "I luv u Waid <3", a picture of Batman and Robin kissing, and a Batmobile shaking from side to side. It is on an infinite loop and consists of just a couple of frames.

I didn't like it because I believe that it did not have much substance to it. More than anything else, it is an inside joke that required little effort to make compared to the majority of flashes on Newgrounds, and I seriously doubt that the humour translates well outside of a relatively small clique. As such, the submission is not really made for the wider Newgrounds audience, and because I am not a part of the intended group I am giving it the score that I feel it is worth.

In the future, I would recommend the creation of flashes which can be appreciated by a general audience. Some suggestions would be to improve your graphics, put some sound in, add length, and substantiate your thoughts to a greater extent.

JujubeLock responds:

You finally get it right on the 3rd try, bravo. I am glad that I manage to teach audiences how to properly review.

On a future note though, I would avoid reviewing the same flash over and over again after your review is deleted.

[An Awesome Halloween]

Not bad...

Well, I'm giving this a slightly higher score than the "MGS" submission, largely because there were actually some places where this made me laugh (particularly the violence trifecta). It was a pretty decent halloween flash, on the whole, and I can say that I enjoyed watching it.

There were some things that I thought could've been done better, though. The graphics weren't great, but admittedly they aren't really that important in a humour flash like this (though if they were better they might've risen my score a bit). More serious was that the "nerdy" character was an unrealistic stereotype. Now, I don't mind stereotypes if they're spread around equally... but I got the distinct sense here that the other two guys were meant to be "normal" - and since they were voices by more normal-sounding voices, the implication was that you're "normal" as well. If you're going to make your characters stereotypes, spread it around.

It's bad form to make fun of a character type who's different from you in such an obvious way and not do the same thing to the characters who're like yourself. Make fun of yourself, too, not just of people who you think are silly. Try, anyway - it will make your humour more balanced and also funnier.

As for other criticisms... well, some of the jokes just fell flat to me or I thought could've been done better. I can't really make any suggestions for that though - other than to keep writing. You'll get funnier the more you practice at it.

And that's my review. :p

By the way, I must commend you for responding so well even to your critics in the MGS reviews. Not many artists have the restraint.

Egoraptor responds:

The characters are all stereotypes. Billy is the nerd, Clyde was the crazy out-of-control one, and Hank was the boring one that brings everyone down. If you're asking who I am, well, I'm all 3. I actually find Hank to be the least entertaining of the 3, but I needed him to be there as a balance. I probably should've exaggerated his character more, but he was difficult to write for since I relate to Billy and Clyde the most.

Characters are very important to me so your review was cool to read. I do still need to work on a balance so that drawing a favorite is a difficult choice, you know?

[Russian Mafia on Mars]

similar

Thematically, this seems to be fairly similar to your previous submitted flash, "Bankomat". There's the same idea here about the old bastards being replaced by the new ones, who in a short time get just as power-hungry and are once again destroyed. The two animations are different in many ways, but the themes are almost exactly the same (they're just portrayed differently).

I think that this is a weaker film than "Bankomat", largely because "Bankomat" was much easier to understand. It looks like this one confused nearly all of the reviewers. Other than that, the graphics and style were of the usual high quality, and I liked the music too. The more I watch this film, the more I like it.

By the way, you're a kol-belov fan, you should go and see "Voyeur School", his recent film which was too big to submit to Newgrounds (over 30mb). Search for it on google.

[bizerk VS sinco]

shows promise

I think you have the potential to make some really cool stuff - this was simply a bit rough, though. Your figures are drawn rather loosely (the arms/legs are way too long sometimes) and it's not always clear what's going on.

On the bright side, you have some pretty awesome special effects there. You just need to practice a bit more - go watch some of the masterpieces of stickfights on Newgrounds like "Sloppy Fight 2" and see how they did things.

[Error: Entire Series]

I can see that you tried

...and quite honestly it's fun to watch at times. But why did you break up the action by forcing the viewer to constantly click on dialogue boxes? It was annoying - you should just set aside a few seconds for the text boxes next time. So what if some people read slow? It's a slight inconvenience for a few weighed against a big inconvenience for the majority. I'd much rather that the text boxes went by faster than I could read them than me being forced to click those arrows all the time.

The other thing this flash is missing is zooms and camera movement. Well, it's not necessary of course, but it could've been nice.

This could be much better, but I'm being nice and giving a "6" seeing as how you did do some cool things in there - this is better than most stuff on Newgrounds, so it probably deserves above a "5".

So yes. Keep improving.

connemaraproductions responds:

thanks! i don't realy know how to do zoom much and stuff so i stick to the basics!

[House of Squid]

What in the bloody hell??...

Jesus on a pickle sandwich, that was... odd.

I was thoroughly confused throughout the whole thing. Perhaps because I don't know any of your characters - there was no introduction for anything, you just kinda jumped right into it. While the spontaneity made it funny, I do get the sense that this was made mainly for those who already know all about your characters - those who read your comic.

It might be nicer next time if you introduced your characters in some fashion, because a lot of your audience here on Newgrounds is going to be first-time viewers.

Nevertheless, this was definitely funny. And I'm not even into S&M, unless you're talking about the 6-foot anthropomorphic dog and hyperkinetic rabbity thing.

[Pandora's Book]

you have a promising talent

The character animation here is quite good - you did an admirable job showing many of the little movements and gestures that are so hard to animate. It's not the best I've ever seen of course, but it was good - keep having an attentive attitude to the world and I'm sure you'll get better. You skipped showing details like toes, which would've been nice of course, but it does take more time. I really liked how you got a sense of the characters' personalities.

One thing to definitely work on is your animation of nature. It seems like it was a bit of an afterthought here, but I think it would be a good idea next time to pay attention to how the grass REALLY moves in the wind. The here was simply not very good (just having sections of grass statically rock back and forth). The best animated grass I've ever seen in animation (gave me goosebumps) was in the film "The Humpbacked Horse" from 1947 (there's a page for it on wikipedia). Another good example to use for reference would the banner at the forums of the website "goober.nu" (the "Nim's Journey" logo).

That's about it. Good work, overall.

[Squaresville]

Zekey, you're a genius!

This film felt like I was trapped in some completely incomprehensible yet hilarious dream.

I have no idea how you do it! There were still a few sections which dragged a little, but you're getting better at keeping these to a minimum. The majority of the film was bewildering, interesting and very funny. There was one bit that was downright creepy, too, near the end.

Keep doing this stuff - I love it. You're one of the few people who make films that are this uncoventional. Have you ever thought about making a feature-length film in this style? I'd be willing to pay for it. :)

ZekeySpaceyLizard responds:

I'd love to make a movie but I dont have the PC power or patience using this mouse.