Esn's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Narwhals]

Very annoying

I like most of Weebl's cartoons, but this particular film was very annoying for me. I wanted to close the window after about 4 seconds (though I did force myself to watch until it started looping). The singing was like chalk on blackboard, the song was repetitive, simplistic and not catchy, and the lyrics weren't particularly funny. The constantly flashing and jumping drawings of the narwhals didn't do anything positive for me either.

Your mileage may vary, and obviously does, because most people here seem to absolutely love this. But I think that Weebl has much, much better flashes, notably "Walk in the Woods", and the "On the Moon" and "Weebl and Bob" series.

[Dubya-Doo 6: Last Episode]

Not funny

The "Obama glow" was kinda funny, but most of it was a poor attempt at humour. It reminded me of the Mallard Fillmore parody in "America the Book"; a whole bunch of other-side bashing followed by "Ooops! I forgot to tell a joke!" The main reason it wasn't funny was because the balance of truth to exaggeration was way off. The characters are no more than caricatures of their public personas, and the interaction between them does not feel real. The dialogue feels very forced, and it is too obvious that the voice acting is all by one person (Obama is particularly bad; he sounds nothing at all like Obama). Far from sophisticated political commentary, the humour is like a poorly-aimed sledgehammer, always aiming at the lowest left-wing conspiracy-theory denominator. And I say this even though I agree with many of the points in the video. Yet I still found the presentation to be very bad.

Though doubtless it works for some, particularly for the younger crowd, more of whom are likely to have a simplistic enough view to find it funny.

[Sealed History (Part 1B)]

Well...

The art is fantastic. This is one of the most unique things I've seen on Newgrounds in my 5 years of visiting this site. In context, it seems like something completely out of another world. It isn't, of course, not if you've seen German expressionist woodcuts from the 1920s. But it is very unusual in this day and age. The animation was also done surprisingly well.

The music fit the film well, although I did not find it to be memorable.

I think the biggest problem here is that we are given little reason to CARE about what is happening. You introduce a bunch of unknown gods who are promptly either destroyed or transformed, and the only thing you tell us about them is that some are "good" and others are "evil". Why should we care whether the "good" ones win or lose? What hangs in the balance? Basically, who are they "good" FOR? What some may call "evil" is also beneficial for some, so it is hard to take the narrator at his word.

You've succeeded in making it be "epic", but epic things need to be grounded by something that feels real; for example, LOTR was grounded by the hobbits and Sam Gamgee in particular. The Greek and Roman gods exhibited characteristics that were well-known archetypes to the people of the time; something to relate to. Lynd Ward's woodcut novels of the 1930s, while being dramatic as hell, spoke to issues that people could relate to.

You need something similar, I think.

Also, on another note, try to not have the film automatically repeat from the beginning once it fiished.

[There She Is!! final step]

I have to say...

...I never was and probably never will be partial to this style/genre of animation. Having said that, my respect for this series has grown to be quite high. I only realized this a little while ago, but I've somehow come to think of these characters as real people. That usually only happens to me when I read novels. The character development is very well-done, all without saying a word (though you have to pay attention). And the way they're drawn is fantastic... in particular, I loved the contrast between the outlaw bikers and the rich cat family.

My favourite episode remains #4, which was when the series took the leap from fun but uncomplicated films (both in terms of story and in terms of characters) to something with a more mature undertone. I think that (for me) was when the characters became something more than just lines and animation on the screen, more than disposable cartoon figures.

And this is a suitable finale. The defining moment is near the end, when the male cat for the first time openly and unashamedly shows how much he loves his rabbit partner. That was beautiful. The whole film was.

There were a two things that I didn't understand, though - what the significance of the green knots around the tree branches was, and why the cat tore up the plane ticket that he was given.

Maybe someone in a subsequent review can explain?

[Gher 2]

Er. What?

It was mildly amusing in a random way (well, there were also one or two nice jokes, such as the prof rating himself), but it still wasn't a very well-made film. Animation and art were fairly good, but it felt like there wasn't a whole lot of thought in it. And a lot of things went by too fast. The newspaper in the beginning, for example, was impossible to read at the speed it scrolled down.

[Somnium]

I enjoyed watching that

Although it moved a little slowly at times, I was glad that I got the chance to see it. It is indeed very dreamlike; you were very successful in capturing that feeling. I also loved the colours that you used. The weakest part of it was probably the character drawings; they didn't seem quite right most of the time. So I do feel that it's a little underdone and thus give you 7/10, but it's a "good" 7/10, if that makes sense.

And yes, all art is just stealing the best bits from life and other art. :)

[Frank Jones]

Super!

That song just made my day. Excellent execution, and a good story too. The animation was also nice. On the whole, the film felt a bit unpolished in some spots, which is why I refrain from giving a perfect score. But this is certainly one of the best concepts that I've seen this on Newgrounds this Christmas season.

[Snowbot]

Simply charming!

I think that this is a great little animation. I loved how many events were timed to specific notes in the music, and I loved the animated acting.

The quality was very good, and no wonder - I see that you're the author of "Sloppy Fight 2", which numbers among my favourite NG submissions.

We'll both be "competing" in the Christmas flash contest, and I wish you luck.

[Christmas Romance]

A review of the first version

Well, I reviewed the "new" version already, but I'll also review this older version. I think that some things here are more effective. In particular, the film starts at a more accessible and interesting place; I think that the added-on scenes at the beginning in the new version are unnecessary; they aren't as interesting and don't add anything that isn't revealed in this older edit of the film, plus they begin without any music. Also, I liked the snowflakes in this film a lot more, as they look more interesting and it is clear that they are snowflakes. I wasn't sure what those white circles were in the new version; I thought they might've been specks of dust or something. The film doesn't have the nice animated backgrounds and some other things that the new version does, but on the whole, I think that some of the fundamental elements are stronger, and maybe this is why its rating is currently a little higher.

Also, I find it hard to believe that those extra scenes and animated backgrounds added 15mb to the file size! I have a suspicion that the new file size could've been reduced by a lot without making the film look any worse. Maybe not, but it just seems inefficient. Are all of the animated backgrounds in the newer film just vector images on another layer, or something else?

Cridia responds:

Everything is vector, as is in the new version. I reduced the layers as much as possible; the newer version actually contains less layers. It is a bit strange why the size would skyrocket with the animation present, but that is something I still dont quite get either. Then again, it is not like I am a veteran animator so maybe I will learn in the future.

As for the starting scene; it was a bit of a shame without the music, but this was something I got told by an senior animation student at my school; he found that there was no purpose and that in order to establish a goal, I should have at least introduced the present beforehand. I actually kind of agreed with that which is why the extra scene was added. I couldnt find anything to substitute for the lack of music though, so thats why it was silent.

it seems we disagree about the snow though :P. I was of the opinion that the snow was actually weaker; as it was in a different style than the rest of the animation. The reason why I went with a more simple form was because I found it to fit better than something detailed with a glow. Then again, I highly dislike that typical gradient glow, which was also removed entirely this time around.

Anyways, thanks for your time for responding to this animation as well!

[Christmas Romance +]

A nice anime-style film

Well, maybe not by some definitions of anime, but this is definitely in the spirit of a lot of East-Asian animation. The "conversations" and the expressions of love at the end, in any case, are very typically East-Asian. I really found a lot of things to like in the art here, especially atmospheric details such as the lamplight on the ground, and the big creature watching them from behind the log. The animation of the characters was sometimes good, but other times messy, particularly when they were walking. The speech bubbles at some parts, particularly at the beginning, went by too quickly for me to figure out what was going on, although the story isn't particularly complex.

One question, though: how come this is 20mb? The art seems to be vector-based, so I don't see how this can take up so much space when far more complex vector-drawn films (such as Waterlollies) take up less.

Cridia responds:

Well, I dont really understand either, why the filesize is so big, but maybe it is because of the Flash itself. Waterlollies was made using ToonBoom (a program that is way too complex for me at the moment). Seeing as how ToonBoom is most probably the cream of the crop among 2D animation tools (it is also used for commercial cartoon series), I figure it has better ways of handling the filesize too.