Chakra-X's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Shards of Fate]

Amibitious, PASSION DRIVEN, one of th piece I was most hype for as a fellow "fuck you I am doing a fight scene".

I like that you were bold enough to go for scenes/actions on the Z axis and moving them through space, I rarely did that in Eclipse Force, shit's HARD especially with how we design our characters. I know there are things you would improve on, tweak, and polish if you had time. That's the price to pay when we both are assholes and just say NUH UH IM DOING IT ANYWAY.

If you ever go back to a Del short (AND I HOPE YOU DO), suggestions that I would take (suggestion I need for myself too) are work on anatomy/poses, and letting us know who the bad guy is and why is is so badass (I KNOW I AM GUILTY OF THAT LAST ONE BIG TIMEEEEE). Also, you know when you have someone do like a big punch to the face or something? Instead of having that punch animation just end when it hits the face, show a few frames of that punch stretching the fuck out of whatever body part it's hitting, then a few frame that settle down in to a non-stretched version, makes it more impactful!

DEL FOR PRESIDENT

Kofdizz responds:

Thanks, bro! I appreciate it! Eclipse Force 2, please!

[Sonic X: Cosmic Chase]

Enjoyable, but Missed the Sweet Spot

First let me say off I never felt like I was entitled for something during the 4 years you were working on this. You worked on it when you could little by little, I don't understand why that is so hard to understand. Maybe these complaints are coming from people that don't have to worry about working/going to school/doing things besides animating?

I will say that I was astonished by the trailer. It was before I was done the 3rd part of Nazo Unleashed and I was like "wow this is so much better than mine". That was 4 years ago, so Newgrounds' standards of "great" animation has increased and people have matured (imagine the difference of opinion of someone who was 14 and who is now 18). As of now the score is 4.04, which I am actually surprised by how low it is. Had this been released in 2006 or so, you'd be in the top 50.

The animation quality itself. A HUGE jump in quality between Act 1 and Act 3, but you improved as you went on so it's understandable. You used a lot of frame by frame which I can respect. It really shined on Sonic's battle on the egg carrier. The missiles were done well and The Chaos 0 water was also nice. You should take more consideration in to 'anticipation' poses. Like when Knuckles threw the asteroid, unless that was a comical choice, seeing him wind up the throw would have had a better impact. Remember that any movement you do to go forward requires you to go backward first, so jumping out the way of an attack requires the character to crouch so he can spring his legs to avoid the danger. It was a shame to see a nicely animated scene when Sonic drops on to the Egg Carrier, but when Super Shadow shows up, Sonic stands perfectly still and injured, and only his arm moves to back hand Shadow away. Again, It would have looked much better to have him wind up.

You also tried moving character in perspective, which I applaud you for, but I spotted many distorted perspective drawings (the dock not aligning with the horizon was one but again it was Act 1). When Super Sonic fell off the ship (can't he fly by the way, why worry about falling :P) looked a bit odd, and it looked like you had trouble staying on model. The character proportions changed a lot. Much moreso in in Act 1, but Knuckles head size/quill length was not consistent

Story? People these days seem to LOVE THEMSELVES SOME STORY. This could have been done without a story and been fine that way, however, you did imply a story, as if Sonic failed, Shadow ,Chaos 0, and Eggman would destroy the world. A triple pair up like that definitely warrants some explanation, but it was entertaining to watch unfold. A shame Tails could not have done more. You took the time to model the Tornado 2, I would have loved to see it attack the Egg Carrier Sonic Adventure style! You could have did without the cringe-worthy anime stereotypes such as shots when we see one eye open/close (I am guilty of this myself!) or seeing Knuckles in a cloak, which actually seemed more like a Full Metal Alchemist power than super strength.

However, my biggest issue with this animation is the pacing. You chose to have it musically driven and not use sfx or voices, which is fine, but the music only matched the Act 1 somewhat. All the other scenes seemed to be action with music thrown in. I love Guilty Gear music but by Act 2 it felt very out of place. Chaotic Battle worked very well with the GG music because the music complimented the action. For instance, you used the awesome track "meet again", but when the shot gets to the missiles firing, the music is still very slow. Action cartoons combine good choreography, camera work, timing, and sound to get that "oomf". The thing is, your *trailer* was synced very well in terms of action and music, with audible cues connecting the actions on screen. Seeing Hyper Sonic punch shadow had minimal impact without a beat/sound effect to back up the punch. I'd go as far to say that you should add some slower scenes for pacing and coherence add sound effects, that's just me.

Running out of character space! At least you are finally done! congrats

BritishGolgo13 responds:

Good to hear from you, man! Thanks for the well-thought and well-written review. I really do appreciate you taking the time to crit my work and cite specific instances of what could be improved upon. Though I think the #1 thing to work on is not I agree with just about everything you've said and I'm glad you understand why some things turned out as they did.

Half of the movie was done prior to art school (Act 1 and some of 2) while the rest had the knowledge and techniques applied such as antics/anticipation and follow through.

Thanks for understanding and the respect given is much appreciated.

[the Last of the Dashkin]

A Welcomed Deviation from your Previous Styles

A lot of the lower reviews criticize your choice of narration, the removal of the ambiguity of the previous episodes, etc.

Now, if you had gone your normal route of "Bitey relaxing, notices a weird creature, engages in it/teases it, gets in to mischief", those naysayers would praise you but then you would have others saying "it's the same Adam Phillips every time".

Dead if you do, dead if you don't

I WILL admit the narration was a strong deviation from what you usually do, but god forbid you try to change things up, whether your story calls for it or if you are experimenting.

Ah the keyword..."YOUR STORY"...That witch was the first human I've ever seen in a Brackenwood animation. No that does not destroy the wonder of it just because it's not a creature, and I am pretty sure there is more to this character than just a "water witch". I personally don't give a damn if something is not 100% original. Essentially everything has been done before, and just because it has doesn't mean you can't do it as well if you do it right.

The animation, as always, was superb. You can see where you took shortcuts (certain tweens, and close ups), but honestly, you are doing an immense amount of work for free on your free time...Nothing wrong with cutting here and there. However, your backgrounds seem much better in this animation than your previous ones and I am always stunned to see you accomplish them in FLASH. I use them as reference material many times. You also had a lot more camera angle turns, making the movie more 3 dimensional. I love the shot of him dashing across the land right before he sees the witch. I will admit the filters looked sloppy sometimes. I know you had to reduce the quality so the flash would run well, but it did suffer.

Now the narration...This is YOUR idea. You don't need US to wonder about a mystery if you have cold hard facts about YOUR characters and YOUR world. I personally like when there is concrete information about a character and not just ambiguous/metaphorical details. Instead of "a strange creature in a land far away", you actually have a planet with an ecosystem. I like that kind of stuff, but at the same time, "the world of wonder and mystery" is not destroyed, like some others jump to criticize, because it is still a fascinating world. If anything, it would be MORE CLICHE to just have it be as "some fantasy world" and not give it a planet, or the animals specie names, etc.

However, this was the first time you showed us Bitey's childhood and motive to be a trouble maker. This did not benefit from the narration. I felt there would have been a stronger impact and sense of sympathy if we simply followed a flashback/dream of Bitey as a child. You had a nice scene like that in the animation, but it was brief. This narration also seems more like a bridge rather than a standalone story, so that's another thing people who enjoy your typical work may need to accept.

Once again, a fantastic piece of animation. I welcome your switch up in style and I embrace the fact that you are making a "factual" fantasy world. The narration worked for the most part, but I feel an entire animation could have been dedicated to Bitey's past, rather than a montage like this. I think viewers need to lighten up and wait to see what you have in store, but I am confident you will please us.

I would like to give this a 9/10 since it does have it's flaws, but the production values are too damn high relative to other submissions on this site, that I have to give it a 10

chluaid responds:

dude thanks for an excellent review. All your criticism is perfectly justified and I especially refer to your comments re: narration. I completely agree on each point. I also really appreciate your observation that the narration seems like a bridge, rather than a standalone story and I can tell you've considered my motive as a writer and director before making a surface judgement and just started typing. For that, thank you.

[3rd Grade Transformers]

Could Have Taken More Advantage of Premise

I actually laughed out loud a couple of times, and the duration was just right. I am glad you did not include this with the plethora of other Transformers parodies because it would have felt more stale and just part of a trend.

What I really liked was you using a third grade parody to describe it. I personally loved the movie, but you did not have to rely upon over exaggerating a negative detail about the movie to be funny. While you did have to result in random acts of violence/cursing, and I suppose that's you style, the awkwardness of the third graders were amusing. And who did the high pitched voice who was screaming "Not Now Charles!"? I thought that was one of the funniest set of lines of the short.

I actually thought the "GET OFF THE STAGE CHARLES" part was funny, but the "human sacrifice" and "i have to take a poo" bits were a little much/out of place, which detracted from the humor. For the former, a third grader willfully stabbing another does not fit the "young, ill-prepared, and untalented" theme you had going on. If the stabber had not known it was a real sword and started freaking out, as well at the victim screaming, I think that would have both been funny and sticking to the theme.

The latter just bugged me because the play "director" seemed funnier as a "verbally" abusive person, rather than a physical one. An adult yelling at the 3rd grader seems funnier to me because a) the way had the guy yelling and b) because we slightly pity the kid for getting yelled at so much, but a cartoony beating off stage just seems generically slapstick. However, I actually laughed during the devastator attempt because while the idea of kids accidentally hurting themselves while trying to form devastator is predictable, the over the top violence they suffered made it funny.

The animation was fine. Not TOO much going on, but the way you presented the costumes was nice, and kudos for the well animated curtain, instead of just a horizontal tween which you could have gotten away with. I also applaud the walk cycle of the kid in the rectangular costume. Perspective is a bitch D:.

Overall, I really like what you were going for here. I hope I did not sound pretentious by going in depth of what *I* thought would be funny/unfunny, but the people here saying it did not have the "egoraptor charm" do not know what they are talking about. Not everything you do has to be fast paced and have super-zany humor for you to give off your 'charm'. And we all have to remember, you wanted to try something silly by poking fun at a popular movie. I don't think your goal was to create a comedy milestone for yourself, but just to have fun with robots and 3rd graders.

Egoraptor responds:

You're flattering me! I didn't think as far into it as you probably thought I did... I just slapped down a script in a couple minutes. I think the fact that it was a 3rd grade play was just may way of making fun of how absurd the movie is without just blatantly pointing it out.

To be honest the offscreen beating was going to be an onscreen beating but I just ran out of the passion to animate it. I was getting really tired of this animation by the end of it haha. You're right though, it isn't as good as it could have been.

And I dunno, while the "surprised about it being a sword" suggestion would fit the theme more, I'm more about the unpredictable and the blunt. The kid just murders the other kid without a thought. I laughed.

[Pokemon: Pee Red Version]

Amusing, But Too Many 4Chan Memes

As a *Pokemon* parody, I enjoyed it. There really is not many of them and there is so much to make fun of. I actually found some parts to be funny. I laughed at Charmander's scream. Some parts I rolled my eyes at.

But what really began to kill me were the memes. While I read why you made Bell-awesome do it because it makes sense, having a meme-based pokemon just bugged me. I love that picture, but when used in a flash movie, I think it should be more discreet. Meme's get their "humor" from being forced and repetitive (which is another reason why I personally did not get much from it), so what might work on a forum may not translate well in animation.

Gary-Or 'Mary''s-voice actor had a noticeably worse microphone quality than the rest, which degrades from the overall quality. Also, feel free to loosen the sound quality a bit, like to 32 or 48 kbps. I am sure we can handle an extra megabyte (unless this was the only way to get it under the default 8mb limit).

The sprite editing as a little distracting. How come you changed the main character's appearance? Out of curiosity? It was not because they looked different, only because the editing was not on par with the original graphic, in terms of quality.

Nice use of MissingNo, even though I was hoping for a more climatic ending, or a play on the idea of how fast they both got to the elite four. But I was amused for the most part, and it's nice to see you plan to pursue original projects. Good luck!

OrangePylon responds:

Wow, thanks for the constructive review. I hadn't realized that there were so many memes when I originally wrote it and probably would have changed it way back to cause less of a fuss. XP

I've written a few more scripts for my new series and there isn't one meme involved (okay, one guy says "at least 100", but that's very subtle).

I changed the main characters because... Whoof, this is complicated. Certain character ideas date waaay back to a bunch of years ago. I had made this really dumb flash about Pokémon when I was young and I drew everything because I knew nothing about Bitmap Tracing or even TWEENS; everything was moved frame by frame. I drew the main character as a hippie in a green shirt and the rival with green hair. Recycling a bit of ideas, I decided to edit the characters to look like they did back then, but I guess my art skills still aren't great. XP My very first flash was a sort of remake of the previous one (but it's still really shitty) and so technically, this is a remake of a remake. Although this follows a completely different story and only recycles like 2 jokes.

Thanks again for the review. :)

EDIT: Charmander's scream is PeeWee Herman. :P

[Hyperboy: Episode 5]

Will Keep Watching

This is the first time I've seen the series and I am very pleased! Nice action, which is stylized so you don't get generic "bam, boof, wiff" action. Appropriate humor, which was actually FUNNY and not forced. The drawings and animation seemed to improve as time goes by.

Really well done preloader. Lot's of techy detail, but I did not associate "techy" with this animation, unless I missed something in previous episodes. Did you draw that in a separate program and just animate it in flash? There was a gigantic jump though in the first scene in terms of quality, from a super nice preloader to a kind of bland scene/animation, but it picked up the quality once he put on the Hyper Suit.

I really respect your method of finding a simple animation style to get action across. Perhaps I am assuming to much, but it looks like you made simple-looking characters so animation would not take as long, but you still want the "cutting edge" feel, so certain close ups have more detail or realistic anatomy. I've trying to figure out a way to create an action cartoon with a style that is faster to animate, so I tip my hat to you.

You get a 5 from me to bump that score higher, and a 9/10 for the above reasons. Now I will watch the previous ones to catch up. Looking forward to the next one!

gene-goldstein responds:

Everything was made in Flash, including the preloader. :)

The style is the same style I used for the old episodes. I just didn't want to change it and confuse my fans. But the simplicity did help a lot.

Thank you!

[BUY The Amazing Stuff]

Funny Dialouge, Animation Hurts It

The announcer was so eccentric that I was hoping of actually seeing him do stuff rather than just hear him, and his voice is crazy. The joke itself was pretty funny in the beginning, but it kind of trailed near the end. Had it been executed better in terms of visuals, it would have made a much better submission. With different shots, better drawings, and a tighter script, I wouldn't be surprised if this was put on the front page.

vago187 responds:

yeah, but much like the animation as you so eloquently put it my mind also "trails near the end" Not lack of focus, just lack of... yeah maybe your right.

[Sonic Shorts: Volume 5]

Meant For Sonic Fans

I always enjoy watching these. I STILL want to make something for the last one!

The animation in this one was better than previous installments for the most part. I do not know where people are getting adjectives like "terrible" in terms of animation. Obviously there are different levels of skill, but I think everyone stepped it up. Everyone had a decent take on Sonic's design, so it's always fun to see that, and the jokes were more varied.

Speaking of which: the humor. I found this animation amusing and comical, but I didn't really find myself chuckling too much because of good amount of animations were rather predictable/drawn out/obvious. The olympic one I could see coming a mile away, and while the ring was actually a nice touch, it probably could have been executed better. Knuckles knocking out Sonic was well animated/drawn in my opinion, but I just did not find anything witty, or slapstick enough.

The main issue I've seen with these series, and while is an unfair one, is that a lot of the jokes would only appeal to Sonic fans. That's fine if you have a specific demographic, but I'm Sonic fan and even the most esoteric ones sometimes weren't that funny. Wonchop's peace I found funny because I understood the silliness of getting all the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 2 (it was Sonic 2 right? Because I could have sworn you could transform in Sonic 3), and plus it was well animated. Now it would take a pretty informed Sonic fan to know that, but the "erectile dysfunction" bit was broad enough so that non-Sonic fans could find some humor in it, and plus it was in context.

I personally never found too much about the Sonic universe funny. "Comical", yes, but not hilarious. There were a handful actually that I found naturally funny instead of relying on an esoteric reference. So to demonstrate an even greater amount of skill, you should appeal to both fans and non-fans of Sonic to garner further appreciation for the series!

thewax70 responds:

Thanks for the great review, Chakra-X. Very informative and I'm glad you like the series. We'll leave a spot open for you in volume 6. ;)

[One Big Morphing Orgasm]

I Feel Sorry for Not Seeing this Sooner

Only "Daily 4th Place"? This probably contained more animation than the other "Dailies" combined.

Fantastic morphing effects with very smooth animation. The only rift in the continuity was when the entire flash looped (the music skipped). The fact that it was a collaborative effort makes it an even greater demonstration of skill. Obviously there was no plot or concrete characters, but that probably caused the relatively low attention, regretfully. While I too prefer narrative animations, this was very pleasing to watch. Under appreciated, I do say.

TheBoogley responds:

I will never forgive you for not seeing this sooner,
we've been waiting and waiting :3

[Left 4 Speed]

Mixed Feelings

I like Left 4 Dead, and it's cool to see a parody of it, but this was of lower quality that I expected.

First of all, the drawings in this were not Egoraptor style. The big eyes and squiggly brush strokes is reminiscent, but too generic to warrant such an accusation.

What IS reminiscent of Egoraptor is the pacing of the short, but again, does not warrant cries of stealing. However, you also made a Grand Theft Awesome, so to assume you were not inspired by Egoraptor at all this time around is easily just as silly as assuming you did rip him off.

Now, about the actual animation. The Witch and Hunter bits were amusing, and so was the end, but that really was it. It's not that there were no jokes being thrown left and right, but the parts that WERE jokes I didn't really laugh at, such as the Boomer, Smoker, car, and butt-shooing scenes. Boomer scene had potential, but was not executed well (again, pacing). The smoker licking Louis' crotch was bland to me, especially the "hell no" line. Car scene, kind of generic bumrush of enemies. And the butt shooting part was just not my taste I guess, because since it is so random, I could see people finding that funny.

I am black and was not offended by your portrayal of Louis. To those who cry out to this, I appreciate your sensitivity, but damn this was drenched in satire, no need to get hissy fits. BUT, at the same time, you, the author, should not assume people know about online players making fun of Louis. Esoteric inside jokes like that do not work very well. You should have known people who do not play the game would think you are just using a stereotypical black person, who acts nothing like Louis.

The voice acting was decent, minus Louis's. Drawings got the job done (nice attention to background too). But, you combined real voice actors with actual audio from the game. That was kind of weird, hearing a high-pitched male voice as Zoey and then have her screaming audio from the game. Choose one or the other next time.

But there just is not enough substance to this. I do not know why you rushed it if there was no deadline. And selling a shirt for this is out of taste in my opinion. And yet, the score is ridiculously high with over 100k views. Take a video game, create a couple of wacky scenarios, and draw gets someone this high of score and attention? But this is not your fault. I completely understand and relate when it comes to making cartoon/jokes because you enjoy it and it's for fun, not solely for popularity (but selling the shirt could make people think otherwise).

Supah Nin10doh! is a gem in the video game parody trend, so I am not anti-VG parody. But you could have been a lot more clever with this. It looks like you took some isolated things you thought were funny, spliced them together, and animated it. Nothing evil about that, but that means the score will suffer (er, well, from me). I suggest make the pacing more coherent, make less inside jokes, make the "plot" less chopped up.

Oney responds:

;) respect. I did have a deadline, i tried finsihing it before hardcore study for exams. i do think this toon sucks however. ah well you learn from each thing you make!