Kwing's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Patapon 4: Modern Warfare]

Excellent parody! The sounds and graphics are super accurate, most having been taken directly from Patapon. I like the authentic feel that comes from using the original graphics. The angles and animation add an extra layer of professional polish to it.

The animation is pretty awful at times but good at others, which sounds odd but works really well - the scenes with the tree and mountain are animated in a very choppy, unnatural way that makes the Flash feel very low-budget and tacky, while other angles showing battles have nice slow-motion tweens that look excellent.

Overall I really enjoyed this Patapon parody. I didn't get much of a Modern Warfare vibe from it, plus the Metal Gear Solid reference at the end also seemed rather tacked on, but the meat and potatoes of the animation was funny as hell. The chainsaw part had me laughing uncontrollably.

[What are the odds?]

I tend to be a pessimistic person, so these types of videos typically annoy me. The graphics are good, the animation is smooth, but I felt myself annoyed by the typography used and the voices which seemed unnaturally preened. Additionally, the music and visual interfaced seemed a little -too- simple for my liking. The animation seemed to have a very condescending tone to it. I'm sure this wasn't intentional, but that kind of oversimplification really creeps me out for some reason.

But most of all what annoyed me is the whole idea of 'luckiness'. I mean, the universe is 16 billion years old, and only in the most recent 2 billion years has this planet supported life. Sure, this planet is lucky to be in the position it's in, but it's taken 14 billion years of unsuccessful 'coin flips' before it finally arrived here in time.

Second, time itself is only a perception. So while it may have taken 14 billion years for life to form, during that time there was no conscious being capable of observing the lack of life in the majority of the planets. Our ability to observe these facts comes out of a highly improbable outcome that is only possible through a complex life cycle that must be sustainable long enough for a self-aware species to evolve. Basically what I'm saying is that if there's nobody around to observe the fact that they don't exist, is it really improbable for us to be alive?

Finally, if time is infinite, then it doesn't matter how improbable any given situation is. Perhaps the history of the universe only has one chance in a googolplex of ending up the way it is, but let's do some simple mathematics here... Even if the denominator (the chance of us existing) is extremely high, if time is infinite, than the numerator of this equation is infinity, meaning that every possible outcome of the universe will happen an infinite number of times. This is basically how Owlman from the Marvel universe explains Earth Prime, only Owlman suggests that alternate universes are parallel to one another while I am suggesting alternate realities are separated only by time.

Emrox responds:

Whoa, that's even deeper than I'm willing to get with this stuff. I'm not sure if I can debate any of that, so I'll just give you an A for the day.

[PleaseDiePie]

As someone who enjoys PewDiePie's comely personality and (lack of) puzzle-solving skills, perhaps I was asking for trouble clicking on this. I had a general idea of what I was about to see. Thankfully I feel like this parody was a lot more tasteful than it could have been. I guess the first thing I can do is get into the technical details.

The graphics are alright, but come off as somewhat irritating. The wonky proportions have a wildly expressive quality to them, which serves a purpose, but tends to annoy me the way an itch does - in a persistent, nagging kind of way. This isn't because of the content, but rather just the style and the way I react to it. There are some brilliant political cartoonists on Newgrounds that use this art style, and even when I agree with the message the style still rubs me the wrong way. The animation was only an extension of this, being well-done but similarly surrealistic.

Sound quality was definitely my favorite part of the animation. Many parodies go way over the top with parodied voices, which can work but usually doesn't. Typically the mocked voice acting is more of a distraction than an augmentation of an animation, and only really helps when the original people being made fun of have some speech quirk to begin with, but I'm glad that the voice acting kept the focus on the jokes you made. Although if you wanted to you could have easily made fun of Felix's Swedish accent. Subtle as it is, you might notice that he can't pronounce a 'ch' sound. (Shocolate, shair, shopnese, etc.)

By the way, the fact that you slipped in Satanic by Richard Harvey during the Amnesia parody did not go unnoticed. I fucking LOVE that piece, you should have cranked up the volume on that one!!

Now, animation aside, I'll try and go into the main things you picked on Felix for.

1. Having too many channels - I'll agree this is obnoxious with other channels, Smosh in particular. I think we can all agree that the Spanish Smosh is thoroughly awful. Although considering PewDiePie only has two channels, one of which he never uses anymore anyway, It's kind of a hollow insult when directed at him.

2. Playing popular games - Just about every Let's Player on YouTube has trouble doing this. People demand both popular and indie games, and no matter what happens, tons of people end up being upset/critical over it. As someone who does follow Felix's videos, I think he does a fairly good job with his selection, allowing the 'bros' to pick out games themselves while simultaneously providing pretty good options (Indigo Prophecy was definitely a good choice, being both obscure but having its own cult following). Simultaneously, videos like Happy Wheels and Amnesia videos are done less frequently because Felix has expressed that he has a personal quality standard.

Overall the 'humor' in this animation simply didn't hit home for me. It wasn't annoying, like stuff by EgoRaptor, for instance, but at the same time I feel like watching this animation was really a waste of time. Frankly I didn't get anything out of it.

(By the way, if you want to see some really good retro PewDiePie videos, I suggest the Amnesia custom story Killings in Altstadt and Barbie Adventure.)

Speedo responds:

I appreciate a low-score review with actual explanations as to why you thought it was bad. Don't really know what to do about the irritating graphics. I guess from the proportions, it looked like there would be more wacky movements but there simply wasn't? Like the character had the bendy anatomy you'd expect of a life-filled bouncy cartoon but alls he really did was just sit there? Sorry bout that, animating is pretty stressful and the lazy side can slip through the cracks quite easily.

I know I COULD have done his swedish accent, but I just tried to make it clear that while PewDiePie is obviously the main target of the video, hence the title, the look, etc, he isn't the only person being mocked. There's elements of Smosh, Tobuscus, iJustine, yadda yadda all in this "lols@Holocaust" character who is a personification of all those people. So I gave him a different voice. Yeah, if I was JUST parodying PewDie, I would have called him PewDiePie, I would have done the voice, etc. Same goes for the channel thing, even though I do get what you mean about it being a hollow insult at PewDies expense.

And yeah, Satanic is a great piece. I pretty much wrote an entire Resident Evil parody for the sole purpose of using that track again, its so haunting.

[The Little Girl]

I just finished watching this on YouTube and came immediately to Newgrounds (where all of this stuff originates) to leave a review. So let's take a look at what you've got here.

The art style is excellent. Simple, definitive, and unique, it's not like any cartoon or anime I've ever seen, except for Salad Fingers, maybe. The environments are simple in their black and white, yet powerful in their reserved usage of color. The animation is nice and simple, which draws more attention to the story than to the animation's visual aspect.

The music is extremely well-chosen - Kevin MacLeod never fails to disappoint, but on top of the composition, the choice of music was also done very well. In addition, the narration was truly excellent. Quiet, only lightly accented, and completely unobtrusive. Even the mimicked voice of the girl was done without ruining the mood. That's not easy to do at all.

Finally, I'll touch a bit on the story. The dialogue has a very fairy-tale writing style about it, using small words and small-scale examples to illustrate situations, and keeping a very tight focus on the narrative without too many winding similes or metaphors. Though it wasn't the most original tale of all time, I feel that the delivery was done very well, using the music, narration, and visuals to draw out a very complete picture, both in clarity and emotional charge.

You've made a truly excellent piece here. Congratulations.

[DateNight]

Afterburner. Really, that's the funniest part of the animation. The dialogue is deliciously corny, the voice acting is hilarious, and abrupt ending really make the animation pop, but without something loud and somewhat obnoxious, it wouldn't have been nearly as funny.

By the way, nice work on the background. I'm really digging the water and the sky, especially the subtle tweening with the water.

I'll dock half a point because it's so damn short. This could be a part in a collab or something, but as a standalone it's a little lacking.

[Men's Wearhouse Volume 2]

What a letdown... Out of four parts, only one was an actual animation, and that one lacked any sound effects or voices, on top of being a continuation of the same damn joke.

Goldencat's part made me laugh for several reasons. The art style, the sheer wtf factor, and the hilariously unfitting music.

Adam Ant's part was probably the worst (sorry!) I mean seriously, it's just an annoying squeak and a tweened purple jelly bean walking back and forth.

Aea2's part made me laugh a bit too. Seems more like an image than an animation, but as a loop it works. Zimmer's head was drawn really well, and overall the quality seemed quite high, except for the wheels.

Decent, but not nearly as good as the first.

[Alight]

Pretty good. This movie reeks of polish, you laid it on so thick. The masking over the fire is just one of the ways that you smoothed this over repeatedly. The music is well-chosen and the animation is smooth and done well, too. The characters are cute, but I feel like this definitely would have been better with sound effects. I also feel like the whole romance thing was rather abstract and pointless, as was the ending. But what really bothered me was that you barely animated the water character at all. The movie opens up with her, but she leaves fairly quickly and never returns. One last complaint is that when the castle started flying in, I feel like the animation went from being artistic to just plain showy. It took away from the final product.

Other than that I really like this. It's just too bad it's so short.

[Final Fantasy Last Mages]

Pretty good, Phil. You've got a great eye for cinematics (especially landscaping and angles). The spells look great, the combat is fair, but of course where this animation really shines is the particle effects you use throughout the animation, which look incredibly natural. The shields also looked really nice, especially with the polygonal look you gave them.

However, I feel that the spells used somewhat lacked variety. In particular, trademark spells such as Poison, Quake, Stun, Cure, Float, Invisible, and Mini were not used at all, while ice and fire-based magic were somewhat overused. All in all, most of the spells (aside from Doom, Meteor, and the ending summon) were things we've already seen in the original Final Fantasy; spells that are over a quarter century old! Of course, they look much better fully fleshed out in animation, but it could have used a bit more variety. You overworked yourself animating the same thing just a little too much.

Ultimately this is a pretty unique addition to the thousands of stick animations on Newgrounds, but it had a lot of potential that it never delivered on, unfortunately.

[Salad Fingers Episode 9]

A little stale, I think. I've gone through all the Salad Fingers episodes in the past few days and have grown re-attached to the series, but at a certain point (somewhere between episode 4 and 7) it seemed to get stale. Back when we could never predict Salad Fingers' behavior, the animations were fresh and intriguing. Now, the complete lack of coherence has become a norm and it downgrades these animations from artwork into a novelty.

The biggest problem here stems from the lack of characters. Although Salad Fingers runs a pretty good one-man show, he can only entertain (or scare) you for so long. You've introduced a couple characters in the series, but most seem to be the result of Salad Fingers' delusions, and the rest simply have no speaking role. Incorporating a new major character would give the series a bit of a boost; you could write in character interactions and make something of a plot. Alternatively, you might also have recurring events lead somewhere to suggest an overall plotline. Madness Combat did this quite well, starting with mindless violence and slowly evolving into a pantomimed story without losing the charm that made it popular. It's time for Salad Fingers to make the same evolutionary jump.