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WarpZone

71 Movie Reviews w/ Response

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Wait, you made a Flash cartoon.

That means you already own a computer.

Why the fuck are you trying to play videogames on your Netflix Machine?

COAEM responds:

well the xbox one is the best in future TV....Yeah I use a laptop for my videos i probablely couldn't even run undertale on this badboy

I don't get it. Are you mocking conspiracy theorists or sincerely criticising the powers that be?

If you're criticizing the government and capitalism, why the flouride rage? Are you literally a time traveller from the year 1940? Because you would almost have to be to still be genuinely afraid of water fluoridation in the year 2013. It's just a fluorine ion. We understand how it interacts with organic and inorganic compounds. We've been doing the experiment for decades, and the result is weak-to-moderately strong evidence that it does exactly what it says on the tin: an overall reduction in caries and sometimes cosmetic white streaks on the teeth. You can have health problems if they fuck up the dosage, of course, but that's also true of oxygen, water, and carbon. You might as well try to ban hydrogen hydroxide if you're worried about water fluoridation.

If, on the other hand, you're just mocking anyone who hates the government, why the somber tone and the links in the Author's Comments? You make some legitimate points in the video, if a little hyperbolic.

You can't honestly believe that the government is organized enough and good enough at keeping a secret to cause a car crash to happen every time somebody complains. There'd be way more suspicious car crashes if that were the case. They would have single-handedly put Detroit back on the map just buying enough American-made cars just to run over all the Occupy Wall Street Guys.

And, no, you can't just use the South Park Defense of "it's parody!" In order for your parody to actually mean something, you the author must have an actual opinion. No, "everybody's stupid except me" doesn't count. You have to actually believe in SOMETHING is true, and you have to have the balls to defend that position publicly. You can't just make a cartoon with both sides of the issue stylized to the point of being barely recognizable but obviously hyperbolic, and then shrug and go "it's parody." You can't leave the author's position open to interpretation, as if to create a work that opinionated people of all stripes and creeds can scratch their heads and go "well, I GUESS this is making fun of the other guys."

Now, having said that, a truly well-executed parody could conceivably obfuscate your intent with layers of sarcasm and meta-narrative, but doing so requires way more deliberate effort and cleverness than I'm seeing here. This just looks like you googled "arguments against capitalism" and then went "how can I draw that?" Or more like "how would an extremely unoriginal newspaper political cartoonist circa 1960-1980 draw that?" I mean you even put the little signs on symbols so we would know what they stood for.

I really lost my shit when you brought out the camera fat kid though. What task is this abomination of science meant to perform, exactly, that it does so "more efficiently" than the living fat kid? And what the fuck was with the ending after that? OMG, the government-created camera cyborg stopped recording me, and shut down, and then started recording me again, only this time it was RED! And then the black hands that can kill with a single finger suddenly need like four entire hands just to stop ME from watching the camera foorage of the camera cyborg that's watching the camera that's recording all of this... oh, FUCK IT. This isn't deep. This is not depth. It's barely even symbolism. It's just the most ham-handed imagery you could come up with to depict systemic corruption, and it's clear that you put way more thought into making the hands look all nasty and badass and timing everything with the music properly than in actually having an original political thought or suggesting anything even approaching a solution.

Lack of due vigilance is not the problem here! We are EVER so fucking vigilant these days! Everybody has a camera in their phone! The NSA has all our data but we produce so GODDAMNED much of the stuff that they can't parse it! Meanwhile for every service like Google that turns over our data, a new one springs up that doesn't store any data in the first place!

For fucks sake, we marched on the banks. We elected a black president. Do you think all of this happened in a vaccuum? Do you think social and political change is EASY? That all it takes is INTENT to get results? You chastize us to "fix the cause, not just the symptom," but I notice that you are conspicuously silent about what this magical cause is.

Do you imagine that there actually IS some singular, malevolent, direct CAUSE of all evil in the world? An actual man made of inky black magic, held together with money and covered in spikes, that secretly makes all the decisions in the world while you and me stand by silently and twiddle our thumbs? What's his NAME? Where does he fucking LIVE? You might as well try to convince people to march on Hell and shoot the Devil in the face while you're at it. That was not a metaphor for some politics guy or another, by the way, I am talking about the actual THE DEVIL the devil. Like, from the bible. Shadowy Government Hand is just about as real as the Devil.

The reality is, the government AND businesses are ENTIRELY composed of ORDINARY HUMAN BEINGS just trying to get by. The People will revolt when The People HAVE ALWAYS revolted all throughout human history: When they reach their last straw, or when they have no other option. We're not there yet. I hope we never will be again.

But no, that doesn't mean we're stuck in an inevitable decline, forever under The Man's thumb until he fucks it up and we have a big violent revolution that drastically changes who the privelaged fuckers are couple of decades. Even in times of peace, there's ALWAYS somebody trying to make things BETTER, even with rich fucks running the world.

The Arab Spring happened. The Internet happened. A Black President happened. Contrary to some peoples opinions, the world did not stop spinning in the year 1970. My generation did things, and we attempted even more things than we accomplished. Fuck you for insinuating otherwise.

You wanna change the world, hotshot? Find a fucking cause. But don't bitch to me about how "nobody's doing anything about the nondescript corruption" just because we're not all out throwing rocks at riot cops. Just what exactly do you expect us to accomplish by getting arrested?

Wow, that post got away from me. Probably a lot of misdirected rage at your cartoon that was intended for an idiot professor at the local community college. I'm sorry man. Bottom line: The arc of history is long, but it trends towards justice. Progress is marked by funerals, not by births. We are doing the best we can with the tools and resources we have. If you have a better idea, I'd like to hear it. But don't just bitch about "complacency." I am not complacent. Do I fucking sound complacent? This is not what complacency looks like.

Nice use of inbetweens, and I really liked that lense flare at the end.

KiWiArts responds:

I wish you would have used the time you put into using up all the precious review space, to read any of my previous statements. Further I would recommend you to ‘bitch about‘(as you would say) your personal problems to a friend or family member than rather pulling the short into it.
You would be surprised but this short and any artistic content on this site is NOT just for YOU and only YOU created. So don’t have the ignorant nerve that I’m only addressing you personally.
I applaud you if you‘re really as big a real life activist as you are a keyboard hero.
But to put words in my mouth or making a fare fetched statement about my true intend are just plain stupid.

Let’s make it clear, you’re entitled to your opinion and only yours on how you interpret the short. So don’t think that your interpretation is definitive for everyone.
Beside you should check on your so check on your facts about Fluoride helping against caries. The only ‘proof’ they come up so fare is that it creates a 6nm layer on your teeth which is literary no protection from caries or anything. And why? Because there isn’t any ground for the statement, no matter how long you search for it.
To all your other complains, do yourself and us the favor to read my other statements first.
Sorry I won’t spend any more time with to feed your egotism. I got no respect for anyone who can’t keep his personal problems out of a discussion which has nothing to do with this.

Thanks for basing your score not only on your opinion on the subject though.

I actually liked this one. I was a little annoyed at all the body horror at the beginning-- it was so gratuitious that I started to suspect it wasn't going anywhere. I'm glad I stuck it out though, because it ended up actually having a story behind the gore, unlike 99% of the crap that passes for horror these days.

The video game metaphor worked for me, especially the glitchyness, which was occasionally used in a clever way to give us false starts. I didn't care for the overuse of flashing, and especially the pixel moire pattern, which wasn't really creepy, just painful on the eyes.

Overall, it may not have been subtle, but it had a nice slow buildup and a psychological narrative with an internally-consistent theme. Good horror starts with WTF and ends with you feeling like you understand now. Without that hook for the curious mind, there's no real reason to subject yourself to it. So many modern horror series forget or willfully ignore that principle. This pixelly Indie effort at least made the effort, and mostly delivered on it. I'll take that over another disappointing sequel that misses the point any day.

ClockworkPixel responds:

Thank you very much. Body horror i.e. boils, pus and all that really disgust me which is why I used it.

Haha this was awesome. I loved the whole shtick with the skeleton hand attached to the stick. Pacing was generally good, with just enough animation to convey the jokes. The character you designed for the protagonist may not be how I imagined him, but it works, and comedy like this really does need for you to see him.

Any chance you could do Uninvited next? We used to play that game all the time, back in the heady days of Channel 3!

wonamik responds:

Glad you liked it:)
Never played Uninvited, but nothing is impossibe. At the moment were working on 2 nextgen games, hope yall like them as weel:)

Best Regards GTS

Technically not the original lyrics, right?

Actually guys I heard each version of the song 's lyrics has a totally different meaning.

For instance the English version references the popularity of the song as an internet meme. The Swedish version of the song existed before the first Caramelldansen internet video, right? The Japanese version interprets the "ua-ua" in the chorus as "uma uma," which means something like "yummy yummy."

Awesome HD remake of an old classic. To me it "felt" like flash vector because of the line weight and therefore not like the original animation cels would have been, but I can't see any way around that unless you wanted to trace the EDGES of each black line in a super high-rez manner. Even then Flash just wouldn't cut it. You'd need like Adobe Illustrator or something to do all the fiddly little tweaking.

Wow. It just sunk in how much work you put into making this. You realize you probably spent more time making this than ALL OTHER INSTANCES of Caramelldansen videos EVER, right? Well maybe not that 3D one...

Wikipedia, folks! This song has one hell of a history behind it!

Timon1771 responds:

Ayep, You're right. I guess It could be done in Illustrator too, but I work better in flash. I did vectorize each line in every frame, that's why it took so long. And you're true about the wikipedia too! Thanks for the amazing feedback man!

Isn't the point kinda "I made a surrealist film?"

This actually reminded me of that "Independent Film" music video on HomestarRunner dotcom. You should check it out if you're into surrealism. Although technically I guess it has a point, it basically tells the story of StrongSad trying to make a mind-blowing surreal film using a variety of no-budget filmmaking techniques so it's technically not itself surrealist. But it includes several nods to Dziga Vertov and Salvador Dali, so you can see the influence there.

This brings me to my point, though. Isn't it impossible to make a surrealist film if all you're doing is copying previous surrealist films, down to the limitations of the technologies used at the time? (Black and white, sepia tone, simulated film artifacts.) In my mind, it's too iconic... people look at this, they are reminded of Salvador Dali, even if they're only passingly familiar with the reference.

Basically Salvador Dali is too much of a cultural icon for a derivative work to still be surrealist. For a *truly* surrealist flash cartoon, you'd want one of those looping songs by TheWeebl, or maybe one of those gibberish random cartoons griefers change their submission to after it passes judgement. Those cartoons are more random and nonsensical than this.

The point of this is obvious: copying Dali.

Ceci n'est pas une caricature surréaliste, as it were.

I hope you get a good grade. It's obvious you learned a lot about surrealism in your class. I just feel like the way you went about it kinda misses the mark. You should try applying the *concept* of surrealism to a flash cartoon using modern techniques and imagery.

Copy the *spirit* of surrealism, not just the look & feel.

That said, you put work into this and it shows. Good job on your project; good luck with your future works. :D

Battosai810 responds:

Wow, thanks for the great review! I completely get your point about copying Dali. This wasn't totally conscious until I finished it, but his work was my main influence in this Flash. I didn't want to just go by the modern practice of putting a series of random images, sounds, and colors into my flash, as that is so quickly written off as another "drug" flash. As it serves, this is more of a tribute to the works of the surrealist than a contributing piece of surrealism. Think of it as "surrealism lite" for the Newgrounds crowd. Judging by the score, I think even this is too avant-garde for many of the people on this site.

Reading advice and feedback from others and taking it to heart isn't a terribly surrealist thing to do, I admit. Glad you liked this, and thanks for the wonderful review :) Marked as helpful.

Wait, which part was supposed to be ironic?

Gotta love that opening sequence. :D I've always been a little confused by this series, though. First you make fun of anime, then you make fun of some kinda cold-war era propaganda the like of which nobody actually produces anymore, but that part's so badly done, it's almost like you're making fun of newgrounds parodies for being outdated, full of bad info, and culturally irrelevant.

I mean, don't American corporations make a lot of money off of repackaging and marketing those anime shows? Don't we censor, mis-translate, and mutilate most of them until they're a mostly-homogenized post-melting-pot American rendition of the original show? Don't a lot of the OAVs which are big sellers in America tend to come from Japanese studios whose main market and target audience is the U.S.?

It's like the author picked a random point of view that sounded bad and ascribed it to "Capitalism," without any real clear idea of what he was trying to say. It's like a straw man argument of a straw man argument. I'm not defending the vaguely-defined corporate interests the show seems to be arguing against, I'm just trying to figure out why Captain Capitalism seems to favor the interests of a few American corporations over the interests of a few *other* American corporations.

It *feels* like a politically-charged parody, but there's no substance to it. It's basically the artist rubbing two Straw Men together. The stuff said by the title character has no value. I don't mean he's wrong, I mean it is of null value. It's not good or bad, it's just... floog. So it's hard to either agree with or disagree with any of the participants or with the outcome of the show itself.

A good parody makes you feel either outrage or gleeful vindication, depending on whether or not you agree with the thing being mocked. This parody didn't really do that for me, because I can't imagine anyone making those arguments and seriously meaning them. Maybe a time traveller from like 1975, or something. But how would that guy have even heard of anime, and why would modern kids take him seriously?

Why would modern audiences find him funny?

I ask myself that a lot when a new episode of this series comes out.

Or maybe that's the whole point. Maybe it's supposed to be one of those fish-out-of-water cartoons, like Office Spider, or Warbot in Accounting. But since the kids act like he belongs there, it doesn't quite work on that level, either. There's no point of reference... no "normal" point of view to compare the wacky ones against.

Heh. "Dear Captain Capitalism, your show desperately needs a straight man. Love WarpZone." That would go over well.

You can't deny the obvious quality here, I just wish I could follow the writing, because it would be a lot more fun if it were funny. Oooh. A horrifying thought occurs... maybe Brad lives somewhere where people actually make arguments like this and mean them... Is that even possible? Does such a place still exist in America? Hell, these days, even Texas knows better... right?

captcapitalism responds:

This was a well reasoned argument so I thought I would respond. First of all I am not trying to convince anybody of anything. I just want people to think about things. Which, thanks to your post and to several others, I know I am.

I don't want to convince you of something or argue a point. This isnt a debate. Its a cartoon. Not to mention me telling you how I feel about something, and trying to convince you to feel the same way is boring.

Sometimes both sides of an argument can be wrong, especially in the polarized society we live in. People are lazy and dont want to think, so they pick a side that can tell them what to think, and usually there are enough members of that side to give them the self-confidence to feel good about themselves.

Is America and Captalism all evil. I dont think so. I am a small business owner and love it here. But does it have problems, obviously. Captain Capitalism is a dick.

Captain Capitalism is more of a "what if"...what if the characters from John Sutherland cartoons where around today, what would they say?

No offense, but the idea that a good parody makes you feel outrage or vindication is not something I agree with. Seems awfully didactic. I hate things that try to club you over the head with "THIS IS THE POINT I AM MAKING." Different strokes for different folks I guess. My favorite satires generally take the opposing view and subtly point out the flaws in the argument they are making.

Furthermore, I dont really see this cartoon as parody except for maybe the opening. Personally I dont understand the reason to classify everything....taxonomy leads to lazy thinking in my opinion too. Personally, I think it is a cartoon.

But the fact that you think about it "a lot everytime one of the cartoons come out," makes me happy.

Maybe doing these is good for something.

Wait for it...

I thought the jokes were a little thin, especially near the beginning, but the Luigi Shoryuken Overkill made it all worthwhile. :D Definitely make moar!

The Easter Eggs were hilarious, but... how can I put this? The difficulty on them is broken. StrongBad only makes you wait like 20 seconds to see an easter egg, you know? They were both awesome scenes, though. I just wish they were a little more accessible.

Believe it or not, I've actually heard of Metal Storm! When I was a goddamned little boy, like twelve or some shit, I had a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine. I used to get all excited when the new issue would arrive. I'd spend a couple days digesting every article and dream of all the cool games I knew my parents couldn't afford to get me. Anywho, one month the cover was Metal Storm.

It wasn't until years later I actually got to play it on an emulator. So they do those on a website now, huh? Interesting.

Anyway, good flash. Keep 'em coming. :) It's nice to see the younger generation taking an interest in all the oldschool shit.

Gunstar-X responds:

Sorry. I'll shorten the wait time. And yeah, I was brought up with the SNES, but I still love the NES! Even though I have to emulate it. :(
But I do plan to get me an NES one day!

Not too shabby. :)

The style was a little rough, but it had its moments. Particularly the starry sky. I don't know if I would have put in that one animation frame from the Sonic anime. I think it would have been better off all scribbles, all the way through. Super-Sonic taking off was a nice touch, too.

It's encouraging to see an Amy Rose flash on newgrounds that tells her side of the story. Too many flashes abuse her IMHO. This felt very true to her character. Good job.

Kajimi09 responds:

thanks. i'm glad you liked it.
i apreciate your score too as i didn't think i'd get anywhere near 7 XD

Ahh, fresh, locally-grown nostalgia...

In general, I like sprite movies more the less they break with the established mechanics of the original game. So the swordplay and whip-play was perfect, grabbing Richter was great, throwing the shield, less-so. Though, I suppose SOTN makes liberal use of rotation so it's not *too* jarring. Overall I was impressed with some of the special effects here. You really nailed the blood, holy water, and statue break-out, I felt like.

In terms of scripting and staging, it was a great success. You used the limited (and somewhat questionable) sound bytes from the original game to fairly decent effect. In any case, it felt slightly less forced than it sounds when you're playing the game. It's those pauses for player input, I think. They really do break the flow.

I thought the choreography was pretty good, actually, the one exception being Richter's knife attack when it hits Alucard. That and I might have made him crouch while riding the chunk of masonry down into the pit below, because then you could have made his cape pillow in the wind. :)

But yeah, most of the choreography actually made me think this is the way the characters from the game would fight. I liked the close-up combat the best, because without any cheap tricks like rotating the characters unnaturally, you managed to make it look like a real close-up rapid-fire kung-fu fest.

Granted, it wasn't the single most awesome sprite combat sequence I've ever seen on Newgrounds, no, but it did manage to avoid a lot of the really stupid cheap hacks (vector blood, constant character rotation for no reason, general fake-ness,) that ruin 90% of sprite movies for me.

So yeah. Good effort, good production values, reasonably like the game to fulfill nostalgia purposes without breaking the fourth wall too often, yet decently more involved and integrated than actual video game footage. Overall, nice work, and if we are indeed at the forefront of another sprite movement, I look forward to seeing more works at least this good.

RopeDrink responds:

Now THATS a well constructed review, one I really appreciate - Thank you very much for the depth and points - Really glad you liked it :)

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