WarpZone's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[NGP: P.O Bubbles Teaser]

Shouldn't this be better than the ones it mocks?

I'm not going to make fun of your Flash this time, because it doesn't seem to be helping any. So instead, I'm just going to give you totally serious, non-sarcastic advice. Go to your local library. Ask a librarian how to access the library catolog. It's on computer, trust me, it's as easy as using any other serch engine. You want to search for the string "HOW TO DRAW." Just go ahead and look up any one of those books, they should all be grouped together in the same spot in the nonfiction section. Just start leafing through all of them until you find one that shows you how to draw a cartoon rabbit. Check that book out, and take it home. Read it. Practice. Learn from it. What? You don't like how they draw rabbits? You'd rather draw it your won way? Oh, that's fine! That's fine. But since you clearly can't draw, why not learn how to do it their way first, and then modify that procedure until you're drawing what Bubbles looks like in your mind's eye? I know damn well that's how you laerned to draw trees. You can learn how to animate the same way. Heck, even big animation studios like Di$ney and WB, when they make a new cartoon, and let's say this one's about like, a lobster, the first damn thing they do is examine every other piece of animated footage about lobsters they can get their hands on. That's really the only way the human brain can learn, is through emulation. Now, you can keep emulating the crappy Flashes that you're making fun of, the mediocre ones that were barely a minimal effort, floating in the black between "tomorrow's top 20" and "blammed," OR you can start emulating professional animation.

Instead of parodying the worst stuff on Newgrounds, try imitating the best stuff on Newgrounds! Your entire parodies series would be MUCH more scathing if there were a visible difference between the footage of crappy flashes and the scenes you made up yourself. And even though you may not feel like trying any harder than you already do, I know you could do better than this if you really tried.

It's not that hard. You make a box, you stretch it, you twist it, you makew it curvy. Bang, it's a belly. New layer. Make a box, stretch it, twist it, rotate it, poof, it's an arm. Don't use gradients. But use a color that actually looks like a cartoon rabit color. Make the background match your characters. None of this bright cyan sky. Avoid primary colors altgoether. Heck, use the eyedropper tool to yoink colors from a picture that looks good. They can't copyright pallettes. Hey, you wanna take it one step further? Want to add shadows and really amaze the crap out of everybody? Just draw ONE DAMN LINE across each body part and curve it, and darken the ink color of the lower half. BOOM! Instant 3D! So now it's in all these layers. Select the whole thing, copy, paste it over the the side, and convert it to a symbol. There's your first animation frame. Remove the shadows from the shapes still distributed between layers off to the side, and rearrange them to make the next pose. It seems like a lot of work at first, until you get used to it. Then all of a sudden, you've got a fully animated cartoon rabit that's pulling down 5's, and I shut my mouth and stop heckling you every time you release a movie that's only marginally better than the flashes it's making fun of.

XxShadowMasterxX responds:

just to let you know I didn't any of that...

[Sonic Xtreme]

Pretty good sonic show!

Graphics: Excellent animation, including some scenes copied from the awesome Sonic CD opening theme. Graphics are vector-based, and use gradients to relatively good effect. Character designs seem based on Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. Personally, I would have opted for the older, flatshaded animation cel look, but this isn't bad. The author does some nice establishing shots that really help... establish... the setting. The backgrounds, on the other hand, look pretty terrible. I guess he used textures and masking to accomplish most of them, and it's a clever way of adding detail. Unfortunately, the end result looks like something out of Duke Nukem 3D. I can't help but feel that the backgrounds especially would have looked better cel shaded.

Style: I may not like how he drew everything, but I definitely can't argue with what he decided to draw. Action, pacing, music, and speed are all pure sonic, hovering somewhere comfortably between the anime and the more recent sonic games. It's only a shame the author had to stop before much of a plot had developed. This is like maybe up to the first commercial break of a typical sonic show.

Sound: Pretty good. Great music, actually. Sonic's voice is really annoying, though. Now, throughout history, Sonic has never had a decent voice in an official american animated series, but this is in the bottom tier. (IMHO, Somic's voice in Sonic Adventure 1 was the least offensive, just in case you cared.) It's almost like they deliberately tried to make him sound whiny and silly, just to make him match some badly dubbed saturday morning animated series. Either that or people who aren't me watch those shows and think "My god, that voice is AWESOME!" I thought Robotnik's voice was bang-on.

Violence: Sonic destroys some robots. Shadow has a nightmare. No grevious bodily fluids.

Interactivity: movie

Humor: Not really funny. But kinda cool to look at.

Overall: Far from epic storytelling (other than Shadow's nightmare, which was kinda a novel idea, but kinda dragged on for longer than it needed to.) There's hints that the groundwork is being laid for the next episode, though. Here's hoping now that the character models have been built and the author has gotten his system down, the next episode will be a simple matter of keyframing and getting the voices made... so like maybe 6 months instead of a year? We can hope! :)

[And Now...Spooks n' Juju.]

WTF mate. But in a good way.

Graphics: The best I've seen so far by Tablet-co. That's not saying much. Okay, this was supposed to be about the graphics. Basically, I'm going to tell you what I tell everybody, which is that you should start drawing with vector shapes. Good use of color, could have been better.

Style: I liked the cheesey nod to castlevania. Okay, Angie and Meanie Mc BadBad, I want you to watch this with your eyes CLOSED. Okay? Do it right now. Go. Are you done? Put your hands up to your ears. You see how your hands weren't already covering your ears just from watching this movie? And how there is no blood on your hands after covering your ears? That's because this submission DIDN'T feature the sounds of a death metal ensemble being dragged behind a car as it speeds down an asphalt turffed hill and slams into a wall, AKA "Grunge." This is only one of the things you did right with this submission, and I encourgae this lack of traffic accident music in your future releases.

Violence: "What are you doing here in our living room?" "I'm going to run into you really fast and it's probabaly going to hurt somewhat." "No... Don't! NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Humor: The food powerup was kinda funny. You don't see many black sterotypes in comedy these days, but I guess since we were raising everything ELSE from the dead, one joke couldn't hurt. Hey if you want to get revenge, while your bother is sleeping, you could make a cartoon about him taking it in the ass. Hey, and maybe he could be like in prison when this is happening... you know, for murdering you four times. Yeah, that could work! Erm... Anyway, back to THIS submission... I thought the skellington playing its ribs as a xylophone was pretty clever. And Don Knotts leading an army of the undead has got to be the most hillarious thing I ever saw. No wonder they didn't catch her! Um, you. Or something.

Overall: This was good. Not the best submission on NG, but it was kinda funny. Definitely better than your crappy half-assed submissions like Hitler is a Sensitive Man and I Saw You At The Pet Shop. You should just like, turn the microphone on and start making fun of each other, and then make animation to go along with it.

HappySquid responds:

Alright, I'm awake now, and this is the first review I read. Although you try to act as if you're not being offensive, and showing critique.. well you are. First off.. I don't know who the hell told you this was about graphics, this is something I did in like half a day (more or less) with a blood vessel popped in my right eye. As for drawing with vector shapes.. why not also suggest me to to everything with the pencil tool and motion tween on 700 different layers? Sorry, I'm not out to be like every other doucher on newgrounds. It was another one of those times when I was having a conversation with someone and then I said "Dude, I'm so making a flash about ______" and they so "No you're not!", and I don't turn shit like that down, so I say "Just watch me." This has been the scenario for Shut Up Brad, and Meanie McBadBad.. and now.. Spooks N' Juju. Let me also say that "And Now..." is a series of 13 really silly (and usually incredibly shitty) flashes that I make in my free time of extreme boredom. The thing that makes And Now Flashes different than the normal bullshit we pump out've our asses is that they come to me when I hear a silly videogame song and say "Hey.. this would be funny if _____" then I continue to make (usually) a 20 second pile of (somehow) silly animated 'wonderment'. This leads me to my second point:


This is not a nod to Castlevania, it's a game called Ghouls 'n Ghosts or some shit.. I've also hear it called Ghosts n. Goblins, Goblins n' Ghouls, and a bunch've other stupid psuedo-spooky shit.. the games are fun.. but I don't follow the series enough to give a damn. And all and all.. this is supposed to be a parody on Scooby-Doo.. and really old Disney Cartoons.. you know, stuff that's supposed to be kinda spooky but is really just laughable. And since Jatae is deathly afraid of ghosts.. well, yeah. Also.. as for our previous flashes.. do you understand the meaning of Satire? Do you actually think I would be proud of screaming like some shitty Grunge rocker about Jatae's cat? But I mean it's cool you like this one the best and stuff.


Also.. yeah, black stereotypes.. do you not watch Chappelle's Show? or Mad TV? or Any stand-up comedy whatsoever? Most people just think they're dead because (sorry) white people just can't make fun of other ethnicities publically without liberal hippies trying to kill you, which leads me to my next point. I am gay and do enjoy buttsecks, if by gay you mean half mexican, and buttsecks you mean chicken fajitas. And that's pretty cool you noticed the Don Knotts thing, I didn't think most people would know who the hell that is.. then again I havent checked other reviews.. and, I'm too fucking lazy right now.

Thanks for saying it was good and kinda funny. And as for our other flashes being half-assed submissions.. well.. guilty as charged. As Hitler is a Senstive man is on NG? Shit on a shingle.. Jatae must've had fun with the upload button, I'll have to check that out later ;D. Oh and about having us all argue with the microphone on and make a animation to go along with it: It's going to be a series called.. well we don't know what it's called yet, but we've got a few episodes planned.. that's pretty much what the coup de grace of Tablet-co was/is supposed to be.. we just haven't got around to it.. You know.. I will probably copy and paste some of this stuff and put it in the description.. thing.

It's not like I'm pissed off or anything, this is just the first review I saw, and I'm half awake, and since you took soooo much time to type all that out, I thought I'd return the favor =D

[Treefingers]

Wow! More art. And it's passed. Is this NG?

Graphics: Not the best art or animation, but the artist tried really hard to paint a realistic world based on her garden. I thnk copying the same flower was the word design decision you could have made, and not animating the people seperately was the second worst. Well, it's no bitey of brackenwood, but it did have heart, not to mention a hell of a lot more soul than stick figures. The little girl seemed like the best looking gnome or fairy or whatever they were. In fact, now that I think about it, if each and every one of those little guys had a different head and face on them, I might have scored the art a lot higher. Interesting...

Style: Gotta give you credit for trying, and style is where you're getting it. The author sucessfully depicts a sprawling world. The riverbank is a place and the garden is a place, and you get a real feel for how they are connected to each other. There's a difference between drawing some backgrounds and depicting a world, and I think this author depicted a world.

Sound: low-key mood music that delivers on the emotion, but it's a little subdued. The music could have had more of an impact. The emotions it conveys to me right now are kind of ambiguously happy and sad. It could have been pensive, or mournful, or sad with a twinge of hope, but it wasn't any of that. Of COURSE voices aren't neccessary! Give us some credit!

Violence: Man, and I thought my arms were potent.

Interactivity: movie

Humor: none

Overall: TEH END! I mean, tenned! 10'd. But that doesn't mean there isn't a ton of room for improvement in various categories. Besides working on your general drawing abilities and trying harder on detail and animation, you should try to make/download music that tugs at the soul a little harder. I liked your storytelling style and the fact that you left so much open to interpretation. I saw the damn screen turn red, and I'm STILL not sure if he's necessarily evil or not. In short, make more art. This art ruled! :D

[Pizzacat]

Slight better a Flash then a author's in Engrish.

Graphics: It was at good pace, for the animatings. Cinemetography and direction were making good looks. Alll of cat looked realistic and a little bit, the human too. But not always the same working hard on graphics. @_@ Cat face looked funny! I am alone wishing for the colors.

Style: Good of the animatings make almost frame-by-frame. Black and white seems peaceful, but maybe added pastel colors. Little bit not much. I consder an improveing.

Sound: Beeewowowowow! SMACK! Not muching sounds, but is a good for reasonable. Job is done, of sound!

Violence: Poor cat get hit the in a face with for pizza.

Interactivty: no one!

Humor: That is way to show cat who the is boss!

Overall: I hope you succeed for many college Flash course! Too bad forever not take many Engrish crasses. But its okay, not affecting your movie just author's description. LOL! I hope you make more movie maybe make flash movie with a story tell longer. Good lucking with college careers.

[Gym Clothes]

Not since Platnium Grit have my eyes enjoyed pain.

Graphics: "Class after class of ugly, ugly children." The backgrounds were good and the lines were nice and crisp. Colors made sense and everything lookes smooth, except the jerky, high FPS animation. This added to the mood, though, and made evrythign seem alive and expressive. Strangely enough, the girls seemed a little easier on the eyes. The guys just looked like crosseyed freaks of nature.

Style: If this was a stylistic choice, good job. Actually I think if you smoothes things out and made it look good, it would somehow be a step backwards, but I can't really justify or explain that statement. My gut tells me this is awesome, but only when you do it. People should NOT copycat this style.

Sound: Great voices! I think this person actually knows a girl. Good for him!

Violence: None. Yet. Boy, after class, though, he's gonna get his ass FED to him! Silly boy. You're not allowed to be gay in America! :D Especially not in the public school system.

Interactivity: noun. None. I mean none.

Humor: Well I laughed.

Overall: MAKRE MORE! :) I wouldn't change a thing! Even though the boys were ugly, they were some kind of freaky flash eyeball-bleeding EXCITING ugly. I'm not even going to say "make it longer," because at least you didn't waste my time with 20 minutes worth of "...IS PROUD TO PRESENT..." Don't change your style or visuals at all unless you want to. Just make more of them! YAY!

stratocastermaster responds:

Thank you very much for the comments. By the way i'm a girl. But yah my style comes from a bunch of motion tweens, and i guess i'll stick to it for now. Thanksman!

[Breathtaker]

Endothermic aura? It was COLD, you pretentious ba

Graphics: squiggly stick figures, but done with a good sense of proportion and 3D space. Eyes and movement were all quality work. Despite the simplistic style, there was a strong sense of things being "real" and "solid." The scanlines are where it's at. Now watch, 50,000 nubs are going to put scanlines over their stick figures playing CS, and expect the same scores you got. Oh well. We'll blam that bridge when it crosses us.

Style: Actually very good style for an animated series. It felt like a real show. Too bad it was just an intro and not an actual SHOW. I hate demos. They always put up the credits and I think it's the title screen, then it says Replay and I'm like God dammit.

Sound: Awesome music. Good, strong voice acting too... it's just... UGH! Who TALKS like that? Apparently, "artists" do.
It's not JUST that he's whiny and depressed, and it's not JUST that he talks about "us" and "them" and "the system" and "the man" without specifying who or what these supposed evils are. It's the fact that he does both together, and it sounds like that's all he ever talks about. It makes me immagine what would happen if he went into a coffee shop.

"Hi! Welcome to Barstuck's! What can I getcha?"

"My world is a malestorm of bitter blackness, boiling with the steam of a thousand lives extinguished."

"Um... okay, Regular or decaf?"

"Decaf."

Violence: You'd think an angsty, misunderstoof emo suddenly turning into death incarnate would be a really gory masacre. Yeah, it wasn't, so much.

Interactivity: Linear progression of several thousand faces, every moment destroyed before we can even register its passing. Only slight variations seperate them all them from the mediocrity of the status quo. With no control. With no end in sight. Until utter blackness consumes all. Then there's some credits. Includes preloader.

Humor: Well I'm having a lot of fun imitating it, but the author wasn't trying to be funny. Um... I think. Maybe this was a sarcastic pardoy of emos? But he was trying so HARD... ugh, I don't know. If he was trying to be serious, then and only then, was it funny. Kepische?

Overall: Immagine if Lillum stopped after the first page of text. That's the ammount of storytelling this guy manages to do. I don't know what's going to happen next in the story, but I bet it involves the futility of life and the cruel absurdity of the world we have created. And, you know, this guy who can kill people. Or maybe he can just make people gasp. I suppose he wasn't exactly explicit on that, but I assume he meant he could kill people.

FINAL SCORE: BLACK

TheMint400 responds:

hey man! wow im loving these reviews... so constructive! but yeah about the "endothermic aura"... endothermic doesn't have to be cold necessarily (even though i said he got a chill), i meant it in that it absorbs energy. tying in with the absorbing of breath. and whatnot. see, i told you it didn't reallly make sense, but it kinda does in some stupid ways. thanks for all that though!!! :)

[Midnight with Suki]

Artistic. Wow. I asked for it, didn't I?

Graphics: Decent animation and a nice, high level of detail. Motions of the woman pulling on her panties actually seemed kinda erotic. I loved the light cast upon her back through the doorway.

Style: Heavy mood, heavy tension. I liked it. It didn't exactly please or entertain me, but it kept me guessing. THIS is what I mean by making something ARTISTIC and leaving it OPEN TO INTERPRETATION. Did she shoot her lover? Was he ever really there? Did she shoot herself because he left her? Was she just playing with a gun because they turn her on? We have no way of knowing, and the answer is only hinted at, using dark, mysterious, sensuous imagery. I don't know if the chubby doughboy look was a stylistic choice or just lack of skill on the artist's part, but I thought the soft, not stylized or sleek at all look added an air of vulnerability to the characters. I'm not sure if I liked it or not. It certianly didn't turn me on because she didn't look all that sexy. Again, I'm not sure if that's what the artist was going for or not. If so, congradulations on making me ponder the meaning of this Flash. If not, then sorry, this kinda sucks. Buy a book on anatomy and practice fdrawing skinny curvy pr0n girls before you make your next 007 babe montage. As far as realism goes, your "surface" and musculature both seem good on these people, but you need to work on proportions and on stylizing your lines. When she slipped the panies on like a shadow cast across the bed, it was the COOLEST THING EVAR! O_O

Sound: Throbbing music starts subtle and gradually builds towards a climax, making the viewer anxious. Excellent use of mood music. The footsteps sounded like shoes, not bare feet. You'd want a floppy sound like flesh slapping on wood. I guess you worked with what you could find online... next time, try a "punch" or "slap" sound effect, muted. Either that, or make it a carpeted room and use the softest of "ffft" sounds.

Violence: She shoots a gun, deadly and loud. But did she kill a man? O_O We may never know.

Interactivity: movie

Humor: none. unless you make fun of the way the man and woman look. Personally, the music was so pensive I couldn't even mock the drawings! This author is just devestating with mood and tension!

Overall: I just don't know what to make of this. So I choose to lable it "good" while I ponder. Bravo. I hope this art survives. If not, try pandering to the audience and making the nude woman sexy instead of strange. That's what I'm gonna do, if I ever make a Flash with meaning and depth and confusing imagery. I'll either pour sex appeal all over it to distract the impatient blammers from their blam buttons, or include tons of old video game references to appease them. YOUR submission stands on its own, I just hope enough newgrounds viewers see it that way.

[EvilClockHouse:Revisited]

Too short, even for a clock movie.

Graphics: Great backgrounds. Typical crappy clockness, except without the emotive FBF faces flipping around all over the place. BurritoClock? More like, Dismembered Hairy Leg Clock.

Style: You can't deny that this film has great ambiance. Too bad it's only 3 seconds long and there's only one fourth of a joke. (Note to the author: Please do not reply to this telling me exactly how long it was, and that there was one whole joke. I know how long it is. I am exaggerating for comedic effect. You should try it in your cartoons.)

Sound: Great music, Really establishes the ambiance. Whatever movie you stole it from should be proud.

Violence: none. Burrito Clock obviously escorts TomatoClock out of the house and then goes to the store to buy some ketchup.

Interactivity: movie

Humor: none. Well, one fourth of a joke. All right, one joke. It's just you better look quick or you might miss it.

Overall: I hate movies with pretentiously long title screens and credits that are twice as long as the rest of the movie. This is established fact. You can look at any of my reviews to see this quite plainly. If a murder occured, and the police had no leads, but the motive was that the vic submitted a movie to Newgrounds that had a long black background with white text and almost no animation, I would fully expect the police to at least stop by and ask me a few questions, tell me not to leave town. At the very least. That said, the author's stated intention was to improve the quality of his movie that got blammed. I hope he succeeeds, because all 5 seconds of it looked nice.

HINT: IF IT STILL GETS BALMMED, DON'T REDRAW IT, MAKE IT LONGER YOU JACKASS!

TomatoClock responds:

but that wouldnt be staying true to the original :(

[Poverty Epidemic]

A serious montage about a serious social issue.

Graphics: Devestating photographs of some of the poorest of the poor. Some of the most dignified white text on a black background I have ever seen at Newgrounds. I disagree about video footage being neccessary here. There was something more peaceful and somber about still images. Besides, they only show the happy, fed children on TV. Finding video of the poor wretches with shrivelled bodies and flies landing on them would be difficult and expensive.

Style: Simple, somber, tragic, and dignified. However, I do question the relevance between this Flash and the site it links to. The Flash seems to be about "World hunger," specifically the world's poorest and most destitute individuals, living in third world countries. The website, however, seems to be about affecting social change within America. I was expecting the link to lead to some food back or something. At the very least, the Flash could have done a better job exploring the link between American attitudes and the actions of America's wealthy, and the consequences in third world countries. Since the website linked to doesn't seem to offer any direct way for people with disposable income who surf onto the site to help the needy people pictured in the Flash, I must call the link between the site and the Flash tenuous, at best. Thus, I don't feel this video effectively conveyed whatever its authors wanted to convey. Unless the purpose of the video was just to attract visitors to the site. In which case, congradulations, assholes. You've hijacked the potential philanthropy of america's wealthy and squandered it on the promotion of a vague political ideology. I hope you're happy.

Sound: Tragic, moving, slightly hopeful, and ethnic. I'm not sure what ethnicity, but it was in a language I don't understand, so it must be ethnic, right?

Violence: No, that's a different PSA Flash.

Interactivity: The link works, but it's not a RELEVANT link.

Humor: None.

Overall: This is clearly a well made PSA Flash, moving and thought provoking. However, I question its relevance, and the motivations of the people who created it. It doesn't sound like you want to help poor people. It sounds like you want to fund a political campaign. While the two are not necessarily unrelated, I don't feel that this Flash is an honest representation of your site, your organization, or its goals. And yes, I say that having barely looked at your site. If your Flash were an EFFECTIVE ad for your site, I would already overtly understand the connection, instead of distrusting you. For all the tragic truth contained in this Flash, all you've done by showing it to me is set off my Bullshit Detector.