Omahdon's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Captain Prego I remake]

A flawed gem

I thought this was mostly a technically well done piece of animation, it's just a shame that the humour just.... Doesn't quite work. Either the jokes weren't all that funny to begin with, or the timing was REALLY off. Most of the jokes just fizzled out because you either did the punchline a beat too early, or a beat too late. For example, when Captain Prego says his name on the rooftop, the ninjas laugh a little too late, not to mention there's a section in between which we THINK is the punchline, but then we're blindsided by something else that's meant to be the REAL punchline. It's a very tricky tightrope act, and unfortunately you kinda fell off and plunged 250 feet straight down with this one. And that "WAH WAH WAH WAAAAAAAAAH!" just makes me want to scream. O.o The only joke that seemed done right was how Captain Prego dispatches the head ninja: There was a good, simple lead up time, a brief pause of "What's he going to do next???", and then the punchline.

Then there's the dialogue itself. It just doesn't flow together very well. It sounds like somebody took care of one half of the translation, then another took care of the other half, and then the two halves of the script were added together later on without trying to smooth out the jagged edges. Then there's a third guy who comes in and randomly shuffles around and cuts up the recorded lines so that a reply to one sentence becomes a question in another, or what was once a sentence said in a single breath now -- becomes -- like -- this. This can disastrously affect the performance of the actors, who are now saying their lines in a completely different context, and now sound like babbling idiots.

It also doesn't help that the animation seems mistimed to the vocal performances. For example, when Captain Prego is driving in the car, he sounds angry and intense, but his face is all smiling and happy. Then when he says "Nobody calls me a dwarf!", he contorts his face into so many expressions that it goes from being funny to just plain confusing: "Is this supposed to be funny? Scary? Suspenseful? What?". Some of the physical actions taken by the characters are also really bizarre considering what they're saying out loud, and that creates a real disconnect between the voice and the character. There's a rhythm in the voice that you have to take into account when animating the characters, and if you don't do so it sounds like a badly dubbed Hong Kong movie.

Overall, I'd say most of the problem comes from the "localisation". Not just the translation of text, but just the general FEEL of the animation. At the moment it feels very awkward, like putting a joke through Babelfish and then trying to tell it straight off in that language. I encountered the same problem of awkwardness when I was working in the Final Fantasy: Mixed in Balamb 2 series, a problem which became ESPECIALLY noticeable in episode 3. Boy, was THAT a disaster.

Anax responds:

thank you very for great tips!! next time I'll try to do better

[Drowtales 4th b-day]

Very nice work, here! Glad to be a part of it.

That was very nice work. It was very cute and flows very well. I think most of the in-jokes were a little lost on most people here (heck, even I got a little confused, and I've been reading the webcomic.... semi-dillgently). But no one can deny the inherent humour in dressing up a man in wimmen's clothing agaisnt their will. If you can't find humour in that, life would be exceptionally boring.

After reading all the reviews however, I've come to the general conclusion that D&D Drow fans (or Drow fans in general who aren't aware of the Drow Tales webcomic) have A) no sense of humour whatsoever, B) take Drow WAY too seriously. I mean, you don't see fans of other races going "OMFG! ELVES/DWARVES/ORCS/HUMANS/DEMI-GOD ORTHOTHS AREN'T MEANT TO ACT LIEK TAHT!!11!!1!!! I VOET ZEROOOO!!!!11111!!" and C) have no sense of humour whatsoever.

C'mon, people! Lighten up! Even an all-serious, all-evil, BURNING with intense-rage-against-the-surface-world race of underground dwelling elf-folk have gotta have a day off, yanno? Sit down, have a cup of coffee, take a break from all that stress. Watch some TV. Does the TV clue you into the fact that it's not a completely serious take on the drow world? Hello! MCFLY!

[Megaman Zero- The Last Cataclysm]

Booya.

Excellente indeed. I'm only going to give it a 9 now, because the next ep is definitely going to be even more rocking than this one. It has to. Otherwise people are going to write reviews with some variation of "OMFG THIS IS SO NOT MORE R0XX0R THAN THE LAST ONE IM GOING TO VOTE ZERO LOL I MADE A PUN BECAUSE ZERO IS A CHARACTER IN THE FLASH AND I VOTED ZERO 2 LOL". Well, something like that. Man, channeling the spirit of dumb reviewers is spooky. I ain't doin' that again.

Oh, and for the record: The reason why the voice of Harpuia (green guy) sounds so much like the voice of Legend from the Xin series.... is because they're both done by the same guy. I should know. I'm that guy. Woo. :-P

[Faust - Episode 2]

Ack! My sound quality!

The VA for Dr. Faust here.... While I understand the necessary self-restrictions on filesize for flash animations, I think you might have lowered my quality a bit too far. My siblant "SSSSSSS"es, whose volumes have been apparently increased by the lower bitrate conversion, are completely drowning out whatever performance I had for Faust. At least to my ear. eep. Then again, nobody else seems to be complaining, so maybe it's just me.

Anyways, excellent job on this episode! Felt the animation was a bit rough in some places and looked "too smooth" compared to the rest of the mood of the flash; but the quiet pacing, the consistent colour palette and good use of music is quite masterful. I loved the partial face-shot of Dr. Faust as lightning strikes outside: the creases on his face lighting up and dimming in time with the storm. A very evocative image.

[FF: Mixed in Balamb2(2/3)]

LordWurmz needs sense of humour. Badly!

So sorry I made Alucard sound like a "sinus-infected Graham Chapman", I was actually going for a Liquid Snakish Cam Clarke. Because Alucard just looks like a guy who has Liquid Snake kinda voice: melodramatic, filled with misplaced angst and far, far too pretty to not be thoroughly, fabulously GAY. Sorry if my humourous intepretation on the ever-youthful pretty boy stuns you with its incorrectness, but I thought it more appropriate than going for the full serious "I am dark and abiding angst. I am a regular on emo LJs and I listen to Linken Park. My girlfriend's left me again. I weep" gothic mode. If you wish to argue the point, feel free to email me, and I'll feel free to abuse you some more with your SPECTACULAR lack of anything resembling a sense of humour. And you're wrong about Sephiroth's voice too. Wrong, wrong, wrongo, nicht, nein, non, incorrect.

And now back to the other reviews.

[XIN Session 13]

Nice one!

Glad to see this up on Newgrounds! This was a fun episode to work on, what with the grunting and screaming and hurting and pain. Looking forward to working on more Xin sessions (as well as redoing some of the early ones with voice). Yeeha!

[Lüky and Suicide Meg Ep.2]

Quirky, funny and all rather strange, what.

I love the quirkiness of the characters and how nothing appears to be staying still, even the text pop up to follow along with the characters' dialogue. Random hillarity is also much appreciated, and I love the logic of thought that the characters operate under. It seems derived from Hertzfeldt's "Rejected" which I got on DVD and didn't stop watching until I became very, very strange. So too can be said of this episode. Please make more. I can't stop watching this episode and I fear it has done strange things in my mind.

Anfaalo responds:

I fucking loved 'Rejected'. All of Hertzfeldt's stuff is the tops! Have you seen the Animation Show? He does all of the Intros etc.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm a bit new to NG, but I am already starting to see patterns in people's reviews and votes. Seems that when something first comes out, everyone who votes either goes fucking nuts for it or blams it right away. If the flash shows any sort of success, that's when people start getting more critical about it. Maybe I'm just sore when I get bad reviews.

Strangely enough, some people think my style is shite but the humor is good, but others have an entirely opposite opinion. You really have to know how to please everyone here abouts.

Oooh, I said a lot.

[Samurai of the Present .1]

So you survived the blam! Nice.

I can see this series going places with some time and a lot of practice at Flash. You have a good sense of visual cutting to heighten the tension as well as the minimalist style of anime. As for audio and graphics.... Well, it needs a lot of work. The graphics are serviceable but could be better and more unique (and run at a better frame rate), more sound effects and music would add to the scenes (get some people to voiceact for you as well while you're at it) and please do at least a SMIDGEN of reading on samurai and their role in the Japanese feudal caste system. I think it may help put some things into context and give you fresh ideas. So far, all the ideas I've seen you put into this seem to have come straight from video games/anime/comic books/movies/all of the above. Get yourself some originality and read some history/culture books! And rip those off instead! :-P

Ultra-Samurai responds:

I understand the part of the voice actors and stuff. Frankly Im hard of hearing so it proves dificulty for me so yeah. Yeah this whole samurai thing was an idea, dont think Im going to continue it anymore lol I never had a good story so I cant really get anything out of it.

[Samurai of the Present]

Sorta interesting, mostly boring....

While I'd like to think that I have a tremendous amount of patience for samurai movies where the characters do nothing but talk for 7/8ths of the movie and only do some actual fighting in that final 1/8, this dragged a little bit too long for my tastes. I'd like to see how this develops, but this looks like it's headed for the BLAM books. Nice preloader screen though. Whet my appetite very nicely. Need more animation and voice work. Definitely the voice work part. I think had the voice acting been more interesting (and there was some tense, building music in the background) it would have raised the score to a 3. But that's just my op.

Ultra-Samurai responds:

*sigh* yes yes yes i know he dosent move coz its just a premiere for you to understand the series which does have action!!! oh well
it's problably gonna get blammed neway

[The NES Dance Party Ep. 1]

What the fark?

4MB download for 30 seconds of content? Are you nuts? Next time, don't upload until you've got a full movie.