Darkend's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Baka-san: Short 3]

Can You Say Shoo Fly?

Hehe, that's what comes to mind when I watch this. Hey, you and John Su should do a collab together. Both your characters will just be chasing a fly around the whole episode! ><;

Anyways, just like the others I think this flash is smooth and awesome. I laughed a few times. I've been on here everytime you've submitted a Baka-san episode and I've helped protect them all. I guess my only complaint for you to improve upon would be Baka-san's body structure. When he moves (or even when he's holding still) I always see little white specks and on his body. Some times there between his joints and stuff. It looks as if his parts and just his body in general aren't together all the way, because the background is revealed through him and it gives this sparkily effect that doesn't look good at all. I can find it kinda distracting.

I also notice that these are all titled "Baka-san Short". When are going to get to see a full? Anyway, nice job as always. Keep it up.

-Darkend-

El-Cid responds:

Thanks for the feedback and props ^-^.

I'll keep what you said in mind about his look. I actually went back and filled in the first short a bit, but it still has it's original sketchy look.

I originally wanted it that way, and I could revert back to that style, but I'm keeping an open mind to feedback from the viewers. So thanks for yours.

And as far as a full length Baka-san: I've got something in mind, but he won't be the lead character. Should be fun methinks.

[World 2-4 Retaliation]

Holy..

Dude, you deserve to be a director. I loved this movie, and I usually hate sprite movies because they're so boring, but I could tell that this thing was full of quality from the first 3 seconds. That's talent. What makes this so amazing to me is your style, you really have a directors style in your movie making. Everything from your choice of music to set the moods, your unique camera dynamics, to your scene transitions were right on. (Yeah, I look for stuff like that in movies.) You actually made me care about the situation happening in this sprite movie. My mood changed to even that of fear when Bower rose from the dead or just show up in a scene. Seriously though, I don't think I've given out so many 10's in a review. Heh, heh, I'm a tough cookie when it comes to judging. So when you get both the 10 and the 5 from me, you know you're going places. I cannot wait to see your next installment, whether it be related to this, or something new entirely. You owned all Mario movies. You owned all sprite movies. You own.

Oh yeah, what really got you on my good side was using Nightwish. ^^; They're my friggen favorite! (check my profile) Especially Planet Hell, and Dead Gardens which I noticed you used at the very end there.

-Darkend-

[ZIMMY Puppet pals]

*sighs*

I see you didn't really take to mind any of the advice that I gave you last time, except for maybe improved graphics. That was probably the only single difference I saw. Sure, you might've made some more but if it's not obvious to a viewer then it's as if you've done nothing. You need to make dramatic differences. Those make impacts and give you higher scores. With a little effort you can get there.

Please, please, pay attention here while I rant about music. Do you recall what I said about your choice of music last time? If the music doesn't match the style, then don't use it. Your music selection for this flash was poor. Defcon Zero is an awesome song, true, but don't waste it on this. It needs something else. And again, just like last time, you didn't loop the song properly. You just ran it until the song cuts off like usual. That sounds bad. You're supposed to loop. My point: Just because you like a song doesn't mean it belongs in a flash and here's why. Music will effect the viewers mood more than anything else in a flash. If your music is doing one thing, while our flash is doing another (as far as style and mood goes) then what you have on your hands is a conflict and the viewer doesn't get the same kind of impact. Defcon Zero is a song that slowly builds up to a climax. Did your flash do that? No. Defcon Zero is a song with a fast paced beat, one that gets a person pumped. Did your flash emphasize that? No. I could go on and on about it but I wont. Pleease either change your flash to match, or don't use it at all. And as far as Pirates goes...oh heck I guess that could stay, I dunno, but the least you could do is find a better quality version. I know you got it from some other guy and its his fault that its crappy, but its your fault that you put it in there.

The last set of suggestions I'm going to give is make the puppets...I dunno...entertaining? If you've gotta tell the viewers to watch the whole thing because you don't think it's that great to watch then something is wrong. Put some action in there man. How about voices? How about character? How about (this might sound crazy) story?

This flash has some potential, and I like where it's going. You've got a brilliant idea. Seriously, if you take into consideration everything I've suggested this will be great. Good luck.

-Darkend-

IZSBHR responds:

OK, but people on DA loved the music. This has quite the fanbase elseware. But I'll take these into consideration, K? P.S. the sequel has voices.

[Thumb Wrestleling]

Something Thats Not Clock Related!!!

Oh Savior! You have brought hope to my eyes!!! I voted protection for this, heck, I don't care what it is, I didn't even watch the whole dang thing, I don't care! It's NOT a clock!!! I love you! Bringing sanity to us all!

-Darkend-

MrPoPo responds:

If you really love me can you please see the WHOLE DAMN MOVIE!!!!!!!!!

[Historia Bizarra]

Awesome Experimental

I liked the style of this very much. It reminded me of the experimental genre. Tell me, where did you get your inspiration for this? Just something you thought up one day? A dream? A video game? I liked the spanish thing going on there too. It added to the unique style. That's why you got a lot of style points from me. The music was awesome and it fit everything really well. "By The Grace of God" is an awesome song, and the whole scene where it was playing with the flash back and all was really cool. Keep it up, you got a new fan.

-Darkend-

Eustaquio-Man responds:

Thanks, dude!
The idea came pretty much from my first flash, "Güey VS. Monstruo" (Guy VS. Monster), which, as a matter of fact, got blammed an hour after I submitted it. A crappy, stick-based version of the Weird Spider appeared there, only as a bad guy. Then, thanks to the awesome power of daydreaming combined with doodling, I gradually came up with everything else.
Just like that.
At first I figured almost nobody would understand the text if I wrote it in spanish, but I really wanted to do it that way, so I settled for Spanish text and lil' subtitles.
I agree, "By The Grace Of God" is pretty good, but sincerely, I just picked it up by chance. Seeing it fit the animation well, I left it there.
Thanks for the long review! If this makes it through the dark bowels of Portal Judgement, please submit to the Experimental collection.

[Planet Blue]

I Loved This!

Well, the thing that attracted me to this submission first was the word "Blue". I'm not about to go into my childhood with everyone on NG but lets just say I had one heck of a serious obsession with the color blue since I was a baby, and I still do. Anyway, this was a really really awesome idea and concept. Depressing at the end though, but it made the whole movie worth while. You know, you should get involved with some more 3D animation and send in more of your stuff. My favorite scene was when Grey was standing at the top of the building there and you could see the city streets, cars, etc. those all looked amazing. If you had an entire movie where stuff looked that way you'd blow everyone away. Great flash, I already put it on my favorites and I loved the symbolism.

And remember guys... Everyone is blue on the inside. So true. BLUE ROCKS!!!

-Darkend-

[7even - Episode I]

Hey, Pretty Good!

I've seen a lot of submissions, most of them horrific messes, and to be quite honest I thought that this was going to be one of them but you pulled of something very nice. I'll be honest, your graphics weren't the best but they're not the worst either. I like your zombie head design. It was different from anything else I've seen and creative. When I watch movies I don't judge by graphics. (notice how a movie can talk about crap with a horrible story but if it has good graphics it'll pass?) I judge by story, creativity, originality, you know, the real quality of a work. And if your graphics don't live up to it then I try to imagine them being better to help me get a graps of what artists are trying to convey. That's what I did with this.

You did a good job in putting in backgrounds, utilizing the camera to show different angles, and keeping things at a mysterious tone. I like that. My advice for you is to work on your sound and get some music. Don't just get any music, get something that fits the mood. (please not some angry heavey metal screaming crap though. That never looks good) Music affects mood more than anything else in a Flash, so if you want to make an impact use some.
Improve your graphics a little more, experiment with more shadowings and shading and try to make things look a little more 3D and not so flat. Practice drawing a lot. Don't go make another flash right away, first sit down and just start drawing, to help improve your skills. If you do those, keep your creative mind, I think you'll have something really really good to show us.

-Darkend-

[PlumberMan 1]

It Was Alright But Needs A Lot of Work

You've got a lot of things in there that bugged me. Do you go back and read what you type after you type stuff? Because you do realize that your character description section is full of typoes and bad grammar, right? Like instead of saying, "He is" or "He's" you used "His". Very bad. Have someone else look it over for you and check your spelling.

As far as for the movie itself the graphics were pretty okay but I have a question. What is up with that gun the robber was using? It seemed as a bullet shell or what looked like a one slowly came rising out of the barrel....? Dude, whats that? Do you know how guns work? The barrel is not where you load a weapon nor do shells ever come out of there. Go study up on them or something because I don't know what you were trying to pull.

And I'm sorry to say your humor didn't get a single laugh from me. It was kinda old humor. What annoys me is when artists comment on their own flaws in the movie or anything that's strange. "Why don't you have a face?" "Why is my voice gargily?" You know, stuff like that. Artists feel those are questions reviewers will be asking and commenting on so what the artist does is bring up these questions himself in the flash in order to play along with the audience, and it's sort of a disclaimer. But really, you just look like an idiot. Whether or not that is your reason for doing so, it still looks that way and I recommend fixing it. I think those were the only problems I saw. Fix these, find better humor overall, and you'll do way better next time.

-Darkend-

Jonimator responds:

Yeah. next time i will check my spelling better. but Geeeeze!
the gun is from another Planet and is obviolsy a alein type Gun. Lol. And not having a face isn't a flaw, But i thought you would want to know WHY. The face has a part in the next one too!
Anyway thanx for the reveiw.