gel's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ranma½ Interactive Dojo 6]

That's it!

Every time a new Ranma Int. Dojo is submitted, there's always SOME reviewer who judges the sound and says that dubbed anime sucks. Who cares? It doesn't matter if dubbed anime sucks or not because this movie ISN'T DUBBED. It's got original voices. You're listening to the original voice recordings! If you want it subtitled, the artist would have to learn Japanese, record their voices in Japanese, and put in subtitles. How stupid are you reviewers?

Okay, sorry, I know that wasn't reviewing this particular movie, but it had to be said. Anyway, the movie is of the usual fair, not great, but still better than a lot of stuff on NG. It was odder than the first 5 though, since you totally turned the story upside-down. So, no more Ranma Int. Dojos?

You really should work on your line work. It looks like the characters, but the lines are just too squiggly. The fact that you don't straighten them some shows laziness, and while that may be true, it reflects badly on the movie. Some of your voices are very good and others are just bad (especially female voices). Get someone, even your sister or female cousin, or neighbor to do the female voices. Just b/c [regular] Akane has a deep female voice, why would you deepen your own voice when you record it? You should raise your voice.

The non-Ranma cameos (I won't give them away) were pretty lame, took away from the Ranma feel, and made the movie feel like just another NG movie where people take pictures, slap together and call it a movie. Don't do that in your Ranma stuff.

By the way, El Hazard dubbed is way better than El Hazard subtitled.

[Crow Clock Shorts #03]

Something bothers me

That was quite humorous. I find your animating skills of high quality, your humor a trying effort, and cinematics well approached. There's only one thing that really bothers me about this movie: Why did you get some 12 year old boy to be the announcer? Your score reflects it.

[Ranma½ Interactive Dojo 4]

Very Ranma like

Do you trace Ranma video captures? It's just that sometimes your art is dead on (aside from the squiggliness) and sometimes it's all squished looking.

If you'd clean up the art, added more frames of animation to smooth it out, and change Akane's voice. It's kinda funny, but mostly just annoying. The other voices are great. Happosai is dead on and I might even swear that you just ripped that off the anime, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, the reason why the sound starts playing when you have stop() on the frame before is because of a stupid Flash quirk. Actionscript doesn't actually take effect until the frame AFTER it is called. This is the same reason why you cannot load a movie clip and alter its properties in the same frame. You have to wait one frame.

Solution: Try telling the movie to stop one frame earlier, or start the sound one frame later. I'd go with the latter option.

Keep up the great work!

Dekathos responds:

Well that is very disappointing that it's a glitch. I have tried your other ideas before and I'm not sure if it works because every time I watch this it plays differently. Sometimes I had trouble with sounds coming from totally different scenes all together. What I can gather since it didn't play as badly until I added more to it, and to the fact it plays differently every time I watch, the bandwidth must be the main problem. I remember when I worked on my Simpsons movie before I separated it into 4 parts the sound would come at the wrong time. There must be a trick to it because that new movie about Mtv is fucking enormous and I didn't see any problems with voice sync that I can remember.

I hope the next installment of Flash if it is a glitch, fixes this problem. That's more important then extra tools or whatever. Yes I used screen captures! I did mention it in other reviews. Quite frankly I find it aggravating that people would use this against me when they judge this work(see the review I got from the only person that gave me a 0 to know what I mean). Of course I knew it would happen! I have been around long enough to know the majority of my audience is alarmingly negative and very difficult to deal with. I have been a fan of this site when the best thing on it was Reading Rainbow cartoons and Heroes of Cybertron. Things that were awesome then are no longer on the top 50 because of this 'holier then thou additude' about simple work. Since when did this site become a experts only crowd!? Yes I appreciate your review after all your one of the few who read my author's comment and offered help. I really apreciate it. Yes except for 'SHREK' that is my voice.

I didn't want to go into detail on how I worked on this because it would take to long. BUT so many want to know (gee I wonder why). Definetly why I need a website. So again I'll write a short summary of what I did. I was originally copying the cartoon straight from the tv then I scanned and traced it. Very bad idea. I did some free hand and tracing as well. By the time I was done with the third movie I was pretty much burnt out. Thank God I decided to use screen captures it comes out much better and if I didn't I would have never finished this. Please don't be offended by my comments but being overly critical can really bring good author's morale down or at least the ones with potential. Not me but I'm not everybody. I will try my best to do a neater job on my next work and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Sorry you had to read this rant and thanks for the review!

[Itchy & Scratchy 1]

Pretty good

When you do a fan version of anything, it's undoubtedly going to be compared to the original stuff. In this case, you did the graphics well. The animation was pretty good. The worst part was the sound. There was sound, that's true, but that's where the good stuff ends. One sound sounded like you recorded it off the tv speaker, and if you didn't notice, Itchy and Scratchy always has music playing in the background. There was too much silence in yours. Silence, silence, sound clip, silence. You made this a while ago, so I'm sure whatever you make today will be better!

[Retarded Animal Babies 3]

Great as usual

I still like RAB1 the most. Two was just playing to the crowd (not that that's so bad) and this one had a story, so that upped the score. The first movie was just true expression of everything you couldn't do at work. These later ones are made for the NewGrounds crowd, but since that's where you are, it's not bad. I think you could be funnier if you jsut let the NewGrounds thing go though.

[More AlienSHIT]

Yes, not bad

Not bad indeed. Definitely put in more time (non-generic sound fx, a story) and you'll have some really good stuff. Top 5 Good stuff.

[wwud for klondike bar?]

Why

Why would you take an idea that's already been done before, do it very badly, and upload it? You didn't take enough time to record the voices with any decent quality. There was no real animation. I usually tell people to keep trying, but in your case, you don't even show any effort or cared about the movie at all, so just stop making movies.

[Fly Over]

Don't feel bad

It took 3 people to make that crap. Tween this, and draw over the last frame that. I see SMOE remnance of skill in there. Just take your time. Bad bad bad bad blam.

[Ricky and The Red Ball]

Not bad.

Proof that small files can still be amusing. It's too bad you think the sound might be half-assed because audio would have improved it, even some simple child-like music.

[Arrogancy: Chapter 4]

Bleah.

How many people loved the movies Final Fantasy: the Spirit Within, the Lost In Space movie, or Waterworld? All had tons of eye candy, and none of them are good movies. Why, why.....hmmm... they all lacked story!

It's the same with the Arrogancy series and this installment in particular. "No story" doesn't mean an absence of story, but the absence of a good story. Cocky (similar) characters with lots of bravado isn't good.

I like to say it had awesome graphics/animation, at least, to hold it up, but it didn't. The animation was good. The style was well defined, but it wasn't unique, kinda bland. And hey, I like anime. I just don't like pointless action sequences (yes, I watched the other parts first).

Get some help with the story, and please get some help with the voice acting. That only made it worse. Call me the Simon Cowell of Flash movies, but I give it a "6 out of 10, so what."