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99 Movie Reviews

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Quality is there, but not Consistently

I remember watching your first episode of your series a while ago, and liked it. Now I feel inclined to review.

For a project this size, I'm surprised that you didn't really put much effort into the preloader to give the viewer something nice to look at while they're waiting for this to load. Draw up something nice and related to your movie rather than throwing in a static image and changing the person driving the tank in the Newgrounds box. This is a small ask, but it's generally expected.

Throwing in that montage on what happened last episode was rather pointless and really did more stalling getting to the feature than reminding. Link the previous episode in the title screen or preloader and you won't have to do this. It's not like the last episode was a huge as Super Mario Bros. Z Episode 6 was, so that's why Alwin got away with the intro in ep. 7, though even then it wasn't cinematic and it was skippable.

The size is pretty darn huge. Did you compress and cut your audio? If you haven't, when you're animating, after you've reached a point where you'd like that audio track to stop, cut it in Audacity and re-import it. This does a good job on cutting down the size taken up by unused audio. If a track loops, save it as a .WAV and THEN have Flash compress it to make it loop seemlessly. Also, make sure that you compress all of your audio. Set the global setting (found in the Publish Settings under Audio Stream / Event) to MP3, Convert Stereo to Mono and 32kb/s. There's very little or no quality loss and you still have a lean file size. For stereo music files, manually set them to 64kb/s without Convert Stereo to Mono on. If you think no one will mind listening to mono (it depends on the music of choice), leaving the global setting could help further. When testing, set the quality to Fast, and for the final product, set the quality to Best.

Now to the actual movie. One thing that you should really think about doing all the time is drawing everything with Flash's drawing tools. This is because it draws vector graphics, which are graphics that can be freely resized without getting pixelly. Images and bitmaps use raster graphics, that is, they're made up of pixels, and zooming in on them reveals their true nature. Use Flash's vector graphics as often as possible, as the quality isvery high and, in most cases, the end result is smaller in file size.

You need to work on the look of the characters. As a whole, they're accurate re-creations, but their colour is a little static. Keep shading areas according to the light that would fall on them for an extra graphical kick. Keep the detail high. Also, try to make sure that all characters that are shown are being animated to prevent on them looking static.

Sometimes the sound effects are repeated too much, like walking and such. But as a whole, it's all pretty nice. Oh, and that Mario voice generator sucks because of the unnatural sound of Mario's voice and the fact that Mario wouldn't even say stuff like "You go to hell," or "You suck!". The music, as a whole, was uncompelling too.

I've read and seen that most people were taken aback by Mario having a knife and using it in its full violence. The reason why people don't like this is because it's not true to the games, and, really, you do have to be true to the game. Also, The People's Mario gets away with it because the violence is in greater context in their movie. Stay true to the series.

The second scene was underwhelming for the fact that it didn't really mean much. Why did Luigi go? Why is Bowser attacking the place? These questions are nigh-on meaningless for a story that's not very compelling.

With all that being said, at times, the quality of animation and drawing is supurb and at a very high quality, but the lapses in that quality bring this down. If the attention to detail was kept consistent throughout, this would be something really special. The audio need improvement but the SFX were chosen well at times. The story's a little dry though. Up the quality and fix these and it'll be something great!

Unexpected, neat

I found your movie is 'cause I was interested to see what score was required for a daily tenth nowadays, so my view was more luck than anything. The description got my attention though, otherwise I'd've just left the page.
I really liked the creativity you put into it, and watched the entire movie. Your humour is certainly in the right place with good timing. I like the noir style you chose as well. One noticable weakness is your microphone. I could hear it crackling from time to time, which means you were probably too close. Use a program like Audacity to record, preview and edit your voice clips. The absense of the mug impact sound effect was missed, it'd help the slapstick.
All in all, a solid showing. Next time you might want to add in some background music. Don't worry, Flash will be able to compress it so that it doesn't hurt your small (and appreciated) file size.
Great work!

boinky33 responds:

Thanks for the great review. Also, I actually use Audacity.

Misleading, not an actual review, but entertaining

First off, congratulations on your Daily 9th. It's the only reason I know of this.

I was expecting a review, but this isn't really one. If I was actually considering buying the game and watched this, I wouldn't know much more about it. The title might trick people, and possibly disappoint them.

But it was supposed to be humourous anyway. And yeah, it's funny! Some good short punchy jokes. Not hugely insightful but whatever. Appreciate the image slideshow to accompany your bits.

There's a few things you could improve on. The icon doesn't describe anything about the movie. It's just your logo, and it's been poorly resized. You need to improve on the overall visuals. Most are very basic or Google images. Not so good

Glad you spoke in the review instead of putting it all in as text. You could include some of the music from the game though.

Overall, I was disappointed it wasn't much of a review, but calling it a 'funny review' would be on the nose too. It was watchable, but I wouldn't watch it again. The jokes are kind of unfocused, making fun of Nintendo or the series rather than the actual game. Y'know, typical stuff plenty of others have done before. It's a bit all over the place in general. But hey, stay at it. If you can get a Daily 9th for this, think of what you'll get if you keep improving!

WILIZIN responds:

Thanks for the long review, I will keep these pointers in mind for the next flash I do.

Simple, Nice Job

All in all, it was pretty good. The title was so funny I clicked the link in the Daily Winners e-mail. Not descriptive, but effective.
Liked the neutral approach. Operating system wars are kinda dumb.
It would've been great if you put the real Mac ad music in. The voice over was good. Thanks for making subtitles optional. It's good that they're there even with clear and balanced audio, but I sometimes pay too much attention to them.
The only bit of it that didn't work so well was when the Linux penguin showed up with the whole "The moral of..." schtick. We already got that point. But good job on picking up afterward. The ending was as good as the rest of the movie.
Nice to see you taking criticism. Good luck with your future animation!

Bobert-Rob responds:

Hey, you can't improve your own art unless you take some criticism, you know? That's how I always approach it. I'm always looking for things to improve on, and the only way to do that is to get second opinions on things. And yeah, music may have helped, although I would've sooner found something in the audio portal that mimiced the basic sound of the music than using the actual music from said advertising. Would've been a good move, but I honestly didn't think about it, sorry. Glad you enjoyed it enough, though. Thanks for the review!

Not True to the Game, Improvement Needed

You were either going to hit the nail on the proverbial head, or your thumb instead. To my surprise, it was somehwere in between and, unfortunatly, untrue to the game, thus preventing you from achieving a higher score.
Full points for the choice of Voice Actor for Midna, a very important factor. In fact, I think the only reason I even half like this movie was Midna alone. The script is actually quite pathetic, random skits are not professional, mind you, and since it wasn't true to the game, you lose quite a few points there. Every random skit had me feeling unimpressed. Pity, this had potential.
Graphic and animation wise, it was fair. Improvements in detail and animation would be much appreciated. Sound-wise, there are too many sounds that don't match. It's a pity you're using those generic sound found around the 'net. I'd be much happier if you managed to find some sounds that matched the actions on-screen better.
Everything else is just medicore. Like I said, it's a pity because you really could've done a lot with this. Instead, sadly, you almost slacked off, missing the chance to make this thing fantastic. BUT, there is hope for you. If you were to fix up all the flaws, especially the "story" / script, you should be able to make something like this work. Try again after perfecting your Flash skills and you may just get higher in the weekly rankings.

Medicore, maybe less so...

This movie is no thriller by far. And I see that, again, I am your first constructive reviewer. Ahem...
The intro where you state the title and that there's mild violence run for too long. It's annoying to sit at the "This movie contains Mild Violence" screen for 10 or something seconds. If we cared about it's content, we'd refer to the rating that is given beside the movie.
Battle scenes are badly constructed. It is waaay too one sided and the enemies are quite dumb in the fact of their moves and the way they just stand there. A sign of extreme laziness is seen when Mario is surrounded by all those enemies, that are hardly animated, and he transforms into this bug thing for no reason and kills them all. Riiight. Slack really.
OK, so you decided to stop being funny, something that can be argued both ways. I'm thanking you for ditching the bloody Arnold Shwarterwhatever voice clips. But the movie is still quite dull. I think the whole idea isn't great, or maybe it's the way you made it.
As for the Koopa Asylam, it was as good as pointless to put it in. It wasn't used in the episode and, I guess, will be used in the final episode. It is out of place anyway. The abrupt end isn't good either.
You did decide to change you Mario sprites, something that, though it is unprofessional, was the right choice. The 8-bit Super Mario Bros. Mario sprites didn't fit at all.
There is too much happening that has no reason and is unrealistic. That random ship at the top of the stairs? What the?
All in all, you need to do some thorough research in improving your Flash skills and story-telling as well. It will be hard, but then you will achieve higher awards than Daily 5th.

Not fantastic...

I see that I'm writing the first constructive review for this movie so please pay attention to it.
Your Flash isn't amazing and is overated at this stage, but it's not terrible. It was good enough not to bore me, which is an important thing. The first thing I noticed about your Flash was the sprites you used. Some were 8 bit and some were 16 bit. Also, they were from quite a few different sprite sets. My suggestion is to pick a sprite set and use it throughout your movie. It's a lot smoother that way.
The mix of music was good at times and annoying and irritating at others. Especially when you added in the really heavy music, that really knocked the Flash off the good path and onto the one of critisism. Plus, I found myself fiddling with my volume, something I don't enjoy. Please try to equalize the sound.
Plot-wise it was alright. Nothing special but hey, that's not always the important thing. It was cool seeing Mario pull a few tricks in the pipe at the start, regardless that nothing happened because of it. I especially liked the "Fake Castle" bit. Good call!
The "tube" bit was a bit off the wall. Nothing much was happening, only a few spoofs and a few too many Arnold Shwarterniger voice clips. Honestly, I think that scene should've been cut down a little.
Another annoying point was where Mario was traversing the castle, and when the Dry Bones touched the lava, the screaming was awefully annoying. You could've got away with it if it only happened once, but it didn't, and that bugged me. Finally, the "cliff-hanger" ending was quite annoying.
You Flash had adiquate humor when I was watching, not much I would actually laugh at, but it was fair. I did like the Dr. Mario easter egg. Not only did the music rule, but you synced it quite well, which saw me smile. Good work on that one!
Overall, sure it's overated, but hey, it's not a bad piece of work. Just work on the things I have mentioned. Oh, and keep Flashing!

An Improvment

Heh, I remember watching your first one. That one seemed really low pace. I forgot what I rated it in the end...
But I can see an improvment in this one. The fact that I wasn't bored while watching it was evidence that you're shrugging off the slow pace of your last one. But then again, you still need to speed up things a little.
Everything seems average here. It's hard to critic, which means you've got something right. But there's nothing outstanding about it either. You art style is fine and the audio is also fine. You could work a little on your humour, but otherwise, it was up to scratch.
You may want to consider finding or making music to fit with your movie to make it better, Like the opening song, but all the way through. The only parts when you don't need music is when you say to yourself "there shouldn't be music there". However, music is hard to make or find if you want it to suit your movie.
All in all, it's alright. Keep working on it!

Torrunt responds:

Thanks for the advice :D I'll keep trying to improve.

You're lucky, you've got a release date...

I live in the PAL region (Australia), we have NO RELEASE DATE AT ALL! That sucks, bigtime. My guess is that Brawl will come out in June for us.
Yeah, I had to break the news to my Wii Club that I've set up and am making a website for. I don't think they noticed though...
Heh, everything is average or less than average in your movie, except the fact that you were attempting to connect to the public about a matter they cared about in a humorous way, thus bumping up the score considerably. But overall, I think it's acceptable. Keep flashing! And maybe I'll see ya 'round the Brawl arena, eh? My Wii is connected to the 'net. :D
Time to check the Dojo... in 9 hours. ;)

Jimtopia responds:

Lol, I'm aware that this cartoon is very over-rated, but I'm glad you like it. Sorry about your lack of release date, hopefully you'll get it soon.

Clever

I did quite like this. But I know the main reason why this'll pass. The music. Your animation is quite nice but the main reason a view will walk away with a small smile on their face was the brilliancy of the music you put in. Think about it, if you can make a music track to completely match your movie like professional cartoonists and animationists do, you'll be rewarded for your efforts. The only thing I ask of you is to improve your animation. And keep looking for nice music to sync to your flash and you'll be on the right track! Keep flashing!

NOBU777 responds:

Thank you for the exact and precious advice. I would like to strive to have said from now on at manufacture at the head. Then, !!

Newgrounds is awful. I am also awful for making an account here.

Mush Man @Mushman

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