Ectonaut's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[BIZARRE]

ANGRYMOUSE!

I was wondering why it sounded like him. It is him! And I thought I'd already seen everything he'd touched here. Classic random goodness!

[There She Is!! final step]

Incredible.

I saw the first installment of this series shortly after it appeared here, and I was impressed beyond words. As it comes to a close, that sentiment remains the same, but for a different reason. What began as a cute story with a catchy song and stellar animation has become a powerful, brilliantly executed message about love in the face of seemingly unstoppable, irrational opposition... one that is even more poignant as questions of who one can love and how continue to be called into question here in the United States. This kind of art simply can't be quantified. 5/5 and 10/10 are completely inadequate measurements in the face of the impact your work can have. It has been a privilege watching this series progress, and I sincerely hope that you and it will have a long and glorious future.

[Somnium]

Sometimes Amazing

...and sometimes not. The animation was always smooth and well-executed, but the artwork swung between incredible and awful (could definitely have lived without the first section, and your human figures could definitely use some work) and the music was pretty consistently bad... but I can relate to that, it sounds like the same kind of stuff I used to make when I was first learning to use Garageband and thought myself a musician. Definitely look into the Orchestral Pack if you want better strings, as the ones that come with it are hardly worth using; it's about the best fifty bucks you can spend on the program.

There's definite potential here, and with a little more practice and polish, you could make a name for yourself... but you're not there just yet.

RPGsrok responds:

Well I was definately trying to make the beginning more sketchy, but I think I know what you mean. Nonetheless. I hope you can see from the rest of the movie that my artistic skills go far beyond the opening. Can u be more specific on what I can work on for teh humans? the face, the hands, general porportions? Cuz even if you think its true "It all suks" doesn't help me much. Thx for advice on orchestral pack, I'll look into that.

[Non-silent horror: Ants]

IT'S ALIVE!!!

It's great to finally see this lurch up and get itself on the internet. Here's to more fruitful collaborations!

[Hydroelectric Documentary]

Well-intentioned, poorly executed.

There's a lot of good general information here that's useful for a quick overview of what a hydroelectric dam is and how it works; I would recommend this without hesitation as an elementary school educational short or another similar purpose. As a final product, however, especially one that's supposed to be theoretically selling the technology to the world, it falls quite short. The visual style is inconsistent, with the impressive dam diagram and associated animations clashing against the simple vector cartoons, photographs, and effects (this is particularly obvious where you're talking about coal mining; the blurred, semitransparent fire, the coal picture, and the guy holding them look like they're from completely different cartoons). Your script also needs quite a bit of work, as well; every other sentence does not need to start with the words "so" or "now," and your transitional language, especially in the beginning ("furthermore, the water begins to flow" in context made my delicate English major ears hurt), leaves a lot to be desired. Your information is very superficial, as well, which is (as I said before) perfect for elementary education but lacking in additional explanation: "At the bottom of the turbine, there's a propellor" tells me just that, when what I as a viewer would really like to know is why there's a propellor on that turbine, "to turn it as water moves through," which would actually make your next statements flow more smoothly instead of making the sentence seem like it's just stuck in there for something else to show you did your homework. Other information was similarly too incomplete to be useful: countries 1-10 have the most potential power, which is calculated by combining potential power types A and B... so how is that measured? Again, a statement like "rivers, lakes etc. are all potentially sources of hydroelectric power" would make the rest of what you've said make sense. Even if your information is meant to be incomplete to make viewers curious and want to look more things up, there are ways to do that effectively as well, the simplest being to provide a link to a website (like, say, PG&E, the folks giving your school the money to let you make this, or any other good information site). Lastly, the music cuts out about 3/4 of the way through the film and your sound is very choppy, and you cut yourself off quite a bit, which has no reason to happen in Flash because you can control where you start putting your sound in.

As many negative things as I've said, it's quite refreshing to see something here that's intended for education rather than entertainment; your heart's definitely in the right place. My problem with your animation is that it' executed too poorly to give others the idea that something like this can be done and still be well done, an idea that Newgrounds desperately needs.

You have plenty of room for improvement; make use of it. I hope to see more animation out of you in the future.

[Looking Up]

Fun stuff

Minus the money stealing, I've actually done that before with a couple of co-conspirators... we managed to get about two dozen people, all standing around looking up at the sky for reasons that didn't exist. Great work, keep it up!

[Disturbed Johnny]

Interesting

Makes you wonder what the green ball used to be...

[:the Composer:]

Wonderful

A touching piece of animation with a moving score. Newgrounds needs much more of this.

[Shame by the Slice]

Wow.

That was pretty incredible. The art and animation really brought all the characters to life.

BaconMask responds:

Thank you friend! I am glad you enjoyed it!