WCCC's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[SHIFT5]

Pretty nifty, as always. Some of the script writing somewhat pisses me off, as a pet peeve. Lets instead let's, to instead of too, question-based sentences ended in periods...

But hey, other than that, lovely stuff and was very entertaining. Love this series to death.

[Space James]

Absolutely do a followup. The premise is great, the universe is pretty funny, and even the brief transcript of events got a couple good laughs out of me.

[Why I Don't Play Minecraft]

Was gonna consider mentioning because minecraft has long since exceeded its prime and had anything truly worth while to add (slime blocks? Life complete, too bad I wore out all entertainment waiting for it), but then this shit proceeded to happen, and it was far from a coherent answer.

Also, don't play X-Bone version, it's a cock-salad sandwich. What do you expect from a console port of a potentially resource heavy game?

I have no response past that, and no opinion on the tirade of random chaos I just witnessed.

3/5, 6/10 ~WCCC

[Fefnir - Pilot]

I'll be brief, because I could praise this things for days before listing my only point of complaint. The characters are quite originally drawn and clearly incorporate lots of fresh ideas and new designs. The world has a lot of themes that the viewer learns about yet is kept guessing to some aspects, and the art quality is high and the renditions are very varied in angles, use of perspective and so forth.

You want to present a new, fantasy-actiony cartoon world to us, and you hit that shit out of the ballpark and clear into space.

My only single point of complaint does emanate from the design of the weapons. Throwing knife was fine, but one hostile used a giant slab sword that has questionable blade design and an okay hilt, but no pummels or proper guards or sheaths or anything.

Further, the protagonist's sword was basically a super sized gladius, with not too much to note about its design. I feel this piece was heavily inspired by berserk in a few senses, and if not, the similarities are a funny coincidence.

I would look into adding a bit more depth and feature to the various tools of the series. While not terrible, per say, they are unfortunately placed against the excellent standard for the rest of the world's design, and at least to me that's why they stick out as in need of expansion or spiffing up.

I'm always hesitant to watch new stuff on the front page these days. This did not disappoint in the slightest. You have my attention, sir.

9/10, 4/5 ~WCCC

FrameFreak2D responds:

Thanks for your feedback :D now that you mention it, it does seem like berserk, funny thing, from all our team, I'm the only one who has seen the series and I did it like 4 months ago xD and this was done in 2013 so yeah, something I've learned is that we're not that unique, and that if we have an "unique idea" there's probably many others who have that idea in the world xD

[Animation vs. Minecraft]

I'm somewhat torn on this bit, and I avoided watching it for nearly a whole day due to the base theme. While I've found the AVA series well animated, drawn, and somewhat entertaining, the theme has lost its creativity in my eyes via repetition.

Don't get me wrong, lots of people love repetition, myself included. I just also happen to love trying things and branching out into more original, bigger concepts much more, and that's what troubles me about the theme of this bit. A new concept was tried, but it was based off something that isn't particularly original in almost in any sense, and hasn't been so for several years now.

In fact, I would argue that minecraft's explosive, viral popularity and appealing underdog tale of dream-come-true is what drew quickly ran it into the floor by being present on the tips of everyone's tongues almost all the time. And I love minecraft myself, it's worth noting. Like many people, I've blown ethically questionable amounts of hours into the game, and even say it's largely been time well spent for many reasons.

What I'm trying to say more or less is that this is amazingly animated, fairly well drawn, it has excellent attention to detail, pantomime, and so so much more going for it. Even though the story set forth was a somewhat new twist on the casual minecraft story, the fact it was spent on something so many people are over and done with by this point in time... it just presents a field that feels like a small, yet critical degree of failure.

The more I want to love the work and attention that went into this piece, the more I find myself subtly resenting it for a good chunk of lost potential. I can't help but wonder what's next, and if it will deliver on the only area in which I feel this is majorly lacking.

Entertaining, well done, just not my taste.
4/5, 8/10 ~WCCC

[Pleasure Island 5]

God damn. The moment that squid quacked was the moment I favorited this video. Oddly, I would say the flashback's length was less than desirable, despite the fact I remembered I really needed it to remember this story arc's previous happenings.

Funny as hell, crude as always.
9/10, 4/5 ~WCCC

Sexual-Lobster responds:

cheers.

[Kenshi]

Yeah, kick that wall's ass!

Looked up Wu for comparison, and I must say vs then your ability to animate fight scenes has vastly improved. More length, much better reactions not only in drawing the throwing of hits but in how they're received, the latter much more so.

There were still a couple times where the fighting looked a little less than perfect, some offset and reaction stuff, but they were definitely few and far between. In fact, one of them was only an optical illusion due to blocking with swords that were (realistically) really thin vs the size of the actors, the moment I realized swords were in the picture, it snapped in my head and made sense.

Other than that, I feel like the biggest obstacle for improving is gauging and stylizing your own method of camera work. What you have now is about average, a bit of self style to it but not a whole lot, and it's one of those weird, subjective, and honestly really open sorts of things done everywhere in movies of all shapes and sizes. Where to go will definitely take a lot of time and practice, just because it is such a subtle thing that feeds into the whole process.

The good news is practicing it is absolutely inevitable.

You did an EXCELLENT job tackling one of your few remaining problem areas, you should be proud of this one more so than usual!

9/10, 4/5 ~WCCC

[Arc Infinitum 3]

I hate to say, it's a pretty good product in many respects, but lacking in a few that stops it from being a potential masterpiece or high caliber piece, if nothing else.

To start with the constructive here:
-High quality and fairly well known voice actors. Always a plus to have those around.
-3d animation and according cell-shading style, both of which have potent punch for a unique and high quality style.
-Really good processing of said art, so it comes out nice and crisp. Further compliments the art style in and of itself.
-A universe with enough interest and things being juggled to keep the viewer in for the unique world they are curious to learn more about, or at least enough to keep their attention.
-A solid amount of length and good frame rate as well, meaning this is a platform reading to go for extremely high quality art and animation as a whole. I cannot emphasize these 2 key points enough to mark the difference between something that's fun for a couple of goes and something that people come back to again and again.

That being said, there are a handful of things that lack polish or may, dare I say, directly need improvement to play catch up to the stunning fields already presented. I should emphasize that half the reason these bug me some is because of the overt imbalance between various qualities, making the goods still good, but the bads fairly exaggerated.

Anyways:
-While the voice acting was of quality, there was a lack of immersion into a considerable few of the lines, which held back the ambiance from being more complete and the atmosphere from holding more direction and interest, compared to the potential clearly carved out. On a related note, a handful of lines feel less inspired or poorly written, or maybe just poorly timed. I would argue the writing is the strongest point in which this lacks, as it holds back the story telling considerably, which is the main focus. That being said, the writing isn't too obviously flawed or filled with gaping holes, either, and that counts for a lot on the other side of the scales.
-Some animations produced by characters seemed unnatural (less to a point of "not superior quality" and more of "slightly below desired quality") and some seemed a tad choppy, though they were few and far between, I'm glad to be able to say.
-The way the action and its conversations near the action were placed against another really ruined the flow of the action scenes, or at least for me. Usually a good style of cutting between the relevant story info and the threatening action relies HEAVILY on fluidity and pace to keep them pressed against another in truly satisfying matter.
-In some cases the choreography for the action felt less inspired and more rigid. There were considerably good concepts in play, but once again this is one of those delicate borders to mind if one hopes to nail quality right on the head for the legendary quality level.
-While I'm not too anime educated, I was able to pick out a handful of characters that were directly ripped from popular animes/mangas. I feel like there was a strong vibe of "paying homage to inspiration" or "references placed in the mix for fun", but the overt way it was portrayed draws 2 issues from my point of view. Firstly, it means a handful of characters are being designed purely by the artist, and one sees much of the other work that makes them love the artist's style, direction, and creations... only for a couple of areas to lack the completeness of that quality the fans become attached to. Secondly, and this one gets me slightly more, for the sake of paying homage or fun references, subtle is usually the way to go. Not only do fans love finding the little things for picking through their favorite pieces and shorts, the delayed discovery effect increases the humor and enjoyment of the bit almost exponentially.

I want to take time and reemphasize that there are some very well done fields as a whole for this bit, as are many of your bits I've seen in passing. If the other fields are be better handled (not that the handling was BAD either) or are able to do some catching up, your work would be simply explosive in enjoyment factor AND quality. As much as I enjoy the things going right here, I find myself being disappointed more because it IS that close to being a knock-out product.

I might catch some more of your works in the future, as they come. We'll see.

7/10, 4/5 ~WCCC

Kel-chan responds:

All my life until the day I die, I will always have "potential" and it will never be honed into anything amazing or explosive. Just have to settle for mediocrity or averageness.

These works will always be intermediate, I just dont have ability to master anything- writing, animation, staging, choreography or whatever. I've already had 3 decades of potential without mastering anything.

If I had that ability, I wouldn't be posting vids on newgrounds at my age. I'd be making tv shows and feature films and getting paid accordingly for it.

[Puzzle Hunters the Series #1]

I want to try and stay constructive here. Let me say first and foremost that I love a lot of your prior work (ESPECIALLY deadly space action) and have watched your newer pitches now and again as well.

There are a good handful of things to be said on this series, and maybe this earlier episode was more groundwork than OOMPH, but overall the animation and art was clean, there were no "slouch areas" I was able to see of rushed or cut work, and it's something new and experimental in one, and that's why this is of good quality.

Here comes the part where I'm conflicted, though. While everything presented didn't have super obvious holes, it didn't have overt strengths, either. The animation and "camera work" left things feeling relatively static most times, the jokes failed to get any discernible reaction out of me, the characters were, to a fair degree, lacking depth and personal identity, and the way the animation, art, and voice work blended together didn't provide strong ambiance or a good cartoonic "pop" of ridiculous or comical nature.

It's not bad, and a fair dose of its components are on the better side of the spectrum, but the soul feels missing and it lacks anything to entertain me or want me to come back for more. I only hope I'm being a stick in the mud here and other people get more out of it than I did, and I WILL keep watching in case there's a transition or a deepening of the elements further, but that is solely due to having seen your potential and ability elsewhere in animation and so forth... but an average joe newcomer with a similar disposition to mine may find nothing remarkable worth coming back for later.

Best of luck, hope this gave you things to contemplate or consider, even if your stance remains the same post-reading.

7/10, 3/5 ~WCCC

BSMattW responds:

This is a fair review, thanks for writing it!

[CLOCK DAY 2015]

Technically, it's the beginning of the 15th year of the CC, so that. Short and somewhat amusing, not much else to say.

chris-the-stick responds:

hmmm... interesting!

thanks for your review, have a nice day, and
happy clockday!