Score: 9

"Great work..."

submission: Final Fighting Fantasy

date: March 26, 2008

This was made in 2001? This is better than most sprite movies made today in terms of effects and comic timing. While there are a few flaws, the originality more than made up for it. Thumbs Up.

Score: 6

"Good presentation...needs polishing,"

submission: Megaman X: The Mavericks

date: March 2, 2008

This piece is very, very uneven. I liked the preloader, the opening, and the menu. I laughed at parts (Armord Armadillo's scenario was the best), then cringed at a lot of this. The big problem with these shorts is that it's simply too reliant on the same jokes. There's a difference between juvenile and redundant humor, and this piece walks on both sides of the line.

Also, the sprite work, though good, needed to be cleaned up a little. Some of the edits looked great, others looked completely horrible.

It's not bad, and there's plenty to like such as how you made the elements flow together, but please broaden the humor beyond the pattern of "gay/retard" bashing,

Score: 9

"Very funny..."

submission: Token Of Courage: Rupees

date: March 2, 2008

Your observations are sharp, the animation effective, the sound and the voice acting is superb. This is a top notch Flash.

The only thing that mars this is piece is that complaints such as these been done repeatedly. Previous entries may not have the exact, hilarious and effective combination you've used, but there's something lacking in the freshness of the core, despite the well made presentation.

Score: 10

"Close to silent perfection"

submission: That Mean Olde Villain

date: March 2, 2008

It's hard to do a silent movie effectively, since sound is critical to making an animation come to life. However, this was a valiant and successful attempt that went for laughing at the tropes rather than using a silent movie as an excuse not to add anything other than a musical sountrack.

I like the whole grainy, scratched, flawed fim feel, down to the flicker of large blacked out spots. I also like how you used animation to convey effects that would have been impossible for silent films that enliven the movie. The animation appears simple, but like the rather limited effects available in early film it manages to create something more meaningful than overproduced junk. Yet you use it to amp up the unintentioal "cheese" factor of those early films. As a result, this piece not only pays homage to the silent film era, but it also makes fun of lackluster animation techniques and narratives.

If I have to critique something, it's that by 1946, the silent movie was pretty much dead. But the overwhelming majority of this piece is refreshingly wonderful.

Score: 10

"Unique"

submission: The Heart and the Hand p1

date: March 2, 2008

There are so many Flash movies that while wonderfully put together, are as cookie cutter as they come. This is not one of them. One of the things that immediately struck me is the style of art, and the style of animation. The use of tweens was done intelligently in this piece to convey the "drawn" nature of reality, rather than as a cheap shortcut. I love the sun, the other characters, the setting, the rather subdued level of humor...just wow.

My only very minor complaints are that the direction is a little too dynamic (it shows off the nice visuals, but is distracting) and the sound quality of the voices could be a little bettter, but those are nitpicks.

Score: 8

"A Vast improvement from Part One, but..."

submission: Valhalla Knights 2

date: February 11, 2008

First let me get the good. The animation are amazing and the graphics show continued improvement. The sound isn't bad, and is well composed. The direction of the action and the pacing of this story is done nicely, and there's an attempt to throw a little humor into a serious movie such as this. I also like how this chapter can be taken stand-alone. While watching Part I is helpful, it isn't absolutely necessary.

But there are two problems with the overall writing that make such a wonderful fall short of excellence.

The first problem is the set of cliches in this piece. I don't expect something without any reliance on the storytelling standards, but you have shown the ability to deliver great material even while relying on the tropes. Then, with Red Riding Hood you didn't just create a "dark" story. You subverted close every trope (both traditional and modern) and along with the direction, acting, and composition, created a masterpiece.

Now with this, you have the standard, "Guy with mysterious object finds supernatural naked woman and must protect her from shadowy bad guys." Given the opening sequence of part one and the spark of power shown in this one, it's likely she's not going to be powerless and naked forever (and from Ken's opening monologue in Part I, this series may conclude on a bittersweet note where he DOESN'T end up with the girl, after all), but my problem isn't that Ken is doing all the work. Rather, every development appears to be derivate to the point where I could not get lost in the telling of the story. The only thing that surprised me even in the slightest is the bullets were able to disintegrate the bad guys.

My biggest problem with this, though, is that your main protagonist, Ken, for all his visual glory, is completely uninteresting to me. I mean, other than his voice there is very little in terms of personality that sets him apart. He has unresolved "daddy issues" and a cop. The problem is this type of hero has been done to death, and is even worse when despite all the character establishment in the first part, there's nothing that really defines this guy other than his childhood trauma.

This isn't bad by any means. But so far, this has been the same old story of shadowy bad guys after a girl and a jewel and a "normal" guy who gets involved. and soon finds his destiny intertwined on the side of good. You've done better and you can do better with a story. I'd hate to let the wonderful package you've put this tale in go to waste.

Score: 8

"It made me chuckle..."

submission: Random Thoughts

date: February 4, 2008

I have to admit, the humor is well timed. I also like the visuals, and I love how you did the replay feature.

The voices aren't bad, although they could be better. I like the part with the sun and the robot (I wish you could have done that to the sun in Super Mario Bros. 3).

I wish you had spent a little more time on this to make the graphics a little more refined. They're okay given the humor, but if you could do this in two days, think how much more polished and better it would be in two weeks.

Still, I laughted, so this Flash movie did its job.

Score: 7

"Not bad for a test..."

submission: Rotoscoping&SFX Tests

date: February 4, 2008

Rotoscoping by hand is harder than people think, so I appreciate that you attempted to do something different.

The main problem with this is that it seems as though you attempted to draw over the video frames, without any sense of the transition between frames. As a result, the aninmation, even with a low fps, is not as good as it could be. Rotoscoping, and animation in general, is as much about imagination as much as the faithful recreation of live movement.

Still, this isn't bad for a test. I want to see you do better, though.

Score: 8

"Not bad, not bad at all."

submission: Agent Smith Goes Crazy

date: January 29, 2008

Although you've grown leaps and bounds from when this movie was made, this entry is pretty entertaining, if a bit predictable. Still, it managed to make me chuckle pretty heartily.

Score: 8

"Very Original"

submission: Gravity's Just a Theory

date: January 22, 2008

It's very hard to make an effective animation without sound effects, but you've done it. I like this whole nonsensical world that comes to life, piece by piece. I really, really like the two play buttons.

My only problem with this piece is that the soundtrack, while fitting, was still a little laid back. While it gave a soothing sensation to the animation, it didn't provide enough of a contrast or complement with the visuals. The music almost put me to sleep, but fortunately, the inventiveness of the visuals overrode this fault.