SounDoG-2031's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Catching Up (Pilot)]

First things first, I absolutely love the little nod to 'Better off Alone' in the bar scene. Such nostalgia!

That aside, all in all I thought this was pretty decent. The sheer time and effort that goes into making a 20-minute pilot as an independent animation team cannot be understated, and there was clearly a lot of care and love put into this. Huge kudos for that.

I really liked some of the character designs (particularly the rat girl) and the VA work was really, really good. Some of the jokes were very funny, and the ending was genuinely very cute and heartwarming! However, this could've easily been a 12-minute episode, and many actions and visual gags that took about 3 shots to be portrayed could've been resolved in a single one. Overall, the pilot was victim to poor pacing, but it wouldn't have been such an issue if the characters weren't so... miserable.

Initially, Clay barely seemed to appreciate Rob's company, and the latter came off as rather insensitive and selfish. Not a good first few minutes, but the bar scene was just so much worse. Just everyone being angry and sad... and it just goes on and on and on and ON.

I really feel like the entire thing was hard carried by the final third of the pilot, where Clay stands up for his buddy and Rob finally takes his advice. That final between conversation seemed very genuine and organic, and was very effective in demonstrating that Rob and Clay are good buddies that, despite their differences and rough patches, truly do care very deeply about one another.

I also loved the way the two valley girls reacted to being told off. The rat girl's "That'd be grrrrreaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...." was so, SO fucking funny!! Holy shit those two did such a good job! But again, huge props to all the VAs.

As for the art, I think the shots with mostly flat lighting and neutral colors look really good, but the moment hard lights or shadows are applied it looks very ugly. The shadows specifically are way too saturated, and the faded/airbrush finish doesn't look good in the slightest. I'd recommend either sticking with flat colors or cel-shading.

Whew, well I think that's about all I've got. I truly do think this could be a very funny and memorable series with some work, and there were many instances where I genuinely enjoyed myself. This was a herculean effort to put together, and everyone in the team should be proud of themselves. Cheers!

[The Eternal Debate]

pineapple > pepperoni

[Oddboxing]

Pretty good! The character design and voice acting's pretty decent, and I really liked the colors and filters The script and dialogue feels a little flat, but the punchline was no less cute. Sound design could use some fine tuning. You also really, really nailed the vibe and look of stopmotion animation, to the point where I legitimately believed it was just that!
All in all, great job!

[JUST ADD WATER]

Ah I remember these from way back when, good and fun times.

Anyway, this was overall pretty nice. For being a showcase/small demo on how to craft animations, I think this is pretty competent. I really like the visual style you decdided on, more specifically all the fun textures in the background. As someone has already stated, the story is just a tad too self-explanatory and I guess you could say rather predictable, which I'll admit had me asking "Wait, that's it?" by the time the credits rolled around.

Speaking of rather confusing directional choices, I really didn't get why the little dino shed a tear when he was about to fall on the tub. The shot by itself is fine and dandy and its purpose is clear - to add a tidbit of comedic drama and buildup for the obvious growth spurt gag, it's just that little detail on the character that doesn't really make sense. He certainly seems to be just fine once he turns massive, so what made him so emotional back there?

The voice acting is redundant but admittedly pretty funny, so honestly I don't mind it. Overall it's a fairly solid little short, and as with any animated work, I applaud you for putting in the time and effort required to complete such a task - being frank, I've learned over the years just how time-consuming and demanding even the simplest of animations can be, so props to you for making it through to the end with this one and everything else you've dished out.

Godspeed!

LinkTCOne responds:

I wouldn't have included any dialogue at all if I weren't making this as the result of a tutorial series tbh, so that's fair critisicm!

The dino is shedding a happy tear, finally realising his destiny to become a big chonker ;)