psychicpebbles's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Spock Logic]

Did you watch Star Trek? I'm not quite sure what exactly this is a parody of, it's extremely rushed and not well thought out.

You can't be parodying the old Star Trek "Wrath of Kahn" movie, because in that one Spock dies... but you gave these characters Will Shatner's voice acting and mannerisms? You gave Spock a bizarre thin red elf nose when Zachary Quinto's Spock make up has a very thick and wide nose bridge.

In Star Trek 2: Into Darkness, Kirk is stuck behind glass and is dying. In this you drew him leaned against some door facing Spock while they're in the same room. Again, very puzzling. Spock goes on about how he can sever Kirk's spine so he can't feel, but again, he is dying from radiation poisoning. What would that help at all?

Overall this cartoon is a mess. The voice acting is sub par, the art is basic, the character design is lazy and clearly drawn without any reference, the script was so under researched to the point that it's baffling to understand what's going on, and above all of that it just isn't funny.

It's fine if you want to make something silly and dumb, go for it by all means. Basic research is required when doing a parody though. I'm not even a fan of Star Trek and I knew everything that was wrong with this immediately after one viewing. Next time if you're drawing a character, google search them and try to draw them as closely as possible. Tell the voice actor to do the current voice of the character, not the one from 40 years ago. Understand what's going on in the scene before you parody it.

ZenithQuinn responds:

Well thanks for the review! I will take your critique into account.

[Brominoe Effect]

People tend to get really mad if you compare their style to an already existing one, but I think it's appropriate when it's rather clear the style is trying to achieve another one.

There tends to be a lot of jokes because idiots say egoraptor did everything. Egoraptor invented wacky faces, colors, frame by frame, the Heavens and the Earth, etc. However in this case it's fairly obvious you're attempting his style. The characters, the pacing, it all just attempts to be egoraptor. There's nothing wrong with that, because I think it probably benefited this cartoon.

That said, in the future I'd really like to see you develop your own unique style.

Now, onto the rest of the cartoon with that out of the way.

The animation was really impressive. It flowed really well and suited nicely, there weren't any jerky shitty "bleh" parts, everything worked really nicely. I really enjoyed the thicker linework outlining the character, it was a small thing, but it really put the cherry on top for me. The lines themselves weren't anything amazing, but the characters were almost constantly moving so it didn't really matter.

The colors were sort of bland and grey and muddy. I'd really like to see some more vibrant popping colors that are appealing to the eyes. It felt sort of dull on the color side, nothing really stood out. Try studying colors more and using really fun bright colors that make the audience's eyes feel good. You used fairly good colors, but they were really watered down.

The audio was fine, no complaints. The voice acting suited contextually, and there isn't much to be said about it.

My only real complaint was the humor, but that's something everyone naturally evolves. You make what's funny to you when you make it, and your sense of humor evolves and develops forever. It never stops, so I won't judge that as much considering you, at the point where you are, find it to be funny. Although I will say, a general rule with anything is to take it to the extreme. if a scene is sad, make it REALLY sad. If a scene is chaotic, or the joke is everyone is being chaotic, then be as chaotic as you can. Take it to the highest level, turn everything up. That makes the constant between scenes and emotions and jokes roll better, it's more of a roller coaster to watch.

You've improved a lot, keep up the good work dude. I look forward to seeing your future work.

Kiigen responds:

Thanks Zach, I really appreciate the time to you took to write all of this. Alot of the things you mentioned I sort of didn't notice, so I appreciate you pointing it out to me.

[Dyc: Ladies First]

In response to the last review, I can answer for myself.

You guys are a team/studio of people who have been working for years. Anyone can and should upload to this site, but come on. This site is where most users start out and communicate, and get better and share skills and ideas.

You spam upload twice per day because that's your limit, if there was no limit you would have many more videos on here. You throw your shit up here, promote tshirts, and leave.

You don't want to improve or get feedback, and you don't care to give any. You want your views and paycheck and exposure and that's it.

Although I don't really care for awards, especially on a place like Newgrounds, other users do. It gives them a goal to strive for. They want to get front page or daily first, so they work harder to get to it. When they need to compete with a fucking team of people, and when you guys are guaranteed praise and awards, it kills motivation. Beginning users come here to meet other users, get feedback, and improve.

You wish to do none of those things.

I don't think any of the anger from the community is directed towards you, (perhaps it is, since you've worked with RWJ and most people above 11 hate him) I think it's directed towards the idea of a studio uploading to a website filled with stand alone animators.

A kid spends four weeks on his cartoon that he's proud of, uploads it, and his praise, award, and everything he worked for is stolen by a studio who pumps these out for a quick paycheck.

Continuing uploading if you wish, because I know what I say has no affect on your decision, but don't be surprised when you get shit for continuing. I think your decision to upload or not to upload reflects how much you care about feedback compared to money.

AnimonsterOfficial responds:

Your assumptions about money are understandable, but I assure you the team here doesn't expect to receive any substantial 'paycheck' from uploading here, in fact it's basically non-existent.

You can choose to believe me or not, but I assure you that every one of us is just as grateful and excited to receive the trophies we have as any other user. It makes all our hard work worth while to see the massive amounts of positive feedback thus far from a community that is truly passionate about animation. People who laugh at our humor and are entertained by our silly little creations.

Yes, it is true that we are a team but we're not as massive as you seem to believe, and not that different either. In reality we are just a small group of about 5 guys who are passionate and devoted to our work. Not long ago we were just like each of you guys, young and just getting excited about the amazing world of animation. Because of this I understand where your resentment comes from, I really do, but know that it's not our goal to suppress or belittle your commitment to this wonderful community, but rather to share with, to encourage, and maybe even in some small way inspire some of what is undoubtedly the next generations of animators.

We are in a exciting new time where the internet allows us to take this silly dream of drawing cartoons and make it a reality. People with nothing but passion and a few good ideas can rise to actually making a living doing what they love. At the very least I would like to keep that hope alive, to be an example of that dream.

I am sorry that you took it the wrong way, I really am. If you want to continue to view our little group here as 'the man' then please do as you wish. But as long as there are still people here that enjoy our work (and no offense to you, but they seem to greatly outweigh the negative by a drastic margin) then we will continue to be involved in this community.

I've come to NewGrounds since I was 16 years old, I could have never imagined I would be here today doing what I am now. I hope the same for all of you.

[SS - Universal Geometry]

It's such a shame.

You are on the right track, and use a lot of correct source material, but then some of your conclusions go ape shit. You use true facts, and then say things like crystals are real and Martians existed.

You're on the right track and clearly want to learn the truth, that's your only bias. You really believe what you say, I believe that. However, if you're going to market this as "Spirit SCIENCE", speak Science, infer what you're getting at, and leave it. Anything more than that is insulting.

It's like on the History Channel, they say things like "The pyramids couldn't have built themselves. I'm not saying they didn't, and I'm not saying aliens did, but aliens did it."

Much of what you say is true, and I'm agreeing with you, then there's always the conclusion I disagree with. Most often because you skip many steps and provide little evidence for the actual conclusion, even though the conclusion was partially formed by the truth, so it makes it hard for most people to distinguish what's true and what isn't.

What's true and accurate is a very delicate thing, very fragile and easily breakbale. You need to look at everything skeptically, meaning if someone you know tells you a story that supports what you believe, look at it skeptically. Part of Science is saying things and coming to conclusions that you MAY NOT like. So your friend might tell you an amazing story of an out of body experience, or aliens, or crystals, etc. That doesn't mean it happened, you need to look and skepticism and ask questions if you really want to get down to the bottom of things.

You need to say, which one is more logical in this situation, A, or B?

I know you're already really deep into this stuff, and your heart is in the right place. If I thought this was true, I'd be preaching it also. However, I met you a few years ago when you weren't even into this stuff, and were just a normal guy. I know you feel it's your calling, and that you've stumbled on the greatest secrets of life, and that's great, but you also need to be realistic sometimes.

The idea of you being able to unlock the universe is an amazing one, everyone wants that. So I worry that the allure of that idea itself can corrupt and pollute you, because you want so badly to answer every unanswerable question.

As Neil DeGrasse Tyson put it;
"If you want to remain a scientist, you have to learn to love the questions themselves,"

I know you're no scientist, but I do know you seek the truth. You must accept some things in our life time are just not knowable. I know your cause is in the right place, but I worry how you're marketing it as actual science may cripple people to stop questioning things, stop being skeptical, and stop seeking the truth. Why seek the truth if you think you already have it? At that point, they're just going to try to spread what they think is the ultimate truth of the universe.

I'm not saying you're wrong, or anyone else is, I'm saying if you really seek the truth, part of that is being able to drop everything you think is true if it is proven to be false. Part of Science is updating itself to be more accurate and better at identifying how the world works. These ideas might be really fun and interesting, but ultimately, would you be able to drop every single one of them, if somehow, they were all proved to be false?

I think your answer to that may dictate how much you really want to know and how much you want to think you know.

I know this review most likely will not change your mind, and I'm not trying to, believe me. It's just disappointing to see someone with this much passion and love for the truth, and for Science, and then wandering off in a different direction. Some of the most undeniably true things are hard to believe.

If you really do seek the truth, which I know you do, try being more skeptical and ask more questions, and perhaps don't buy into everything, even if it fits into your idea of how the universe or world works. That makes you a target for con artists.

Take care, and good luck.

RiverJordan responds:

Hey Zach, thank you for the beautiful review. You put a lot of effort and energy into writing this, and for that i commend you. I also feel that this merits a reply, and i hope that you hear me as much as i hear you :)

I completely agree! We have to ask questions about everything, we have to always ask questions to go deeper to understand the Truth. I also feel that truth is something you inherintly know within, if you are tuned into it.

We are all like little radios, with our bodies, emotions, and thoughts, we tune into different frequencies. We can tune into lies and deceit (which there is a lot of on the planet), or we can tune to harmony, feeling good, and inner knowing and peace.

Spirit Science for me, is about the exploration and discussion of ideas. Yes, i realize i present it in a way that says "This is how this works". That's how it's given to me and how i receive it. EVERYTHING is open for discussion, totally. But i think when Plato and modern science says for over 2000 years that "YES - these geometries make up the universe", it's safe to say that i too can talk about it in that way. (And yeah, maybe he's wrong, maybe it's something else entirely! Come figure it out with me, instead of saying "I don't know and its going to stay that way".

A mind is not to be tied down like a dog on a leash, it needs to be FREE!!! To grow, develop new ideas, and explore reality in new ways!

Thanks old friend, you're an awesome cat!

[Team Fortress 2 Fail]

Gonzo, man. I'm at a loss for words on this one, but I really need to say something.

I need to preface this review by saying parodies are not bad, there is nothing wrong with parodies. Many successful shows currently are parodies or mocks. However, you shouldn't parody things JUST to parody them knowing they'll get views. Even if you do do that, make it not obvious by only releasing parodies relevant to that week or month.

I never give anyone shit for JUST not being funny, but man, script is really important. I didn't laugh once, or smile once. I just stared at the screen waiting for something to happen. Some of the voice acting was really bad. Your cartoons always look visually appealing and really unique, I'll give you that, but fuck, cut back on the face close ups and screaming.

I have no program with wacky faces, funny faces and characters making interesting facial expressions IS A CARTOON, that's what makes a cartoon interesting and fun, I'm not giving you shit about that. However, the XD faces, the CONSTANT facial close ups every time a joke is said is just painful to watch. Use facial close ups when necessary, they're a good tool for a joke, but use it super sparingly.

One of the biggest obstacles of doing a parody is making it funny to people who are outside the reference bubble to what you're parodying. I think you fell the flattest here. I know TF2 players who didn't find it funny, and I have never played TF2, but wasn't amused by this. While I'm on the subject of bad writing, I was flabbergasted you used a fucking Skyrim/Arrow to the Knee joke in LATE JUNE 2012. It wasn't funny in February, why would it be funny now? Skyrim has NOTHING to fucking do with Team Fortress 2.

Also, if you're making a parody, give it a theme, dude. Team Fortress 2 is hard, Team Fortress 2 is easy, the players on Team Fortress 2 are dumb, etc. This was just, look at this character from TF2 saying something wacky and having a weird voice on a close up.

Again, I must reiterate as strongly as possible, silly faces and silly dialogue MAKE a cartoon, look at Ren and Stimpy or Spongebob. Abusing these and making them your crutch is not, however, how you're supposed to write a cartoon. Try to seriously do a video without XD faces, with two normal people talking. If you can make that funny, then the faces are a bonus.

The animation is icing on the cake, but if your written cake is garbage, you just have trash with icing on it. The purpose of cartoons is to entertain, and you failed on that aspect for this video. Does that mean you're a bad artist? No. Everyone flops. Every single animator, TV show, movie, musician, artist, everyone flops. It's in our nature, but you look at why you flopped and don't to it again. You can pander to young TF players who are going to laugh and giggle and fart because they get the references, or you can make something that's legitimately funny to everyone.

That's the biggest issue, is I've seen other artists tell you your mistakes, and not only have you repeated them, but you've started doing it MORE than before. Take this review as a gentle shove in the direction of the other countless reviews. If you don't, that's fine. I'm not forcing you to change your writing, or anything at all. However, if I (or anyone else who has left a review) didn't care about your improvement, we wouldn't post at all. You have a shitload of potential, and seeing you waste that on XD faces and loud screaming that's so loud it clips is more than disappointing at this point, it's a shame.

4 years ago parodies weren't a giant deal. Since 2010 or so, I've noticed an exponential increase in people doing parodies JUST TO DO THEM. If money is your only motivation, you're in the wrong field dude. Become a lawyer. If you seriously want to make something people won't forget about in a few weeks and not be inspired by, continue the way you do things. If you care about what you produce, and how it comes out, follow not only my advice, but follow other peoples. Criticism isn't HATERS BEING HATERS, it's people wanting to help.

Good luck.

Gonzossm responds:

That is one huge as review! I'll respond back to it all.

I don't just parody things just to parody. I'm a fan of TF2. Meet the pyro coming out around the same time I finished this was a coincidence. I was going to release this last month but I got interrupted with personal matters. I haven't released anything in near 3 months. :P

I can agree with you that the script did have a lot of problems. Didn't really notice it till it was released tho. The animation mostly caters to the Team Fortress 2 fan base. So a lot of the jokes are basically inside jokes, only people who'd play the game long enough would get the jokes. So I did screw up by not making the animation open for everyone.

About the facial close ups I got a few bad responses on that aspect. So I'll tone those things down.

Arrow to the knee was just a small suttle little thing. You can dress up as dovakiin in TF2 so EH I knew going in it some people would get annoyed with it if they spotted it.

Theme; Team Fortress 2 is addicting.

I try n listen to what other people tell me and try to apply them. Sometimes I just screw up. That said people still enjoy the animations for what they are.

Why dont you stop making parodies?
I have my reasons why I do what I do. I still dont just do them just to only get money from them. Money does play its role in animation, but I do try n get better with each animation. I try out different stuff in each animation. Sometimes it sucks sometimes it dosnt. I dont plan nor want to stick only to parodies.

Anyways thanks for the Review, and criticism I'll do what I can to get better at what I do.

[GayWilliamJohnson]

The artwork and character design was good, creative, and interesting. The colors were spot on and really popped out, and weren't dull and gray.

I loved the animation, you used all frame by frame. You also use a lot of frames when you do, which makes it a really dangerous place to go if you don't know how to handle it correctly. Many people use a lot of frames and it sort of turns chaotic and into a mess, but you understand animation and the characters moved with a flow and a rhythm, and you still obeyed the basic principles of animation. The fast paced style and frame by frame almost reminded me of SuperJail in a way. I am curious though, do you do straight ahead or pose to pose?

The music suited perfectly, RicePirate did a great job as always, and you used great sound effects when needed. The soundscape was good.

The writing/jokes/material was also good. It got straight to the point and was funny. The only thing I must say though, is you should've bashed Ray more if you were going for a video to bash Ray. He sort of just gets tortured and plugs his shit, which is funny, but to an unbiased viewer who isn't familiar with Ray might feel sympathy for him in this since he's being tortured, so you could've added more to make him look a bit worse in that way.

OVERALL, I loved everything, but I really love your animation style, it flows nicely and semi reminds me of Super Jail. Keep up the great work niqqa.

OrganizedApeShape responds:

LOL Thanks I'm really glad you liked it,
Mostly pose to pose as to not lose the shape of the character,
But some times I did it straight ahead cause I fucked around with this a lot :3

[Luis´s Infinite Beer]

God Damn, Man

This was really short and a loop, but your frame by frame, shading, and line work has gotten outstanding. This is TV quality.

Really nice job.

Hulalaoo responds:

Zach ; )

[TOME Episode 01]

Come On Kirbopher

Kirbopher, let me first start out by saying I don't leave reviews to be offensive, I leave them so you can improve. The last few reviews I've left, and reviews I've seen similar to my own pointing out identical faults, have gone obviously unread, obviously unnoticed by you because you keep making the exact same mistakes.

Your artwork isn't fun to look at. It's improved since you've started, but hardly improved in the last few years. It's stayed the same, and it's extremely boring to look at. You need to learn how to draw hands and bodies. Study muscle and anatomy. Make your characters look interesting and not basically identical. It's like you're trying really hard to achieve a bland anime style, and you can't do it. Also, I still can't believe at age 22 you're still using gradients. I've seen dozens of people leave reviews telling you to stop this, myself included, and you've continued to do it. Gradients look terrible. STOP USING GRADIENTS. Shade properly, JohnnyUtah has an excellent tutorial on shading technique. Make your characters colors a bit lighter too, they're all sort of dull and lifeless. I see a lot of people using a sort of muddy dark color, and it looks bad and not interesting.

There was no animation in this, at all. I wouldn't call this an animation. This was essentially a sprite movie. The characters bodies were just redrawn, no in between frames. It looked bad and felt awkward. The only other real movement was the mouth movements, but that was set on a loop and you just recycled it. Mouths takes a bit of extra time, but make a huge difference in the end. I know you had other movements in there, and some walk cycles and some characters standing there set on a loop, but nothing stood out. The point of ANIMATING is to BRING TO LIFE something that isn't alive. It's to bring to life a picture. When you're hardly doing that, why not just do live action or something?

The characters voice acting was bearable, although no one really emoted, and no ones voice was really funny or interesting. They were all bland. It sounds like you use the same voice actors for every video you do, I don't know. It's like the same, bland, emotionless, generic anime voices in every one of your videos. The constant 8-bit music playing in the background over and over made me want to puke after a minute. It doesn't sound good and is obnoxious.

The thing irritated me the most was the entire story. Yes, the entire thing a cartoon is built from, the story. I've never been as bored as I was when I was watching this video. The story is boring, the characters are forgettable, and all have the same jokes and personalities. For every character you make, you take on small trait they have and magnify it, and that's the whole character. That is not how you make a character, and especially not a likable character at that. Not only were the characters not likable, I actually hated a few, just because they were so pointless. Especially the green lanky guy, why was he swearing so much? I seriously don't mind a good fuck, cunt, or dirty shit rag here and there in a cartoon, but why include it at parts where it's completely pointless?

It was like watching an 8 year old who just learned how to say fuck. He swore nearly every sentence in one portion, and I was sitting there thinking; "Why?". It isn't funny, it isn't cute, it doesn't add to the story, why is he adding this? Oh, and to top it off, he bleeps out his own fucking cuss words. Guess what Kirbopher, the whole point of swearing is to swear, what's the point of censoring yourself? It's especially frustrating when you don't even HAVE to censor yourself. IT IS THE INTERNET, YOU ARE FREE TO SAY WHATEVER YOU LIKE. No one is forcing you to censor yourself. If you don't like saying the word fuck, shit, etc, then don't even write it in the show if you're going to take it out.

Kirbopher, you went to college and have been animating as long as Harry Partridge, if not longer. If that doesn't say anything to you, I don't know what does. People leave reviews for YOUR own good, not ours.

Advice. Take it.

Kirbopher responds:

Y'know what, I can understand where you're coming from on a lot of this, but for the most part, this feedback is being lost on me, because it sounds like a lot of what you're upset about is the "point" of this project.

I'm not setting out to do groundbreaking animation and art. The fact is, no, I'm not a spectacular artist. I'm not trying to hide the fact that there are still BASIC things about drawing that I'm a total novice at. However, the purpose of this series is to be able to easily produce episodes on a monthly basis (if possible) by using limited animation techniques. The setting of the show, being a game world, is also the reason why it's set up very much like an in-game engine, or even a machinima if you wanna put it that way. Doing this way allows me to get the story across the way I need it to, and in the amount of time I'm setting myself to make each episode.

As for the story and characters? I honestly can't justify or apologize for any of that. I'm gonna just chalk it up to "it's not your thing". I have plenty of my own FRIENDS that aren't into any of the stuff I do, but then I also have plenty of people that really, really like my characters and my sense of writing. I'm not belittling your opinion here, but you're genuinely the first person I've seen who has such a massive problem with the writing or how the characters are portrayed.

I know the generic phrase of "if you don't like it, don't watch it" is old hat on Newgrounds, but that's really all I can say. I DO appreciate the fact that you're going out of your way to try and -help- and not just flame, but in this specific case, there's really not much I can do. I hope you'll understand that. Maybe you should skip on watching any future episodes of this project.

[American Pokemon]

God Damn it Jeff

The artwork is beautiful, the animation is smooth, and backgrounds are great.

Your color schemes always get my chode stiff.

SO HERE'S A 10 BYE

JohnnyUtah responds:

booooo