Istari's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Fantastic Realm Chapter 1]

Not bad

Kudos on the Disney style, it's a change from the anime stuff usually seen around here. I dunno if the style is suitable for Flash though, it seems too traditional, too detailed to be able to animate effectively.

Boo on the boring storyline - not much happens! I don't mind if there's no violence, but when you take out humor and anything remotely interesting happening, it makes for a boring movie! It seems like a waste to animate all that nothing happening.

I suggest that you watch Ninjai(www.ninjai.com) to see how a good series is done.

Realmguys responds:

Yes this episode does nothing but introduce the characters. Stay tuned though, plenty of action to come!

[Gundam vs Evangelion]

Uhhhhh

-Why are you tracing images, instead of creating your own?
-Why are you tweening those images, instead of actually animating them?
-Why did you make a trailer for a movie you don't plan on making, when you have another "important" project?
-Why did you submit this in the first place, when you don't care about it?

SoulDealer responds:

Well, that was a bit hard but I will answer, this flash is important to me, it is the first no crappy one that I made, and if you see the date whene it was made (read the credits) you will see that this is an old proyect.
If you wanna see a really good and 100% opriginal work the wait till my new proyect (over a month of work), belive me, you would like that one :)

[The Original Hunt: Pt. 2]

Mediocre

Now, I don't have any problems with cliched, overused storylines- this is Flash, after all, not the Oscars. I do, however, have problems with cliched overused storylines where THE CHARACTERS' FEET DON'T MOVE AS THEY WALK.

It's as if all the characters can psychokinetically levitate themselves of the ground just so they don't have to move their legs. Or, more likely, you drew the models and was too much of a bum to animate them properly.
And when you're talking about an action film, proper animation - proper violence, is the point of the movie.

I don't see why people are giving good reviews. To see a real piece of Flash(and the RIGHT way to animate), check out PUSTOTA, today's daily feature. I watched it several hours ago and am still in awe of it.

RobsH66 responds:

Okay, this review kind of ticks me off.

First, let's disregard the fact that I've replied to this same complaint, and explained the reasons behind it, more times than I care to count. And we'll also disregard the fact that I made this movie almost 5 years ago, when I had very little experience in Flash. And we'll forget about everything I wrote in the Author's Comments, which you should have read before you decided to post such a negative review.

This was never intended to be a very graphics-intensive movie, nor should a movie ever have to be. Sure, flashy graphics and tons of detail are great, but have you ever heard of beauty in simplicity? The lack of character animation is what allowed me to make a movie almost 10 minutes long without spending several years making it, or creating a file so large it couldn't possibly be posted online. I also chose to create this movie in a simplified style to compliment its humorous nature. This is a comedy first and an action movie second; it would take a very ignorant individual to watch this movie and not see that.

You don't see why people are giving good reviews? They're doing so because they are looking past the simple animation, and enjoying the humor and randomness that is the basis of the movie.

I suggest you try being a little more open-minded in the future. Try to appreciate things for more than just their visual appearance. And next time you feel like bad-mouthing someone's hard work, please look at what that person and others have already said about it (ie. read the Author's Comments and previous reviews) before you go shooting your mouth off. Thanks.

[Battle for the Portal Pt1]

Lacks substance

Whatever the impressionable 13 year olds may say, 3-D does not equal quality. Animation equals quality, and this film has precious little of that.
None of the characters actually DO anything. The battle, for example, has the combatants hopping around each other and all over the place, without actually attacking. Joe Zombie runs across the screen(if a 2-frame cycle can be called running), but again he doesn't do anything.
In the later Xiaoxiaos we saw what 3-D animation is capable of. Show us something other than explosions and camera rotations. Show us some ANIMATION

SecretAgentBob responds:

3D does not equal quality, but good animation doesn't equal quality either, it just equals good animation, the movie could still suck.

What I’ve brought here is not frame-by-frame limb motion, but rather cinematics and advanced compositing. You can’t do too much animation wise with a solid Clock figure, and to get the authentic “sprite” feel you can’t do too much with them either. The animation isn’t the impressive aspect of this movie, it’s the world in which the animation lives in.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

[Lonesoul - Episode 3]

Mediocre

A lot of work went into this, but God, watching this reminded me of reading a book! Forget the wannabe sci-fi writing and the cheesy dialogue, Flash isn't suited for long rambling plots filled with every sci-fi cliche known to man.

Focus on your animation and your graphics-right now your characters consists of badly shaded polygons and your fight scenes are extended motion tweens.

adam-p89 responds:

Flash is suited for whatever I or anybody else wants it to be suited for! There are no rules! The next episode might just give you something to think about, Istari...

[Priest Trilogy : Part 1]

Nice!

I watched your trailer and loved it. This animation was just as good, and I look forward to your future works on this site.
My only gripe is that the action moved too slow. The entire fight scene was carried out in slo-mo, which is very useful, but only if applied judiciously.
Not to sound pretentious, but check out the movie "Yukino" in my profile to see what I mean.

Stryda responds:

Yah, this has been put to my attention. I will try harder with the next ones... I'm still really new to animating.

That Yukino animation looked awesome. Nice work.

[Priest Trilogy : trailer]

Very nice intro!

Good graphics, intriguing character, nice use of the music to emphasize your text - cool intro!
I disagree with what a previous user said, I do not think you should use voices at all. Due to the lack of competent voice actors and the heavy price in file size, I avoid voice acting in my flashes like the plague. Sure, you gotta do some creative backflips to avoid dialogue, but it also saves you from writing dialogue in the first place.
Tell me, what effect did you use for that motion blur thingy at the text? Did you do it in photoshop and then fade it in over the original image?
And what major lets you spend 2 months on a flash project??? I gotta take time outta my studies to do flash..

Stryda responds:

Hi there...
Yah I hear ya, my tutor said the same thing about the voices. I would put voices in...even if it dosent fit on newgrounds I could host it on my own server. Its just I dont want to bring down the level of my film due to bad acting. ~~; SO, I WILL put voices IF I can get good actors.
Yah, I did the effect in photoshop. A simple Zoom blur and I did the fade.
Really I was doing this for my own enjoyment but seeing as our final project allowed us to do digitally what we wanted I chose to continue this on. I spent around 3 weeks just developing ideas and characters... the rest I spent on animation and learning Flash.

[o fortuna]

Masterful.

Very very nice job with the perspective changes! I don't think I've seen any Flash author do it as well as you without using 3-D software-with the possible exception of Genryu's Blade.(Have you seen it? If not, www.Shockanime.com)

Watching your movie has convinced me to move my ass on my own; see an unfinished version under Yukino on my account!

HeRetiK responds:

I've been to shockanime.com and also to ninjai.com, which was very inspiring.

[system interrupted]

Ina, eat your heart out!

Very nice shading! The cracks on the outer shell was exceptional! And the 3-D rotations, simply awesome.
Please tell me, did you use a 3-D program to do the spins, or did you just frame-by-frame them?

HeRetiK responds:

I didn't use any 3D programs. Just well placed shape tweening and some frame-by-frame corrections to make it look good.

[The Way Duel Should Be v2]

It's so wierd, random, and funny!

If you mean shitty when you say wierd, shitty when you say random, and also shitty when you say funny. Put some effort into your work or leave the crap on your own monitor. Take this 0 and good luck on becoming the Turd of the Week.

Sepht23 responds:

Thank You, and if nobody out of 100 of the required votes thought is was funny then this shit never would of made it, thats y i uploaded and designed it for, turd of the week, so it will make it past blamming and then plumet once people realize its crappyness