Coop's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[SRM Gear Solid: Snake Eat]

Great stuff

Well, what an interesting take on MGS, with SRM... MGSRM, which seems to work.

The fact that you deviated from the voice of SRM this time works really well and gives a whole new dynamic to your work, especially when you use things like the "bocks" gag, for the usual touch of SRM.

Yes, maybe this was a little short and there could have been more gags in there revolving around stealth and Snake finding something to eat - perhaps a Nandos or Taco Bell, for example would have bulked it out - I liked the communications, though they seemed a little colourful, compared to what I'm used to seeing on that front.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

I was actually going to release it as SRMGS, but acronym titles don't turn out well for me - see NOTLS 2, 3, and redux.

The reasons I deviated from the standard SRM voice and language was because this was for that big Metal Gear Solid collab back in the day. My .fla was enormous for some reason that I could probably figure out now, and I guess the lack of cock jokes meant it couldn't fit in with that collab. Or the NG collab boys didn't find it funny enough; whatevs.

I think it says in the description that the reason this toon is so short is because of that collab. It said "30 seconds maximum" in the original requirements, so I built it around that. The cartoon originally ended with a guard walking up to the box and saying "You've got to be kidding me" and leaving it at that. Anyway, glad you liked the toon!

[300 Revisited]

Great parody

What a great way to lampoon this wonderful film. Perhaps you could have made the colours more befitting of the way that the production team did, to make it look more like a graphic novel. The way you put it across came to appear more "comic book" than graphic novel.

That said, not that it's entirely a bad thing. The "reduced budget" graphics that you've used for this piece are certainly a novelty that is more befitting of your animation style and this really does give a different lease of life to your work here.

I liked the writing and the music that you chose, as it shows that you've got a sense of occasion, in spite of the "off the wall" nature of some of the gags, so the scene is set ready for them to be set fire to in the way that your jokes don't really seem to take prisoners. The arrows gag was the best one, as you know that it's going to happen, but waiting for it to happen is the real timing genius.

Is there any chance of you doing this with Sin City?

[Review Request Club]

BmacDelete responds:

thanks for the lengthy review!
yeahh to be honest i won't ever do anything like this again
movie spoofs aren't really my thing (which is apparent)

[A Child Vampire's Lament]

Should have co-authored Celx

To those that have read his work before, the artwork of Celx-Requin is unmistakeable. He definately deserves credit for this, so why not add him as a portal buddy and then co-author him in this piece, since he would at least qualify for "additional art" or "art".

A chilling story, set just right for Halowe'en, when all the children come out to play and little Abby stalks the streets with malice in her heart. The grim reality of the tale is conveyed using simple words and the sketchy look of the drawings from Celx. It always looked like a storyboard for me, so there is real potential to take this further - narration, real animation, where the vampire's kiss is dramatised, more than just by the viewer's imagination and the sounds of death and the screams are very real and chilling.

I wonder, will you return next Halowe'en for another chapter of this tale?

[Review Request Club]

linda-mota responds:

The drawings and art are mine, he just put the story together in flash. But you are right, though I'm new in submitting flash. Anyway I'm happy you enjoyed it! Happy Halloween!

[NOTLS 3: The Evil Jeb]

Funny story

It kind of reminds me of a rather silly game of Call of Cthulhu we played a while ago. In the absence of the Necronomicon, we took a phone book and put the dust cover over it, thus creating the Necrotelecom - the phone book of the dead. I guess you've created one similar here - the phone book of the Jeb.

Some good things here to note - SRM seems to be more intelligent here, while some of the parts make no sense at all, like Spud not being able to pee - he has no genitals, but the pee has to go somewhere!

I loved SRM paying homage to Evil Dead 3, particularly with the chainsaw and the way that he seems to be quite skilled at amateur DIY. I just wish that at the end of it all, we'd seen him back at work in the store that he worked in, for that ending, with a "hail to the king, baby" or whatever you could have come up with for that.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

A "Shop smart, shop at S Mart!" ending would have been pretty boss, especially if it was at Amish Stuff, which is actually a real store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

This is one of those toons where SRM is inexplicably intelligent. He's gotten more eccentric and less stupid over time, but this one is a little uncharacteristic. I just thought it would be fun to have a sort of road trip/action movie with SRM and Spudboy. To be fair though, I never drew Spudboy with genitals or pants, so it's a mystery how he does just about anything.

Glad you liked the toon! I saw you didn't review Hitler's Strawberries, the Flash game I made with some buddies right before this. I can't answer any reviews to it since I wasn't the head author, but I still urge you to play it so you can experience the wacked out cutscenes I made.

[GTA IV: Petty Crime Spree]

Nice parody

Well, it certainly summed up Rockstar Games' contribution to the gaming industry. My god, to think that they used to make games that I thought were good.

Still, this piece has decent animation, though not what I'd say is your usual standard, as you seem to have made the car a little angular and while the movement of everything was smooth, it just seemed like the angular front of the Dodge Charger (?) was a little too rough - smooth out the curves and it will look fine.

I love the crack about the half wanted star, as it seems that he wants to be a really bad criminal, but he has already succeeded, by making such ridiculous crimes, that he could only be a laughing stock.

Good voices and overall a decent piece of work.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

The side of the Charger was a traced image from a picture on Google - I used to do that for all my guns and stuff too! I couldn't find a good front picture, so it ended up looking really lousy.

This animation is pretty much my first go at animating people - nowhere near what I'd need to do for my later toons, but good enough for the time. It was for a GTA collab that never happened.

Glad you enjoyed the toon - I thought it highlighted some of the absurdity of the franchise. I haven't gotten to play Red Dead Redemption yet, but my buddies love it!

[SRM Transformers 3]

Very amusing

Another great lampoon of the Transformers franchise, especially the way that Grimlock wanted to buy the toys for Goldspud, whose name sounds like a rapper's alias.

Some good work there and the transformation cheat with Starscream and the two not-all-too-dissimilar decepticons was a nice piece of work. Bringing back Brawl, when it was part repaired was pretty much the kingpin of the Decepticon's moves, though that exposes a major hole in the plots for the whole series, in that the Autobots never finished the work off, merely causing them to retreat until next week.

Still, there is some good method in there and the viewers are treated to a spectacle that increases with quality in every episode, unlike the subject of the lampoon, which only serves to increase the irony. Have you considered bringing this back for a second season, or even making the lampoon of the Transformers movie, as opposed to G1, keeping the voices the same, remaking the figures to look worlds apart (Melatron is a brilliant example of this) and messing with it there? I think it could work really well.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

The only time things ever get done on Transformers is in the movies or season finales, when characters actually die or are sent to the moon or whatever. This one was the finale of the first season so some guys actually do die, but it's Transformers so they'll probably be back later.

I reference the Michael Bay movies a bit more in the second season, with the introduction of a character and some quotes here and there. The series stays rooted in G1 though, since that's the most beloved.

I do continue this series with a second season; SRM Transformers 4 parts 1 and 2 make up about 15 minutes of cartoon. I broke them up into two halves since there was just so much to do. I also got kinda tired of working on SRM Transformers for a while and wanted to take a break between episodes. That season is the last one though, until further notice.

I ended both seasons of this series well enough, but still leaving room for more. If I can think of a third arc, I might do it. Then again, I'm busy as hell these days so who knows.

[SRM Transformers 2!]

Great joke!

Wow, we're really getting cracking here with some quality animation and some really funny material - the writer's strike gag really got me going, plus the fourth wall gag with SRM Prime was pretty good, since this is the first transformation that you've done. You made it look professional and not one of these cut-corner jobs, where you start with shape 1 and make it into shape 2, despite neither one looking anything alike.

Bringing in additional characters has helped you and even though the Dinobot was there and it was more of a wild animal than a plot device, particularly as it was munching on Brawl's turret. Euphimism?

Keep coming up with these funny pieces and you'll get those awards that you so richly deserve!

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

Transformations were the #1 complaint in reviews for the first toon, and I didn't want to half ass them. I think it took me something like 7 hours to actually make Brawl transform back and forth. It was more or less my first experiment with frame by frame animation, and a lot to think about as a relative newbie. I didn't want to just use a shape tween, since those are always awful.

Transformers randomly brings in new characters all the time, so I figured I would do the same, even if they don't get any character development.

[SRM Transformers]

Awesome!

I love this piece - can't believe I didn't review it sooner, to be honest, as it's one of yours that I had seen a few years ago, when I first saw this on the Portal.

Now, while the jokes may be a little stale and dated from the point of view of a cartoon from 30 years ago, that doesn't really matter, as everyone else is spewing out these jokes, as if Megatron is bout to destroy the world and there would therefore be no tomorrow. You've adapted your characters to make this piece and while I'd like to see new characters, I can see this working, as they fit nicely. Will you be remaking these for the movies, or just sticking to the G1 versions?

Toy sales tended to drive most series back in the 1980s, but now it's more about everything merchandise, as opposed to just the toys, so that might be an angle for the newer stuff, should you be so inclined.

The vocal effects sounded brilliant, despite Melatron's voice being a little out from his usual, as it was just Mel. I'm always disappointed to hear people not doing Prime's proper voice as well, but that reinforces the stereotype of your characters for the base shapes, as opposed to ripping the copyright directly from Hasbro, I suppose.

Keep them coming, this series has legs - any thoughts on Marvel parodies?

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

This was my first big hit on Newgrounds; glad you remember seeing it back in the day!

I watched a lot of G1 in preparation for the entire SRM Transformers series, and I was also watching Transformers Animated at the time. Those were my biggest influences, but I stuck it to G1 more than anything. If I were to make another I might parody something else in Transformers, but G1 is definitely the easiest, and the closest to me personally.

I'm glad you liked me basically dressing up all my characters for this. Everybody in this was just one of my characters in a robot costume really. I start adding in new characters and having the Transformers actually transform in SRMTF2 though. I figured keeping the Transformers to my base characters would be better for parody purposes.

Vocal effects credit goes to my buddy Xander - he did a lot of work on this one, and he does even more on the future SRM Transformers toons. I wanted to make sure we got those robot voices, since I knew it added so much to the classic Transformers cartoons. I didn't want to do Prime's voice though, even though I can do a decent voice kinda like it. I did a Metal Gear Solid parody with SRM, and I did my Solid Snake voice for him. SRM with a voice that doesn't sound like Fat Albert just feels wrong.

Glad you liked the toon, and I hope you enjoy the whole series. I could do a Marvel parody someday - I was actually going to make an SRM Transformers 4 trailer back in the day that would parody the Iron Man trailer. That never came around, but I could see myself making a superhero cartoon someday.

[I Am Jebby]

Nice parody

If I can really call it a parody - I think that was the most vague parody of anything I've ever seen, to be honest. With the way that you told us about I am Legend at the end, it kind of hit home, but that may just be me, as I am a little tired.

Congratulations for you winning the Daily Fifth - I see that it meant a lot to you to finally win an award, which is understandable, to be honest. I only hope that you'll get to winning a Daily Feature and will look back at this piece and see the roots that you came from.

The animation skills are being developed, as is clear to see and the new things that we can see, such as the samba dance that he performed. Interesting, funny and a little bemusing, if I'm being honest with you.

I'd like to see you expand your drawing resume, to really give us a show of what you're capable of. I know that there are more projects that you launched from 2008 - 2010, which have done this, but the feeling that if you had some scriptwriters giving you new material, you might be able to develop these for more award-winning stuff.

[Review Request Club]

Battosai810 responds:

If you ever see the trailer for I Am Legend, this is a really close parody of it. I even hunted down the music, which nobody credited in the trailers.

This was the first award winning movie I made and far from the last. Unfortunately, when I finally started expanding out and doing really different drawing (to the point of doing whole cartoons in frame by frame) a lot of my Newgrounds popularity had worn off. As a result, some of my cooler cartoons like Pizza Waffles (Which you'll see in 2010) didn't get anywhere near as good a reception as I'd hoped.

[(16-bit) Russio]

Not bad

A seemingly random stretch of scenarios thrown together to a slightly annoying tune that somehow grows on you after a while. I can see this going further, though I am not sure where this would lead. The way that the various parts of this are disconnected is a little iffy for the context of the piece and it does look a little disjointed for my liking.

The different things that the Russian does, particularly the Tetris sketch, which leads to some sort of skydiving escapades. With the way that that was conceived, I'd quite like to see you develop this particular part further and perhaps make a whole episode devoted toward that part.

[Review Request Club]

Surn responds:

Thanks for your input. All the sketches do go together. If you watch again, after the first scene think: "What do you do on a Saturday?". As for the song you're the second person to mention some degree of displeasure in the music (which suggests I should be more careful when looking for a song to use).

As for the developing Tetris sketch it would be somewhat difficult to think of something that hasn't already been done (albiet with stick figures, but still). But I'm glad you seem to like that part.

Again Thanks for your input.