After watching this
I'm going to have a nice little mental breakdown in the corner.
Reviews for "IAMW, Charlie Brown"
A very compelling and comprehensive product.
Initally watching this I had very high expectations for this flash. Although not all of my expectations were met, I still very much enjoyed the flash movie and it succeeded in bringing out emotions and being a powerful peice of work. I'm not going to say I loved the story or that it appealed to me on every level, but I will say that this was a very professional peice of work.
The thing that really makes me like this are the extra comics that were included with this. That's what really made this stand out in my opinion. The best and most well written one was the first comic. If you ever release a compilation of this series, I would reccomend you include the comics in the animation first as they give great background and character to this. I feel like a lot of people didn't actually read the comics and that is what kept this from really achieving a higher status.
My only complaints are subjective critiscms with the concept. I think that the prelude was a hell of a lot more compelling and interesting than the actual work. The actual movie itself without the comics is kind of vauge and unfufiling. I'm just saying that the comics are the essential information to this cartoon and that they provide more character and depth than the actual animation.
Overall though, would I say that I loved every part of this? No. The plot itself doesn't really appeal to me, although it's interesting that the pills created hallucinations of the devil. I'd say it's interesting conceptionally, but there have been much stranger works than this that succeeded in provoking more thought and creating depth than this. In my opinion the best part of the whole thing was that first comic. After that the whole thing kind of spiraled out of control (in my opinion since I know this was your intention) and it became a bit outlandish. It works for what you were trying to do, but without the back story the cartoon itself doesn't really grab me. I'd love to see where you're going with this and where the story is going to end up considering the backstory ( I would love to see the whole beelzebub part of the story incorporated to the actual work). If I had to rate it on a 1 to ten scale, I'd give it a 7 out of ten. This is just for the review though. Since it's newgrounds and actual peices of work like this are so few and in between, I think you've earned a five.
I'd love to see more of this and I'll definitely check out the next part. Let's hope it comes sooner than the expected date you've given since I think this has a hell of a lot of potential that the overall production has kind of deluded. I can guarentee you that the next episode will do a lot better than this. This is a misunderstood work that I really, really hope succeeds as much as I know it can.
Fived, favorited.
NEXTVIEW-Designs responds:
Awesome review. We wanted to put the comic more in the forefront, but given the audience here at NG we were worried that a lot of people would find that boring and exit the flash before they even got to the main part. We've gotten feedback that suggests are concerns were both valid and invalid, so I don't know. Damien and the demons will be integrated much more deeply in the main plot of the sequel. Not sure if we'll include a comic the second time around, but if we do, it'll be as prologue this time. Thank you for the review, I'm reading all the comments in search of feedback like this.
real good only technical a bit bad
you must realy do something about the borders, at the sides i can see parts of your animation you don't want to show
In the middle
It's hard to describe this flash. You've obviously put a fair bit of work into it, but the plot-line seems very weird and confusing. It would of made a lot more sense to use it seriously, but the way you've done it seems like it's meant to be funny and, no offence, its not. Basically, i think your combination of cartoon and seriousness doesn't work. It was nicely made though, so ill give you a 6.
NEXTVIEW-Designs responds:
parents just don't understand.
Good but could have been great
[Warning, my review will contain spoilers]
Ok, this may be a bit of a harsh score but I honestly think this could have been a lot better (at least for me as a viewer).
First of all, you've created a beautifully animated piece. The characters all look perfect, as if you've ripped them straight out of a Charlie Brown cartoon. They also moved very fluidly and your backgrounds are also spot on in their imitation of the show/cartoon.
The music fit quite well into the flash itself. The hip hop beat fit well into this idea of Charlie Brown's growing madness and somehow it seems to go in hand in hand with the Brown household. The piano pieces also give off really calm feel and seem very much of the peanuts cartoon style. It's a cool juxtaposition to the theme of madness that we see growing through the piece. The thing that irked me was the cliché use of mad world. It's been done to death and didn't really fit in with the rest of the instrumental pieces.
The voice acting was good. You're obviously not going to get a perfect imitation of the characters but most of your voice actors got close enough to the original accents that I wasn't even thinking about this being a fan made video while I was watching it. The only one that was slightly off was Charlie Brown himself. A couple of times I heard a sort of lisp on Charlie Brown's voice and it threw me off a bit.
Now my real gripe with the animation was the plot. I think you went the slightly easier, but less rewarding route in setting up the whole "Beelzebub" story angle. For example, the best scene in the whole thing was with Schroeder and Lucy. This was because of the interaction between the two characters really fantastic and it really hit home the relationship those two characters had. It made me look back at the real peanuts comics/movies and have a real think about the relationship. It works so well because it follows the real peanuts so closely but just goes that one step further, saying the stuff that has never been said.
I think you could have done this Charlie Brown and Lucy's relationship. Instead you went with the crazy hallucinations and talking to the devil track. I was really disappointed when the animation took that turn. I just feel you could have done much better. Instead of making a big impact on me like the schroeder/lucy scene due to how closely it followed the source material, instead it broke my connection to the whole story a bit. It's just that bit far removed, bit far fetched, and at least in my eyes, that bit tacky.
With that said, I still enjoyed the animation but instead of leaving a huge impact the whole demon thing broke my connection. I came away thinking about how amazingly well animated it was instead of thinking how amazing it was as a whole.
NEXTVIEW-Designs responds:
I think you'll find that the Beelzebub storyline is bit deeper than you think, stay tuned for part 2.