Good news everyone!

Apologies, can’t believe the last Classy Critique was 4 months ago! Time flies by, and I’ve been very busy with college. But, good enough news, I’m working very hard on the Classy Critique videos!

I already have one script finished, with another coming up soon! The first will be a basic RHG guide, and the next will be a reflection upon the StickNodes community! I’ll be posting the video links here every time I upload a new one! Stay tuned!

That’s all! Hope you guys have a Classy Day!

Hello everyone! Quick but important announcement concerning the future of Classy Critiques! Clearly, content has been lacking on my part, and I apologize for the delays. College life has been rough with adjusting to the huge workloads I now have, but I do have a great announcement!

Classy Critiques will be turned into a video series!

Essentially, I’ll start posting video-formatted Classy Critiques on my channel! I’ll make new ones, remake old essay ones, all the sort!

Once again, apologies for the inactivity, but I look forward to making more content in the hopes of providing a good factual series that can benefit the StickNodes Community!

Before we begin, just want to let everyone know I’ve finished all my Cinema and Composition studies with full honors and I’m moving on to Art History, Form, and Humanities! Both are truly interesting topics, and I encourage you to pursue them on your own time to expand your knowledge of art! Animation is art, after all!

Hello Everyone! Welcome back to another Classy Critique! This time, we’re going to go more in-depth on a certain misconception within the community! I’ve always done stuff like this before, but instead of focusing on story types and characters, I’ll be providing to the reader a closer look at an important animation aspect! Though these terms don’t give their factual names enough credit, it will be easier for everyone to just recognize em off the bat! This Classy Critique is about…

TWEENING AND NON-TWEENING! (Non-Tween? No-Tween? Psycho Mantis? Whatever, I’m going to roll with Non-Tween.)

There’s a lot to talk about here, so I’ll get started!

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First off, what is non-tweening?

Non-tweening is the title for traditional animation within the community. As it turns out, the technically correct name of this is “Frame-By-Frame Animation.” Essentially, all movement, effects, etc. are all manipulated by the animator in his/her animation to give off the illusion of movement. Every single action, movement, lighting bolt, gunshot, you name it, all of it has been personally animated by the animator. Frame-by-frame animation has been predominant in the professional animation industry (as well as the animation industry in general), because while it may be more difficult to use, it allows an animator to have more control over what he/she creates, and it allows animators to personally ensure that their animations are smooth and without error.

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What about Tweening? What’s Tweening?

Here’s where the misconceptions start to show. The common community belief of what tweening is isn’t actually the factual answer for what tweening is, kinda like RHGs. Tweening is short for the term “Inbetweening,” which is an animation technique of inserting additional “key frames” between two frames of an animation to give off the illusion of smooth movement. Inbetweening is a considerably important factor in animation, and it is used all across the professional industry in order to guarantee smoothness and realistic movements. Here’s the thing though: Inbetweening is a process that is incredibly important, ESPECIALLY SO to people who use FRAME-BY-FRAME animation. Allow me to explain.

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Inbetweening is the process of putting additional frames between frames of an animation to create smoothness in movement. However, inbetweening is commonly used by Frame-By-Frame animators all the time in order for their animations to look smooth. If a person is animating on StickNodes “without tween,” they still are engaging in the process of Inbetweening if they add frames to make their animations appear smooth. Frame-by-frame animators are manually “tweening” their animations. This leads us to the real two options of Tweening in the StickNodes community; Manual and Software-generated Tweening. Manual Tweening is what Frame-By-Frame animators constantly do. Inputting additional frames for smoothness, but at the same time, every frame they input was animated by themselves. Software-generated Tweening, on the other hand, is Inbetweening done by a software. The software guesses where the movement will be based on the distances of appendages and objects between the two frames, and automatically inbetweens additional key frames for the illusion of movement. This results in a tween that is less controlled by the animator but more smooth in its movement.

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So, a summary. When you decide to choose “Tween is disabled” in StickNodes, you are choosing to animate in Frame-By-Frame animation, where you will animate the entirety of the work on your own without any software movement assistance. However, you can and most likely will still participate in Tweening while creating your project by adding frames to make your movements appear smooth to the audience. This decision gives you more control over how your animations turn out, and all the eye-candy that is visible within the animation is completely your own work. However, the cost of this is that it is more difficult to animate smoothly with Frame-by-frame than it is to animate with the assistance of a Tweening software. If you decide to enable “Tween,” then you are choosing to animate with the assistance of a software. The software will implement additional key frames between the normal frames of your animation, making the movement smoother and more realistic. Making animations smoother is now much easier, since the software does a fair amount of the work for you. However, the software isn’t always perfect. It predicts movement, but it doesn’t completely get it right all the time. Animators using Tween must adapt to the potential flaws of the software itself and any errors…[Read more]

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another Classy Critique! This time, we’re concluding the SN movie on a whole, and explaining the reason why everyone thinks it’s a great movie when it pretty much isn’t! In addition, I’ll explain how I didn’t review this movie in comparison to a big budget film!This was originally part of the last critique, but it was spliced up, so sorry for the jump in the writing and whatnot. Let’s get to it!

Conclusion on the StickNodes Movie as a Whole:
Incredibly underwhelming as a movie. Even in basic aspects necessary for any normal story and animation, the move fails to deliver anything new of significance or quality. The storyline is basic, unoriginal, and cliche. The history itself isn’t well explained, and the movie actually expects its viewers to do research on descriptions before watching it, which defeats the whole purpose of a movie. Main Characters are boring and dull, and there is no character development or growth for the entire story. The actually interesting characters (side characters Galaysite, Chimdi, and Squido) had their arc completely scrapped and forgotten, and they became meaningless background characters. Villains with actual potential (General Shirokaze, Explosive Bullet, Charxek Thar) are for the most part ignored and barely delved on (General Shirokaze is mainly present and subsequently killed in only one episode and is super lame as a character, Explosive Bullet doesn’t get involved in the story as much as he could, Charxek Thar gets only one episode of action and is extremely underpowered when fighting main characters). The movie makes sure they are all eclipsed by the unorganized, horribly written catastrophe known as Empress Roux. Empress Roux is a literal clusterheck of a character. Her motivations aren’t explained at all, her dialogue is horribly scripted, and her questionable sex appeal is downright cringe-inducing. Villains can be evil and fun loving, but Roux is so horribly scripted and unorganized that there is no effect whatsoever. She is more iconic as a slut rather than a villain. Roux actually might have had potential, if her script wasn’t so god-awful and the animator didn’t keep trying to sexualize her to satisfy his own personal interests. Kaiju is not important to the story in the slightest, and there is no information given about him at all. Epitaph is a mess of a character as well, having similar issues to Roux, while pretty much containing the emotional depth and complexity of a rock. However, the absolute worst character of this entire storyline has to be Cyan Claw, the main protagonist. Cyan Claw is an unorganized, spontaneous mess of a character. It’s a shame that “being unorganized” is such a recurring problem. There is no definitive and reoccurring personality to this character in the slightest. Character development doesn’t exist at all. At the end, Cyan Claw completely disappears and turns back into Sean, who has a completely different personality, meaning the audience doesn’t grow with Cyan Claw in the slightest due to Cyan Claw basically being a different person. There were literally no moments where Cyan learned a lesson or gained any personal motivation. Sean doesn’t demonstrate any lessons learned or wisdom gained either, meaning that Cyan’s adventures have not affected/changed him in the slightest. The only reason Cyan seems to do anything at all is because Epitaph told him to. Characters should have some sort of motivation to do good, and Cyan seems to have nothing. There are no demonstrated recurring themes in the slightest. Movies have to have central themes that they follow through the course of their duration if they really want significant effect on an audience. However, for Epitaph’s “StickNodes Movie,” there are NO CLEAR THEMES. Themes are not deeply routed in the film at all. Themes give a deeper purpose and meaning demonstrated through the film itself and the emotion it gives off. However, The StickNodes Movie is so emotionally shallow and boring that there is no good way to highlight a theme. Maybe “revenge” because Roux wants revenge? Maybe “friendship” because Epitaph and Kaiju are friends? Maybe “family” because Roux and Epitaph are siblings? This alone is NOT ENOUGH to create a theme. Even a simple casual movie requires a recurring trend or theme for impact, and this movie lacks anything of emotional importance. For a movie that prides itself on storyline and story depth, it is incredibly barren of any emotional themes, intellectual thought, and good story in general. Themes are supposed to be present all throughout a story. They don’t show up at the very end when Roux randomly (and out of her character, too) decides to spout some metaphorical underdeveloped nonsense on philosophy. The pacing of this movie is abysmal, and there is typically no effect when a moment is supposed to have an emotional impact. Movement makes hits feel weak and sloppy, with little to no force behind them. Transitions and tr…[Read more]

Hello everyone! Welcome to another Classy Critique, where we discuss important animation topics and reviews, but only fancier! Right now, we’re finishing up the StickNodes Movie review! This review will cover episode 11. Originally, it was going to cover 11 and the series as a whole, but that totaled over 5000 words so I decided to split it up. Just a warning, there’s going to be quite a bit of reading involved here, so prepare. If you want to get the gist without reading the whole thing, just look at the conclusion at the bottom, which sums up the episode on a whole. If you want the specifics for the reasonings at the conclusion, then I recommend reading the whole thing to find out. Also, it’s better to watch the episode before/while reading too. That way, you can follow along! 😀

Episode 11:
This episode starts off throwing the audience immediately into the fight between Cyan and Crimson. Fighting, however, is way too fast paced with not enough emphasis on impact. It makes the hits look incredibly weak. Dialogue is also incredibly long, and interrupts the flow of the scene. We see Cyan and Crimson wrestling, then it suddenly cuts back to Roux. The scene is littered with animation and spacing errors, such as a Roux looking to Epitaph, but then looking the other way literally the next frame. Her dress magically disappears as well. Despite detail apparently being as important as animation, there’s an incredible lack of good detail and spacing here. Dialogue between Epitaph and Roux doesn’t flow well at all. Sentences could be structured much better. These things are important for story-based animations. The shot suddenly cuts from Roux saying “I’ll kill you too,” to Cyan and Crimson fighting more. At least give the audience a que that the scene is going to switch. I understand that such cuts are used in fighting scenes all the time, but they aren’t pulled off well in this movie. The fact that the fighting is too fast-paced only amplifies this problem. Pacing has always been a problem, but the fight scene with Cyan and Crimson, as well as the fight with Roux and Epitaph, display it the most. The fighting is all over the place. Choreography is bad. The whole scene emphasizes effects rather than the actual fighting. Because the fighting is way too quick, text in the middle of it completely disrupts the flow and makes the scene feel odd. The fight has potential to be cool, but its speed prevents any focus or impact on any particular cool move/ability. I thought the ships firing at Epitaph would be actually pretty cool, but it happens so quickly without any impact, and Epitaph blocking all the shots with weird space planks is just kind of lame. Not to mention, why are the shots from the ships so small? These should practically be artillery shots, but they’re about the same size of a pistol shot. A cruiser barrage could have been really cool, but this problem, with the addition of impact being nonexistent, gets in the way of things. It makes the fight pretty bad. Also, Roux “rebuilding a world in her image” is incredibly cliche and unoriginal. The spacing and placement of the background with Cyan and Crimson is horrible. They’re all over the place, and then suddenly land on the device that transforms them back into Ralph and Sean. At least there’s actually good music this time around. However, there are no claims for creation of the music, nor are there disclaimers. Music needs to be credited and disclaimers must be made. Otherwise, it counts as stealing.

New paragraph so the amount of text isn’t overwhelming! How is it that Epitaph can take on Roux and this massive fleet, but he gets shot in the back once and just gets knocked down? Character abilities and powers are incredibly inconsistent. More characters are added as users, and the audience doesn’t have any explanation for any of them. None of their names are introduced, despite them getting close-up time. They’re randomly inserted in the story, and it seems yet again like the movie is assuming the audience already knows the backstory of characters without any introduction to them. The “big manly mug” and Sean’s “m8” are both incredibly unnecessary jokes that have no place in the current setting, since Roux is literally going to kill them all once she’s done with Epitaph. There’s a ton of potential with Kaiju actually getting attention and making a speech, but he literally just tells everyone how to stop Charxek and that’s it. Kaiju has so much potential, but that doesn’t mean, in his current state, that Kaiju is a good character. He’s vastly underdeveloped, and not once has it been revealed in the movie that Kaiju is the Origin Being of Time. Nowhere. Believe me, I watched for it. I chuckled at the light switch joke, though. As Epitaph fights more Rouxians, (and yes, the fight is incredibly fast paced and not impactful at all, that’s basically a given at this point.) Kaiju and the users come out from nowhere and come to fight. Roux randomly…[Read more]

Hello everyone! Welcome to another Classy Critique! In this critique, we’ll be looking at episode 10 of “The StickNodes Movie!” Remember to watch the episodes before/while reading the critique for the sake of understanding and whatnot. Let’s get started! 😀

Episode 10:
Why the actual hell. I swear, Empress Roux is a total thot. Why was this even added? Why? Let’s pick apart this starting scene bit by bit. First, the Rouxian asks to come in, and Roux is displeased because he is interrupting her while she does “evil things.” However, the audience only sees her just standing. Nothing else. Nothing relatively amusing, even. Just literally standing. If it were something less evil, like maybe playing with Pokémon (Roux has revealed herself to be a collector of sorts), it would be much funnier. It’s completely bland. And that’s not the worst part. The Rouxian recalls a reward, Roux’s eyes do a Lenny ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), and SHE SHOWS OFF HER BREASTS to the solider. Another soldier enters and takes a photograph. Then, the camera is zoomed in on Roux’s face, cutting off part of (but still revealing) her breasts. She then says, “maybe another time.” This scene is horrible in every cinematic aspect possible. It is completely unnecessary to the plot and adds nothing good to the character besides already-butchered “sex appeal.” It seems like this sequence is less of an addition to further the plot and more of an addition to satisfy the animator’s “special interests.” Instead of actually being a well-written and and interesting character, Roux seems to be the template that the animator can focus their raging hormones on. Literally this has nothing to do with the story, and it is bad in every way. Any “humor” derived from the scene is just immature. It only cements Roux more as a (pardon the language) shameless slut. Maybe the film is trying to make Roux flirty, but there is a difference between flirtatious and slutty. Some characters can be pulled off very well with flirtatious personalities. Take Lord Dominator from the show “Wander Over Yonder.” A great example of this, she uses her feminine charm and appeal to sway others and be flirty while keeping her dignity and not being shameless. The character acknowledges and uses her feminine nature and physique to her advantage while also retaining respect for her (by the audience) as a person and fear for her as a “dominator.” It can be pulled off, but the portrayal of Roux in this scene is completely butchered. It’s completely unfitting for her character as well, since she’s an empress. However, one may wonder about why this is so important. The answer is simple: that lustful and skanky portrayal of Roux sticks with the minds of the audience for the entirety of the series from then on, and impacts their views of Roux from previous episodes. It’s nothing heartfelt, no passion or love to it. There’s nothing well-made about it; the scene could better emphasize Roux’s flirtatious nature through dialogue and not blatantly committing to the action. Instead, it’s simply “lol look at my boobs.” This ruins the villainous side of Roux entirely, as in the same episode that Roux flashes her soldier, she invades Utopia. Throughout all of that, Roux is no longer seen as a threat but an object of questionable sex appeal. But wait, that’s only the first minute of this episode. There’s much more. Explosive Bullet’s death could have been more impactful for Epitaph since they were rivals and probably friends in the past, but Epitaph simply brushes it off completely. Kaiju says he noticed more disturbing activity besides Node Spawn activity, but he doesn’t explain what at all. Epitaph says that users are too destructive to be allowed in central utopia, but there is no context behind this at all, and it is not explained either. Roux’s speech to the Rouxians is badly written. It’s stereotypical and cliche, and it doesn’t flow well grammatically. The Rouxian prep for battle scene is also way too fast paced. Also, this Pharaoh Tehphet character is completely random in the storyline. She just randomly shows up, and the story once again expects the audience to know who she is and what the “Battle of 2.0.0” was. Also, Tehphet seems, just like the previous Roux scene, to be detailed simply for “specific special interests.” Female characters don’t have to be shown to be female by their incredibly oversized physiques. Maybe that’s why detail is so emphasized in this story. Also, why is the focus on Epitaph and Tehphet having some relationship rather than Roux literally planning to invade and conquer utopia? The connection with Tehphet goes offline, and Roux says, “thought she’d never shut up.” However, Tehphet clearly didn’t shut up since she was continuing a sentence. The Rouxians just ended the transmission. This doesn’t add up well, and demonstrates the bad writing and dialogue even more. Traveling is once again way too fast with Epitaph and Kaiju. The frame of Roux standing with all the ships…[Read more]

Hello everyone! Welcome to another Classy Critique! In this critique, we delve more on episodes 7-9 of “The StickNodes Movie!” So far, over half of the Movie has been pretty bad in quality, so let’s see if the later episodes redeem the beginning ones! Remember to watch the episodes before/while reading the critique to make it easier to understand! Let’s get started people!

Episode 7:
I just wanted to point out that Empress Roux has facial marks on front views of her, but none on side views. It can be irksome at times, especially considering how design is supposed to be highly emphasized in this animation. The dialogue at the beginning of this scene is very unusual and doesn’t flow well grammatically. It’s also strange to Roux’s character for her to offer Cyan Claw a chance to just leave lol. Why would she do this if she’s also an empress who wishes destruction upon all her enemies and control over all of utopia? Considering how Roux believes she’s stronger, it’s odd for her to just give Cyan Claw the choice to leave. The whole “I won’t leave him to you tyrant” bit is cliche too. In addition, the fishnets(?) that Roux wears also disappear every front shot, and are questionable in design. Even though this series emphasizes detail, it surprisingly has a lot of detail-related mistakes. The fight is very fast paced, and at one point, the background completely switches in the middle of a part of it in the same shot. Also, the butt slap is completely unnecessary and crude. Why would anyone add a butt slap in the middle of a fight like that, especially since there isn’t any dialogue mentioning it at all? Such an action could be possible and relevant in a fight if one of the characters is known to be flirtatious and the dialogue is playfully flirtatious, but this is completely out of context with no dialogue at all. It seems more to “appease” the animator rather than expand the plot. Also, I’ve been pretty calm about grammar and spelling and whatnot throughout this whole series, but it’s gotten to a point where some of these sentences are filled with errors and it is hard to ignore. Storyline includes dialogue, and if storyline is to be a focus, dialogue should be refined. I can understand a mistake now and then, but there’s been way too many throughout this series. “That blade belongs to Epitaph and Kaiju!” “Oh it will do, once I bury it through their ribs!” The fluidity of that is nonexistent, and dialogue could certainly be worked on. Also, Roux fires a blast in a straight horizontal line that Cyan Claw dodges. It travels and then hits Ralph’s cell. However, previously Cyan Claw and Roux jumped ABOVE Ralph’s cell during their fight. Yet, somehow, the bolt teleports and hits the cell when it shouldn’t have. It’s just bad choreography and spacing. Also, the hole is through the middle of the cell and nowhere near the edge, yet Ralph can stick his head out of the edge despite there being no physical way he could. Ralph runs away, with Roux close behind, yet in the next shot, Cyan Claw is behind Ralph. There’s a lot of skipping and choreography/spacing errors with this entire scene. Not to mention, the fight isn’t the best. The whole “password” part is nonsensical as well. I understand the try for humor, but it’s just ridiculous. Why does a security system require a password for the workers? Isn’t it already their job to be monitoring the system and have it already be on? The nude is also completely unneeded. It only cements Roux as slutty rather than an empress/tyrant. You don’t need to include nudes of a character to show that they are flirty. It’s complete fanservice to both the fans and the animator. Fighting in general is way too short with the Rouxians. Cyan Claw and Ralph decide to hijack a ship, but not just any ship, a cruiser. This actually has potential, as we could get a cool segment of Cyan Claw and Ralph infiltrating the ship and taking out all the Rouxians on board. Instead, they somehow throw off the stabilizers keeping the ship in the hangar, which for the most part should be practically impossible without explosives/massive strength. They then jump through the bridge window and have a probably incredibly awesome fight segment. The audience doesn’t see any of it, however, as the only glimpses of fighting we get are just Rouxians getting thrown out the window. The sizing of the animation as a whole is also a major problem. The rooms shown inside the cruiser are just too big to fit inside the ship as shown through Cyan Claw and Ralph’s comparative size. It’s a mess. Explosive Bullet is back, and he does have a funny moment by firing his gun when saying to target the rogue cruiser’s engines. The bullet bounces all over the room, and it’s pretty funny. It could be more funny if it was longer than one second. Comedic Timing and pacing has clearly been shown to be a problem with this series. Ralph and Cyan put Rouxians in a ship and launch it at the enemy forces. Again, there’s a sizing p…[Read more]

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another Classy Critique, where we base our informed arguments and assertions off of rationality and factual evidence instead of attacking others with unorganized emotion and senseless insults! Today’s critique is another dive into the “StickNodes Movie!” The first three episodes started off at a low, but let’s see if the movie can improve! Just a recommendation: watch the episodes before/while reading this critique. Everything will make a lot more sense that way! 😀

Episode 4:
Well, first off before this begins, let me say that the design for General Shirokaze is goddamn badass! He looks like such a cool character. The armor, the helmet, the weapon, he’s just a good looking character in general. Unfortunately, the animation seems to forget that this warrior is in fact a general and not a mindless idiot like the Rouxian soldiers. The “lets make peace oh psyche” is pretty lame and not well timed, as well as badly written. It isn’t one for the hero to suddenly turn bloodthirsty, nor is it for the villain to accept the hero’s peace cluelessly. That complete scene by itself is nonsensical. The fighting is way too faced paced, and the camera angles throw a wrench in the fluidity of the scene. The scene itself is literally like a bad scarf figure fight. The fighting is way too fast and hard for the audience to understand. Powers aren’t well defined at all. (Some of Shirokaze’s abilities just seem random, lIke what even was that rainbow ball that he fired). Because their movements are so quick, the segments of them talking during the fight feel like ages, and the talking interrupts the flow of the scene even more than the fighting. For being a general, General Shirokaze doesn’t quite put up much of a fight or even feel threatening. It’s only his mask that gives off that factor, because his character and dialogue make him sound like an idiot. His revelation behind the mask is spooky, but way too quick, and we only see that power for 3 seconds. This is supposed to be his final form and he just gets knocked out with one single uppercut in three frickin seconds. It’s lazy fighting. Again, the audience has no idea who equilibrium is unless they are already invested in the community. Again, lazy storytelling. EB shows up, does a “hello again” and literally yeets out of the place with the sword. There was a ton of potential for a chase scene, but the scene itself lasts about 5 seconds and EB flies way too fast. The transformation of the setting (setting the scene and showcasing changes in weather due to events by the characters is VERY important) also happens too quickly to be striking or impactful.

Conclusion: General Shirokaze was incredibly cool and should have played a more impactful role in the series. His good design is wasted by the bad scriptwriting and dialogue. Fighting is way too quick. It almost seems like it’s rushed. Camera angles for fights are pretty bad, and they completely throw off the fight. Dialogue isn’t the best either. Best way to sum this up is unused potential. However, just because an episode has potential doesn’t make it good. Sadly, this episode wasn’t all that good.

Episode 5:
Episode five starts off pretty normal for the most part. Introducing the environment and a weird snow monster thing. Hopefully the storyline explains what the snow monster is. However, travel of characters through the environment is still too fast. The whole “Geometry Dash” part is a bit on the odd side and could have been pulled off better, but it’s a nice touch. Information between the Rouxian and Roux for the storyline is conveyed well. However, it goes downhill once Roux mentions a reward and does a Lenny. There are two clear things wrong with this. One, the Rouxians work for Roux because they have no choice, as shown earlier by the transformation. Rewards wouldn’t be necessary for them to stay loyal, and they couldn’t refuse any offer made by Roux because of their programming. Two, the whole Lenny bit is clearly made just for sexual implication and is unnecessary and crude. I understand it is in an attempt to show Roux’s flirtatious personality more or something, but there are so many different and still more mature ways to pull that off. Roux is an empress, not a thot. The scene just feels like poor fanservice. Humor after that point is way too fast paced to understand from a single view of it. Again, the travel to the temple is way too fast paced. It’s hard to even understand what’s happening. A ship gets hit by lighting and crashes, but it happens way too quickly to understand watching for the first time. It’s bad pacing if people have to rewind multiple times to understand what actions occur in a scene. Movement of characters and text is too fast and hard to read. The scene with Epitaph and Cyan Claw as Epitaph explains history is for the most part ok, but something that bothered me was the whole “role” thing. Epitaph is easily the creator, that I understand, but…[Read more]

Hello everyone! Welcome to another classy critique! I’ve been critiquing different methods and subjects of animation during this series, but I’ve recently decided to do something different! Why not look at a real-world animation example and critique that? I’ve heard a ton about a particular animation called “The StickNodes Movie” and I decided to make this movie my next critique/review. The StickNodes Movie is hailed as a good cinematic StickNodes animation with great story and characters, so let’s dive right in and see if that’s true!

Just a couple notes before we start.
FIRST, I’m qualified to make this critique lol. I’ve studied and participated in animation for about 10 years now, and I’m also excelling in my studies of Cinematography and Composition. Not only can I critique animations, but I can also critique and review every aspect of the movie itself. (Storyline, Design, Character Development and Personality, Etc.)
SECOND, Due to the episode nature of this series, I’ll be dividing critiques up into parts. (Ex. Parts 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10, 11) As the show goes on, there’s more to talk about and more to explain, so each episode critique will get longer. It’s gonna be quite a bit of reading, but if you want to see the results of this and figure out the quality of the movie, it’s well worth it!
THIRD, Cinematography critiquing does not necessarily mean critiquing of animation quality and movement (Though that is definitely involved). Cinematography critiquing means analyzing the different techniques, delving into character personalities and plot structure, etc. Essentially, everything that shows up in the movie is subject to review.
FOURTH, it can be rather confusing to simply read these without seeing the movie itself. It’s recommended to watch the episodes before reading their critiques.

Now, let’s get started with episodes 1-3!

Episode 1:
Starts off actually decent. Introduces the world in a normal way, explains the role of Ralph well. However, things go downhill as soon as Roux is introduced. Generic sinister laughing and whatnot, somewhat cringe-inducing “eyes up here” joke. Literally the conflict escalates from a 1 to 11 in a flash. Meteors come, and suddenly the entire place is covered in fire. And we only see one rejected figure as well, even though that’s supposed to be the main part of the conflict. We don’t see any infestation, but just a random meteor storm engulfing literally everything in flames. Roux says the line, “Yes, and your conqueror.” That just doesn’t sound right at all lol. Could be worked out better. Immediately goes to the “you’ve lost” shtick. It’s only been thirty seconds, and only five more seconds with the meteors; there’s been no buildup or introduction to character personalities. No reason is described for Sean traveling to utopia. Epitaph is introduced actually pretty well, highlighting him as a comedic character but also a semi-serious one. However, it doesn’t explain any history or lore behind him. Kaiju is just known as a name until he randomly shows up; he isn’t introduced well as a character at all. There is no real buildup for the creation of Cyan Claw, and it happens too fast to be striking.

Conclusion: Mediocre at best. Has some good parts about it and some interesting-looking characters, but doesn’t really explain most of them. Instead of the story introducing the characters, it already expects you to read about them and know their stories, which is lazy and pretty bad storytelling. Pacing is a problem, as the conflict is introduced way too fast. All in all, the movie starts off less than mediocre, but definitely has potential for something really good.

Episode 2:
Cyan Claw is now introduced. The character of Cyan Claw is pretty much confusing in general. The audience sees that Sean is turned into Cyan Claw, but there are many questions left unanswered. These are not story-based questions, but simple ones. Is Cyan Claw’s personality the same as Sean’s or has Cyan Claw become different? Is Sean in control, or has his mind changed to a point of where he knows he is Sean but is different than he used to be mentally? Is this a new entity in its entirety that used to be Sean but is now something else? All of these questions are basic and keep the lore hidden, but all remain unanswered. This causes confusion for the viewers. Cyan Claw exhibits Mary Sue behavior when he doesn’t even know he can fly but tries it out and speeds away with ease. There was lots of potential for a flying segment, but all of it was quickly wasted. Transition of flying is way too quick. Guards playing Rock Paper Scissors are too easily dealt with. They could have been used as dummies to show off Cyan Claw’s new abilities and powers, but instead disintegrate as soon as he touches them lol. The fighter scene is actually pretty cool, and it was fun to see Cyan Claw take care of the first fighter. However, the other two weren’t dealt with, and there’s more wasted potential in th…[Read more]