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 traveling happen way too quickly, and the scene is never really set because of the pacing.

At its core, The StickNodes Movie is an unorganized mess of a project. Overly fast pacing removes the impact of any event. Emotion and pathos aren’t played upon in the slightest, and it makes the movie emotionally dull and simple. Characters are boring and uninteresting, and the audience doesn’t get attached or connected to any of them in the slightest. The plot is cluttered, unorganized, cliche, and inherently bad. Sound design (or rather, the lack of good sound design) makes the movie barren and uneventful. Visual design is pretty decent, but it often interferes with animation aspects. Not to mention, there aren’t really any visually impactful or powerful moments on the audience. Themes are nonexistent. It has its moments, but said moments cannot carry the flaming heap of garbage that is the rest of the film. In all cinematic terms, reasonings, and objective truths, it is an incredibly bad movie. Even with all basic elements necessary for a movie to be good, it fails to deliver at every single one of them.

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Now that I’ve got all that out of the way, why don’t we talk about the misconceptions of this movie? I’ve highlighted this film to be the mechanical blunder that it is, but why is it considered “The Godfather” of StickNodes stories by many? Why do some people believe its action shots are good? Why do others praise its story for being top-notch, despite it clearly not being good at all? An easy explanation would be the fact that the movie is very overhyped. Not to mention, the SN community hasn’t really had that many story-based projects, and plot-ridden series like Elements make the SN Movie’s story look good only by comparison. However, there is a truly factual and correct way to explain the overhype, one belonging to a field of study that I also just so happen to exceed on: Economics. Please bear with me on this one lol, cuz it’s pretty educational and nice.

In the eyes of Economics, the SN Movie isn’t just an animation, but a product being sold to the audience, or the consumers. The audience views the product for free, and decides to either like the product and continue following its development, or dislike the product and leave it. What the product provides is entertainment. If the entertainment is good, people will continue watching it and praise it. If the entertainment is bad, the audience will leave it and rebuke it. However, there are exceptions to this: SCARCITY and ELASTICITY. Let me explain.

SCARCITY means the availability of the product. Can you replace a product with many other substitutes, or is it rare? ELASTICITY refers to the reaction of the consumers for the quality and price of a good. If a good is elastic, then consumers will leave it for substitutes if the price goes too high or the quality goes down. If the good is INELASTIC, consumers will continue to stay with it regardless of price or quality. If a hot dog place is bad, you’d probably go to a different hot dog place. However, if it’s the only hot dog place in 40 miles, then you’re most likely going to eat there if you want a hot dog. Typically, products are inelastic because they are scarce. Consumers won’t go to different substitutes because there aren’t any substitutes. This is where the SN Movie comes into play.

The SN Movie is an INELASTIC AND SCARCE GOOD. There aren’t many stickfigure storylines out there at all, so the majority sticks to the SN Movie because it is the most mainstream and popular one (of course, referring to story). Because there is a scarcity of story-based StickNodes animations, more people will flock to the SN Movie simply because there is nothing else to go to. This is also where inelasticity comes into play. Because there are no substitutes, most viewers will not leave the product or even think to criticize it, EVEN IF THE QUALITY IS BAD. Summing this all up, The SN Movie is often confused by many as a good story because it is the only mainstream StickNodes story. Everything else SN-related for the most part is either fighting-focused, mad libs thrown at a fan, or still developing. The StickNodes Movie is a bad movie with a bad plot and bad characters, but because there’s no other streamlined story-based SN movie to compare it to, many people mistakenly (not blaming anyone for this by the way, it’s only natural that this would happen) believe that it is an amazing movie. Which is false. Just because it’s the most mainstream story doesn’t make it a good story. Only with time and more story-based StickNodes animations will this truly be revealed to the public about the mess that is the SN Movie. Honestly, the only way to improve the movie is to completely rewrite the plot, characters, dialogue, script, and character growth as well as reanimate the entire series for slower fighting and traveling pacing. Literally remaking every aspect of the movie is the only way to fix it. I had hopes of this movie being a good start for the creative progress of the community, and I had hoped that it would help usher in more story-based projects, but it’s just such a bad movie that any stories that were based completely off of it would be most likely bad. It still has its uses though; if you want to make a good story-based StickNodes animation, try to avoid making it like this movie.

–

On another note, people have been believing that I’ve been reviewing this compared to a big budget blockbuster, so I’ll explain why that is wrong as well. I did admit before that I was viewing the SN Movie with higher expectations, but this was only so because of all the praise I heard for the movie. Not to mention, I had higher expectations for it, but only expectations for it being a good animation, not an actual “blockbuster hit” or something. I don’t expect StickNodes animations to rival actual big budget movies lol. In addition, everything I have pointed out as flaws in these critics, the creator has had total control over changing and making them, and such specific qualities could and should be pulled off by any casual film or blockbuster. It would be unfair to compare aspects of an animation to something of a blockbuster film especially with concepts Epitaph wouldn’t be able to understand/control in his current state, like the actual graphics, different kinds of stocks and filters, professional and incredibly realistic animation movements, frame-by-frame animation, etc. I have strayed away from critiquing most animation factors of the film, but I have done it through the critiques when animation and fights are relevant to a scene, not with fluidity and realistic nature of movements but with pacing and speed of delivery. The thing is, in order for a story to be good, the story actually needs to be good lol. It seems redundant and kinda dumb to say, but that point needs to be made clear. If your story is good, then it’s good. If it’s bad, then it’s bad. There are no freebies just because “it’s a casual animation.” It doesn’t matter how much time was spent, it doesn’t matter whether it is casual or not, none of that matters. If the story is bad, then the story is bad. If the characters are bad, then the characters are bad. Casual movies can be incredible, and blockbuster films can be cinematic incarnations of the default dance. You can’t use “it’s a casual series” as a crutch to try to justify the lack of character development, the unorganized state of the plot and characters, the inherently flawed and botched personalities of protagonists and antagonists, I could go on. Point is, you can have all the excuses in the world for something to be bad, but at the end of the day, it’s still bad and no excuse makes it look better. Anyone can write a story and make it good. Amateur, famous writer, random dude off the street, anyone could take a thought or a dream and turn it into writing, assuming they know how to write of course. I mean, there’s even an “Infinite Monkey Theorem” which states that, if one million monkeys were given one million typewriters and one million years to type, they would produce the works of Shakespeare. We all have the capacity to tap into a dream and make it a reality through the medium of a template, be it a painting, sculpture, animation, even a simple sketch. We ALL have the capacity to make good and bad stories, no matter how casual or big-budget, no matter how simple or detailed, no matter how creative or uncreative. We can’t blame the lack of quality of something on things we can control. The StickNodes Movie had every opportunity to be a great movie, but it wasn’t. Better to realize and accept that it was bad than come up with all sorts of excuses for why. My reviews center around the actual quality of movie aspects, and I review such movies with comparison to ASPECTS REQUIRED FOR GOOD STORIES, not aspects for big budget movies. I have NOT reviewed this movie like a big budget movie, I have reviewed it in comparison with qualities required for a movie to be good, paying no regard to budget and professionalism (casual series or not) of the animation. I will give credit where credit is due, however. The series has shown Epitaph’s skill as an animator very well. There is drastic improvement in animation smoothness as the series continues, and seeing the difference between episodes 1 and 11 is pretty jarring. I’ve been straying away from critiquing the actual quality of animation, as that would just pretty much be petty and snobby. I’ve been focusing, rather, on pacing, which is by itself both animation and storyline related. In fact, a lot of what I’ve been saying in the critiques have been storyline-related.

–

–

Honestly, I don’t particularly like to be this direct in my critiques, but because I’ve been receiving criticism for “not being truthful enough” and “sugarcoating my reviews,” I decided to hold nothing back and get to the actual truth of things. This isn’t meant as a specific and biased diss on someone’s work, but a way for the community to actually understand what a good story is and what a bad story is. Trust me, I’ve got my eyes on many more series. (Cough Cough Elements Cough Beyond Humanity Cough Cough) If the community keeps thinking that bad stories are actually good, storylines that are produced because of this will be unoriginal and cliche. We need to understand what is good animation and what is bad animation, and clear up any misconceptions. I like to be positive and focus on how animations can improve, but I won’t let that stop me from proving if an animation is good or not. We can’t let an inherently bad movie be the basis for good movies in the community, or every storyline will suffer for it.

And one last thing. If you see a flaw in my argument, if you disagree with me, if you have a different view and can back it up with reasoning, please please PLEASE comment and tell me about it! Tell me where you believe I’m wrong and show me why I would be wrong! I am genuine about this. I have always understood that my arguments may have flaws in them. I’ve backed them up with logic and facts, but there are many things subject to different opinion, and I would love to hear any opinions that are different! There could be some things I missed out on! Please, if you disagree, please let me know what you specifically disagree on and why, then base it off your own logic! Don’t just call all my critics automatically bad because you disagree with them but you aren’t willing to actually discuss why you disagree. Come up and speak your mind!

And that’s all folks! Tune in next time, where we’ll be covering one of the most widely known yet widely misunderstood and disputed animation aspects of StickNodes; Tween and No-Tween! I’ll be happy to answer any questions, and I encourage thoughtful discussion in the comments. Thanks everyone! Stay Classy!