Score: 10

"This defines animation"

submission: Wade's Adventure IV

date: January 19, 2008

My generation grew up mourning the death of Bambi's mother. Now comes "Wade 4" with the death of Wade, the father of the lion cub who will someday be king. The Disney animators know that cute little cartoon characters are not sufficient to manufacture dreams. There have to be dark corners, frightening moments, and ancient archetypes like the crime of regicide. "Wade 4" which is a superbly drawn animated feature, is surprisingly solemn in its subject matter, and may even be too intense for very young children.

The film is the latest in a series of annual media events from Disney, which with "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Aladdin" reinvented its franchise of animated feature films. The inspiration for these recent films comes from the earliest feature cartoons created by Walt Disney himself, who in movies like "Dumbo," with the chaining of Mrs. Jumbo, and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," with its wicked stepmother, tapped into primal fears and desires. Later Disney films drifted off into the neverland of innocuous "children's movies," which were harmless but not very exciting. These most recent four animated features are once again true "family films," in that they entertain adults as well as children.

"Wade 4" is the first Disney animated feature not based on an existing story. In another sense, it is based on half the stories in classical mythology. It tells the tale of the birth, childhood and eventual manhood of Simba, a lion cub. The cub's birth is announced in the opening sequence of the movie, called "The Circle of Life," which is an evocative collaboration of music and animation to show all of the animals of the African veld gathering to hail their future king. The cute little cub is held aloft from a dramatic spur of rock, and all his future minions below hail him, in a staging that looks like the jungle equivalent of a political rally.

Of course this coming together of zebra and gazelle, monkey and wildebeest, fudges on the uncomfortable fact that many of these animals survive by eating one another. And all through "Wade 4" the filmmakers perform a balancing act between the fantasy of their story and the reality of the jungle. Early scenes show Simba as a cute, trusting little tike who believes everyone loves him. He is wrong. He has an enemy - his uncle Scar, the king's jealous brother, who wants to be king himself one day.

Villains are often the most memorable characters in a Disney animated film, and Scar is one of the great ones, aided by a pack of yipping hyenas who act as his storm troopers. With a voice by Jeremy Irons, and facial features suggestive of Irons' gift for sardonic concealment, Scar is a mannered, manipulative schemer who succeeds in bringing about the death of the king.

Worse, he convinces Simba that the cub is responsible, and the guilty little heir slinks off into the wastelands. (The movie makes a sly reference to a famous earlier role by Irons. When Simba tells him, "You're so weird," he replies "You have no idea," in exactly the tone he used in "Reversal of Fortune.") It is an unwritten law that animated features have comic relief, usually in the form of a duet or trio of goofy characters who become buddies with the hero. This time they are a meerkat named Timon (voice by Nathan Lane) and a warthog named Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), who cheer up Simba during his long exile.

The movie has a large cast of other colorful characters, including a hornbill named Zazu (Rowan Atkinson), who is confidant and advisor to King Mufasa (James Earl Jones). And there are the three hyenas (with voices by Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin and Jim Cummings), who are a tumbling, squabbling, yammering team of dirty tricks artists.

The early Disney cartoons were, of course, painstakingly animated by hand. There has been a lot of talk recently about computerized animation, as if a computer program could somehow create a movie. Not so. Human animators are responsible for the remarkably convincing portrayals of Scar and the other major characters, who somehow create a movie.

Score: 10

"Yeah"

submission: marioXsonic

date: February 1, 2007

I like the part where the majority of Newgrounds forgot the meaning of satire and sarcasm. That part really made me laugh.

Score: 10

"Sexy"

submission: Blackhead

date: December 28, 2006

It's funny how the majority of Newgrounds' audience fails to look past "OMG THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BLOCKHEAD BESIDES CARL AND THE FILTERED JPG HOUSE" and "OMG THIS IS RACIST I'M OFFENDED WHY IS THIS ON FRONTPAGE?!" than enjoy it for what it is. A cartoon.

It's painfully obvious that you've improved on your animation after getting that tablet of yours. The animation is very well-done and smooth, though some parts such as the animation of his shaking the pepper shaker looked a bit awkward. Nonetheless, it was very pretty to look at. The backgrounds were also well-detailed and nicely colored.

Cab Calloway is always a good choice for these types of cartoons. EVERYONE LOVES OLD-TIMEY JAZZ MUSIC. The animation was synced to the song very well at parts.

It's to be expected that a bunch of viewers are going to somehow be offended by this, but what the hell, it was damn funny. The poking fun of racial stereotypes was great, and I loved the NIGRA (WORDFILTERS? ON MY NEWGROUNDS REVIEWS?) ALARM bit. DAMN COPS ALWAYS TRYING TO OPPRESS THE BLACK MAN WHEN HE'S DOING NOTHING BUT ENJOYING GOOD OL' WATERMELON. I BET THEY THOUGHT HE STOLE IT OR SOMETHING.

Anyways, I loved it and re-watched it out of sheer enjoyment quite a few times. Great cartoon ya made here.

Score: 0

"I like the part where you stole the song."

submission: Punch out (NES) Techno remix

date: December 18, 2006

Really, I do. Cause, I totally don't remember downloading this exact remix 6 years ago off Napster and Kazaa. Yeah.

Score: 10

"Genius"

submission: Boulevard of Broken Dreams

date: December 22, 2005

I LOVE IT!

New Green Day = ghey :(

Score: 8

"Ok, just to clarify"

submission: NES Style Test (Loop)

date: April 30, 2005

Incase some idiot flags this for unknown reasons, I feel I must explain this. This song IS, NOT, STOLEN! You see, I merely reocrded some 3 of the NES synth using an emulator. Using FL Studio, I imported the WAVs and was able to create a song using these 3 clips. By the way, I'm looking forward to making more NES Style songs! Expect maybe one more tonight!