THE HOMESTUCK PILOT REVIEW
when they announced that there was going to be an animated pilot for a supposed adaptation of homestuck, i was like: WOAH!! bringing the webcomic to a medium like that would be sure to attract more fans!!
but then i saw who was behind it: spindleroo (spindlehorse but australian), that sent me on, what i find to be silly and irrational in retrospect, some kind of angered mental spiral,, because despite the fact i have posted about hazbin in a positive light on this profile, my views of the show, and the production team behind it, deteriorated and i just resent vivziepop due to her pisspoor writing decisions
after that weird little breakdown, i calmed down and realized that viv isnt even too involved creatively, so i was cautiously optimistic
I DON'T FUCKING CARE THAT YOU HATE VIVZIEPOP JUST TALK ABOUT THE DAMN PILOT ALREADY!!
jeez,, i was just getting to that but whatever i guess i'll just get right to it since you want to be an asshole about it
anyway, let's start with the most obvious thing:
visually, it's stunning,, which i am very grateful for,, it's very well made artistically and plus, the music is great too!! i always loved the high detailed backgrounds of homestuck and it gladdens me to know they did not cut corners when it comes to its art direction, and i also just wanna say something about the actual art style
i think for an animated approach this is possibly the best possible route you can go,, it would be hard to translate the no-arm designs into animation so i guess they had to make that sacrifice which isnt too bad, although WAHH NO RETRIEVE ARMS JOKE (jk i actually dont care that much)
also the voice acting is pretty good, although i'm not really the best critic on that,, it still surprises me they got toby "the baby is you" fox to be the voice of john egbert though, but i think it's a fitting role actually,, considering how he's possibly the biggest figure in the homestuck team, arguably, and it shaped him so much, it seems like a no brainer to have him voice the main kid, so good job zim!!
i think all the voice actors do a good job at capturing the characters actually!! even uh,, karkat?? i guess he's here for promotional reasons lol let's be honest
and i think the pilot ends at a good point where it would get one hooked, like woah what does jade mean by that?? wowza bazowza!!
DUDE. DID YOU REALLY JUST SAY "WOWZA BAZOWZA" WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT??
dude shut up i was trying to add enthusiasm,, plus you already made it permanent by acknowledging it so there's no backing down now
lol, anyway, i should just talk about the issues i have with it, and let's start with the given issues that i was afraid would happen, first of them being the swearing
YOU'RE JUST GONNA SAY THE SAME SHIT THAT EVERYONE SAYS ABOUT VIVZIEPOP'S SHOWS WITH THE SWEARING STUFF, AREN'T YOU
YOU ARE I CAN SEE IT, WELL GUESS WHAT TITLIPS!! SHE ISN'T EVEN INVOLVED CREATIVELY SO, YOU CAN'T MAKE ANY "WRITTEN BY VIVZIEPOP" JOKES
well, i wasn't going to make any of those jokes, in fact there's a specific reason i don't really like the use of swearing in this pilot and that boils down to how it represents the characters
what i enjoyed most about homestuck, especially act 1, was that the characters didn't just feel like 2-dimensional blobs talking to each other,, they felt like real people and any time they said a swear word, it actually felt like they are emphasizing their statements to add more punch to them,, and it really sucks that i don't get to see that kind of character acting in the pilot, because the swearing just comes off as if they just learned what the fuck word was so now they're using it at almost every chance they get
especially john too, in act 1 i cant recall him swearing all that much,, but here he has the most f-bombs out of all the characters and it just doesn't sit right with me,, i can only hope that in the future, if this does become an animated series (which i sincerely wish it does), that they cut down on all the needless swearing
anyway, the next point i have to make is the pacing, which feels all over the place!!
it hardly gives you a moment to think about what the H is even going on, and it's overwhelming!! i feel like this pilot should've been longer honestly, so we can have some room to breathe, and so it can actually try to let the audience in on the terminology used throughout it, which brings me to another point
this feels like it was made for homestuck fans, and no one else
THAT SOUNDS EITHER STUPIDLY OBVIOUS OR ODDLY GATEKEEPY
i know, my bad, idk how else to word it,, but what i'm trying to say is that it feels like it's banking off of you, the viewer, already knowing what these words are, which in my opinion,, is not good adapting,,
when something is adapted to a new medium, let's say a comic book to a movie, it should not only bring in people who are already fans of the source material, but also be inclusive to people who aren't familiar with it
the homestuck pilot fails to do this due to its pacing, and it feels like it just rushes through them while, again, not giving much room to process what any of that means, which is another reason i think this pilot would benefit from being longer
one last thing i'll touch on, and this is kinda a nitpick, will be the abundance of wacky sound effects; it's like there's a bloop every other splut and a doodloo for every ding ding
YOU SOUND SO DUMB RIGHT NOW WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT EVEN
my point is,, that just like the pacing,, the weird sound effects only makes it all the more overwhelming and i aint too big on that, but then again it's just a nitpick so i won't let that affect the score too much
that's about all i have to say for now,, don't get me wrong, i quite enjoyed the pilot, and i still think it having an animated adaptation is very cool especially for the community, but i just hope that the show does better than this
PS - sorry about the red text person,, idk where they came from