HOMESTUCK - The Animated Pilot
Right out of the bat, I like what they’re going for; I'm not fully sure that they’re achieving it. Let me explain.
They’re retelling a story that has already been told, and has been told in a very specific way, so they need to tell it in a completely new way to adapt it to a different medium (animation), which works with different rules for pacing and visual exposure of information.
That is a big challenge, and I applaud them for handling it the way they did.
They are using a lot of very original and creative tools to convey all the info that’s originally contained in chats, narration under the visuals, and back-and-forth between points of view of the different characters.
I find the inclusion of mobile phones, cutting the screen in half to show different characters at the same time, and chat-like speech bubbles manifesting when someone on the other line is saying something, very clever. It gives this same convoluted, multiple chats at once “pestering” of the protagonist vibe as the original, but it is different in its own way.
tho personally, there's too many variants of the character bubble, (acurate, full body cartoon, little half body chiby and only head).
To me consistency is very important in world building, it adds stability it makes this resourses recognizable as a thing of their own and because when you break something established it means something.
I also like how we begin the story with WV in the bunker; it’s different from the original, but from the perspective of a new viewer, it hooks you up, it sells you this idea that there’s nothing normal about this game these kids are getting involved with.
It has this kind of aura of “there’s something more” that the original comic saves for later, while the pilot shows it to you right from the start but doesn't let you know what exactly you’re seeing.
John and the other kids being aware of the narrator, I don't know if it’s a choice I can get behind.
I think it would've made more sense to me if John maybe acted just like in the pilot, but then when his friends asked who he was talking to, John made excuses or said he was talking to himself. For the exile’s existence to be a mystery for them completely
The narrator does help ease all the explanation of who John is, what is going on, what a silladex is, and how it works pretty well and organically tho, I like that.
That being said, cool resources aside, the first half glosses over every single joke in the comic or exposure about the environment John or his friends are at.
There’s no mention of how much John hates cakes (other than casually mentioning his dad is baking a lot), his love for pranks, or mention of his very important Sassacre book, how much he hates his dad’s obsession with harlequins and how they’re everywhere, disdain for his father’s gift of a giant harlequin, panic about dumping his nanna’s ashes on the ground and failing miserably at putting them back using the sylladex. Speaking of the sylladex, all sylladex shenanigans were omitted or, at best, left as background noise while John talks on the phone and interacts with everything around him very fast. So everything that builds John Egbert’s character—his clumsiness, likes, dislikes, everything in his house that tells you who he is—is missing.
(I understand why "[S]John: Play haunting piano refrain" wasn’t there, but it still hurt)
The same happens a little bit with Dave and Rose as well; as we gloss over Dave’s sylladex mode, you can barely catch his explanation on a strife specibus before the whole interaction is over and you can understand what they did or how important that was.
Also about that scene, I get it, animation is meant to be expressive, and the original was way more chill, but still, they’re completely different characters during it.
As for Rose, she’s there, and stuff is happening, but it’s empty, very fast visuals, a violin playing here, a meteor there, the figure of her mother in the hallway, and she’s gone.
No buildup or slow transition into who she is for a moment. (Also, it might be just me, but Rose and Dave are too happy.
To me, they're supposed to be more chill and serious to contrast with John and Jade's more cheerful and silly personalities. They act too much like how they are supposed to be at the very end of Homestuck, after their character growth. Especially Dave, he’s supposed to be playing into this whole cool-dude act, chill, better, and wiser than everyone, and this is just a second John almost).
So, to me, John and Jade’s characterizations are great, Rose’s is alright, but Dave is a completely different character. He's constantly smiling from the get go, when his whole introduction was "this guy is too cool to even introduce himself"
Another thing that bothered me is how the whole deal of getting the beta is handled. It’s supposed to be the very center of this whole thing. The beta arrival and John's birthday, both marked on the calendar, are supposed to emphasize how important that is, but everything happens so fast and these kids are saying so many things you don’t get to register, you can miss it.
I’m not saying they should’ve made the animation completely accurate to the comic; it’s just the feeling of urgency and the importance of the beta isn’t there; it’s just something he goes and gets in the middle of constant rambling with everyone.
It’s like everything good happens while John absentmindedly talks with his friends, and nothing is worth stopping for or paying attention to, which is what the comic thrives on: paying attention and gathering info.
But all of this is the first half; the second half is when, to me, things take a turn for the better.
Since we are over the part where John is inside his house, where all the exposition of who he is, who his father is, and why the things in his house are the way they are, we’re no longer glossing over stuff or speedrunning the house tour while everyone talks over it.
The moment john sets foot outside, the conversation with jade is dinamic, the searching for the beta gets on track, we see the two pacages, the narrator gives his awesome intro (tho it sucked it was interrupted before it got to the cool part) dave shows john the meteor wich gives us now a sense of urgency even if we don’t know what it means (don’t know how he knew tho and shouldn't happen until after the game is on but whatever), we acnoledge the giant HOMESTUCK banner in the sky that’s not a methafor, it’s literally there, and random arm and then we get the reinterpretation of John and Dad’s strife, which is way more destructive and anime like than the original, but since what made the original special was the posibility to interact with the site, this one has to be special in it’s own unique way.
All these events are kinda different from how they happened in the original, since some happened way later, but again, understandably, it makes everything dynamic and engaging.
And from there it closes on John installing the beta and giving us this sense of how something so much bigger than them is taking place, with a montage of events that have taken place, are taking place, and will take place, but all at once at the same time in paradox space.
Something that sells you on how this is only the beginning of something they can’t even fathom, and it’s coming for them, and it can’t be stopped. That part was really exiting.
I liked it in its more dynamic moments; I disliked it when it was supposed to explain things because all construction of the universe and character's personalities were too fast to matter or be understandable.
It reminds me of the first episode of “The Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” because I hated the first episode; it was messy, everyone was talking over everyone and it didn’t stop long enough on anything in particular for me to understand or care, and it didn’t make me want to watch any more of it, but I did, because I knew the following episodes were actually better.
That’s kinda how i feel about this first half of the pilot. It’s rushed and it’s not fun, but once that part is out of the way it gets better and think it'll will become an amazing show if it takes a more "adventure" type of aproach and it stops rushing dialog and skiping info.
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So in short, to me, first half was bad, second half was great.
Maybe the first half should've needed to be longer and let people know John, crack a couple jokes, but as an animator, I understand that could make the project impossible to produce.
John and Jade’s characterization is on point, Rose’s is alright, Dave’s is bad
The animation is beautiful, so are the backgrounds, music, and voice acting.
The resources and creative tools they’re implementing are genius. The creative liberties they’re taking make sense.
I wish they find a better way to convey information
Good pilot. Hope they make more.
