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Reviews
Hazbin Hotel (2019)
Potential that failed to meet its' mark.
A project with good marketing, a wonderful style of animation, funny characters, and a huge audience hyping up this project for 2 years-- what could go wrong?
Most reviews for Hazbin Hotel have been overwhelmingly positive just based on the art style alone, and I dont blame them, the style and animation are wonderful for a team of unprofessionals. However, just because a pilot looks good visually does not mean that it's automatically a good series.
I have a lot of issues with this pilot, but one of my main complaints about the Hazbin Hotel pilot is that it's way too much crammed into one episode. 70% of the pilot itself was already released by the creator in clips and trailers, so if you've watched those, don't bother watching the pilot if you want to see them again back to back for 30 minutes.
Visually, it looks stunning. The somewhat unique style looks a lot like Invader Zim, but the color palette and character designs fit the overall vibe of the series-- living in a vulgar, cartoon hell.
I applaud the team for their efforts in animating such complex character designs kind of consistently, but there was too much going on at once throughout the whole pilot. So many things happen one after the other without the audience having a chance to process it before it cuts to another scene.
The flow of every scene, or "clip" I should say, is very choppy and just feels like the creators just slapped the clips we've already seen together into one mess and called it a pilot.
For a team of unprofessionals, the writing should have been handed to someone with experience.
The reason I think this is because the storyboarding and "plot" are confusing and nonexistant for this pilot. If you asked me what the plot was just based on the pilot itself, I could not be able to tell you. The only people who have an inkling of an idea what the plot is supposed to be like are avid fans and the creators-- and even then, I dont think they understand the plot completely either.
All of the characters in the story are inconsistently written and have unclear motives. For example, Charlie's motive to building the hotels is to save sinners from being killed every year. The reason why they're being killed is never specified, which makes Charlie's motive completely useless to the audience. Many of the motives of the characters are "just because", which is lazy writing in itself.
I can see potential in this series, but from just watching the pilot alone, there's more cons rather than pros. The pilot was a disappointing mess of just showcasing art style, and even though it looks pretty, I dont think it should continue if the writing stays just as lazy and horrible as it is right now. 2/10.
K-12 (2019)
Alright for Melanie's first movie!
K-12 is just as it says-- an enchanting musical with a unique touch and wonderful aesthetic. I think people should see this film for its wonderful aesthetic and visual representation, but dont watch it expecting good writing and a plot.
The musical aspects (songwriting, choreography, and singing) of the film are amazing as usual with Melanie's work, but there are many potential plotpoints in the film itself that are just touched on once and never mentioned again. Some songs made seamless integration into the plot, for example "Wheels on the Bus", but others appeared out of nowhere and brought nothing to the plot, like "Strawberry Shortcake".
The movie's timeline is through the school years of Crybaby, but for most of the movie you couldnt tell at all what grade she was in at that time. Along with this, most of the characters are forgettable and dont have defining personality, but hey, at least it looks pretty!
I do think that Melanie put too much on her shoulders for this film. She wrote the script, directed, was the lead actress, did all of the songs, and edited the whole thing-- I applaud her for all the effort she went to make this film. For all of this being new to her, I think she did well, but I think that she should take it easy next time.
The film left me a little disappointed with more questions than answers, but at least I left the cinema with 14 new bops to add to my playlist.