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r-c-herkstroter
Reviews
Henry's Amazing Animals (1996)
A Nice Nostalgic treat.
It all began when I was just a child, and I was searching through the library, looking for a Nature video I have seen a long time ago, and when I thought I found it, I came into "Henry's Amazing Animals", and thus this is how I got introduced to the series.
Along the "Eyewitness" videos, I use to watch whatever episodes are available, it is hard to remember which ones but at least they were a nice treat to have (and a piece of entertainment too).
Now, Henry himself can get a little annoying at times with his slightly Naïve perspective of animal life, his repetitiveness per video and scrawny voice, but alas the point of the series is to introduce a younger audience to the concept of Animals and how they generally live to how things work, and in a way, Henry is kind of that audience as well, thus he is a relating little guy (plus if he is handled/written correctly, he can be entertaining and funny too).
Now Henry is animated by the use of CGI in a white setting/backdrop, now CGI as in it's infancy and was just beginning to be used (e.g. Toy Story and Beast Wars), now the CGI may look out-dated by most standards, but in context is is used not-too-badly and you can understand what it is meant to represent (from a setting to object to etc...) plus Henry's model is a cute little model, with big eyes and a big mouth which makes him adorable to look at, plus the fact that he is a Gecko means that the CGI does to look too dated on him (sort of like Jurassic park if you know what I mean).
As for the animal facts themselves, well they are simple which thus allows younger audiences to get the concept easily, plus the general format of Henry and the narrator talking to each other allows for a more relating presentation of information (plus the booming voice per narrator gives a feeling of a might all-knowing presence for Henry to talk to).
The episodes are roughly 25-30 Min long, which is decent enough for a TV presentation to a VHS/DVD release per episode, plus in that time, there is a variety of little "sketches" (either in 3D or 2D animation) to a few mock "shows" to a few moment (especially "Henry's Amazing Golden Gecko Awards" to "Henry's special report" being the most prolific examples).
Overall, while a little basic for adults, it is a sweet series to look back into and thus presenting to a younger audience to introduce them to Animals or entertaining them, plus while Henry can bet annoying at times (you got to have tolerance to taste to watch Henry in action), he is a cute and funny little character if you get down to it (and can provide laughs at times with how oblivious her is to Animal facts, to being over-the-top at times.
Highly recommended for a younger to nostalgic audience (even parents could get a kick/laugh out of it).
Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends: Wonky Whistle (2011)
Abysmal
Within the TTTE community, there had been a great deal of controversy of the switch from Models to CGI beginning in the years 2008/2009, but ironically CGI era between seasons 13 to 16 have not been horribly criticized for the CGI (in fact, it is pretty good for a kids show thanks to Nitrogen Studios) but rather more for the writing.
Now the series notably went to a formulaic to inaccurate-for-railway-standards approach beginning at Season 8, but these episodes are more tolerable compared to the CGI era of Season 13 to 16 (not counting the specials), and whoa boy, on 03/23/2011, a nasty surprise came in the form of the episode "Wonky Whistle", an episode that must have been made to be so bad to make most of the other CGI episodes of the period would look good by comparison.
First to mention is the fact that the episode has a few notable tropes of other episodes of the period: Good CGI wasted on a poor episode, lack of a break van for a train, Thomas (or another character) being a moron, horrible alliteration and rhyming, repetitive pieces of dialog which tries to jam into someone's brain ("Hurry to the country show, tell your friends and don't be slow"), The fat controller without any sense of logic or brains, lack of proper safety standards, idiotic trains known as "Special specials" and the notorious 3-strike formula (three flops, then you are simply told off, then you do it right in the end).
If that is bad enough, there is more than meets the eye/text:
The crowning moment of infamy came at around 1:56 as Thomas puffs out of the steam works while the workmen are working on him, thus shaking/pushing them off in the process without any patience to have them fix his broken (or 'Wonky' as they call it whistle), thus disregarding safety and patience in the process which is a bad lesson to younger viewers and could have injured/killed them in the process (but then again, why are the Workmen working on Thomas WHILE he is still at steam, isn't that hazardous?), plus if Thomas has a bad whistle then he should have been stopped as it would have disregarded the rules of railway safety, but alas the Driver or any other did not stop him and thus the episode carries on, plus a broken whistle would leak steam and whistle constantly in a weak fashion rather than just be blown with a 'wonky' sound, thus an inaccurate standpoint in that regard of how physics/trains work.
Then Thomas puffs in with one single van, now ignoring the obvious fact that there is no brake van on the train, a multitude of different animals were placed into the van at once (Including a couple of ducks, a dog and a cow), which is absolute illogical due to not a proper storage method and the fact that this combination of animals is not a good idea to put in all at once (not to mention that using the road instead of the rail is a more logical method) plus Thomas pulls off without the door being closed, thus another disregard to safety and could have injured the guy holding the door as he pulled off, what a low.
This is where the 3-strike formula comes in, and the formula is this case abysmal, first Thomas finds a group of people to a character to advertise "The Country show", stop at that particular location without any permission to stop (and thus could result in a crash with an oncoming train) and say the words "Hurry to the country show, tell your friends and don't be slow" as though as is he is the only source of advertisement for a seemingly profitable event , blows his 'wonky' whistle and a particular animal runs off from the unlocked van (why not all animals logically at once if the noise is that frightening, I don't know), then moves off while the group/character tries to warn Thomas of the animal, but Thomas does not hear due to constantly blowing his wonky whistle and seeing the waving hands not as a warning but the fact that people are waving at him, what a blue stupid idiot!,(heck, even a Cow ran across a station, thus nearly hurting someone in the process, plus Thomas could have seen it!).
Then Thomas arrives "The Country show", complete with a lack of people (as I said before, as though as if he was the only source of advertisement) and finally knowing that all the animals carried in his 1 single van went missing and realizing his mistake (after idiotically blowing his whistle and scaring some sheep away in the process), then proceeds to get his whistle fixed properly (with the workmen still working on an engine with a hot boiler), gathers all the animals back within a single day without any problem, advertises properly (which somehow gets an crowd to the county show as though as if he is the only one advertising the event) and The Fat Controller says "you are a really useful engine" without punishing Thomas for the dangerous and idiotic acts committed throughout the episode (thus another poor lesson to a younger audience), the REV Awdry rolled in his grave, HIT Entertainment proved that they have no quality control standards, and The End.
In Conclusion, this is an episode that is so bad, so absurd, so dangerous and so insulting-to-intelligence that you have to see it to believe it, now you may not have a good feeling after having watched it, but it has to be witnessed in order to understand why allot of TTTE fans (including myself) see it as the worst episode of the entire series.
The Nostalgia Critic: Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2012)
A definite miss
While being a fan of the Nostalgia Critic show, it is of note that his quality deteriorated sometime Mid-Season 4 and Season 5, as they became rushed, blank and annoying, and one episode that sums up the Nostalgia Critic in that period is his TATMR review, now having a few minor parts that were funny (like the foot stomping at Diesel 10) to agreeing with a few points (that this is a bizarre movie), this review has got a definite annoyance to it, which is sadly much more than the few good points I have seen with the video which thus makes it hard to watch, especially in 6 main points.
1. THE VOICE: Now when needing to present or entertain, you need to have a clear and understandable voice with clear intuition, however The NC's voice in this review is very high pitched and very fast, which thus makes it hard to get into the point of what he is saying as well as a hint stale, plus there are some points where he shouts out a criticism, which may be OK at first due to being an NC trait, but it can get repetitive during the episode and thus gets old and annoying.
2. TOO MUCH MISSING MATERIAL AND MISSING GREAT OPPORTUNITIES FOR JOKES: Now I know that NC needs to condense the movie a bit to make it a simpler presentation, but the movie proved to have allot of scenes and moments that the NC had missed upon to make a few good jokes, especially omitting the song sequence "It's a really useful engine" which could have lead to an commentary upon how out of nowhere it came from and thus could have made a joke about it, plus he omitted too many Sodor/Engines scenes and places too much emphasis and review upon the Live-Actors' scenes, thus making the movie appear too much like that in that emphasis (although it is a bit true that there are indeed more Live-Action scenes than the scenes involving the engines, but the point is he focuses way too much upon the Live Action sequences and can be thus repetitive with it instead of fresh new material at every corner).
3. A RUSHED/LAZY FEELING: Now at the time, NC released a review once a week, and it definitely shows that this episode should have had more time put into it rather than within a week, thus there is a feeling that the episode feels a hint rushed as too short for the nature of the movie, and even repetitive, as there is no check-up if the jokes are too long or missed upon that regard, some clips of the movie go on for a hint too long for the duration of the episode (which thus results in the occasional poor joke after-wards, lacking the proper research in order to get into the movie, and that the performance of the NC feels sometimes like it was done in one-take (thus being annoying to monotone like described before).
4. SHOT DURATION (FOR A MOVIE TOO BIG): As mentioned before and thus one major problem of the review is the fact that there is allot of detail and scenes that the movie possesses, which with the scenes that the NC omitted and the fact that he focused too much on the Live Actor's scenes and the combination of a few jokes that go on too long and too repetitive (especially the "it's Thomas the F--king take engine" like when in Burnett Stone's scenes) and the fact that some clips of the movie go on for too long and the lack of research and detail into the history of the TTTE show and production of the movie which makes me feel that the review (despite being at a duration of 20:50) is technically too short for a movie of great complexity, or rather more padded out.
5. LACK OF PROPER RESEARCH (AND MISSING AT IT): Now the main criticism that I and allot of other people have is the lack of research of the history of Thomas the tank engine and his show which thus makes him unprepared, but he also lacked of research of the TATMR movie and it's convoluted production history which thus lead into a non-understanding of why it turned out the way it was, but my overall gripe was the fact that there was a opportunity to do research as it is quite easily available on the internet, primarily an example being the SiF Fan-site dedicated to TATMR (http://www.sodor-island.net/themagicrailroadminisite/index.html) which boasts a great deal of information of the movie, in fact if you go beyond that page, it links up to a whole site dedicated to TTTE (http://www.sodor-island.net/) but he missed the opportunity leading to the biased nature of the episode.
6. THE NERVE OF IT ALL: The final point of criticism is a few confusing points throughout the review, with being that he did not call Diesel 10 by his proper name (Just calling him "The Diesel"), the fact that while claiming not to have watched the show he placed some clips and pictures of the show which means he could have had the chance to watch and research it properly, and the fact that he placed the episode as a honorable mention in the NC retrospective "The top 11 Nostalgia Critic episodes", which while good for him feels a little odd for me considering the quality of the episode and the fact that it seems like he is trying to defend it.
I use to defend this episode in the terms of what happens if someone steps into TTTE with TATMR, but the more I think about it and the more I watch the episode, I can hardly feel like defending it anymore.
If you like it, good for you, but for me it is definitely not one of his best efforts.