Obligatory pilot discussion thread

I started a thread in the Animation subforum but to get in on this one: I had an excellent time. I think I might miss the fast pace if the full series settles down into a more traditional groove, the density rules and part of me feels like the show being Hard To Follow in this specific way suits the Homestuck experience. I hope they find sections of the story where the accelerated pace still works for their purposes.

im very mixed on it.

- i do like the animation, and the way they handled the pesterlogs was nice. some of the backgrounds were very pretty and a couple of the visual gags were great

- obviously a 1:1 translation isnt possible but im not a fan of the changed lore implication about narration and seers. also THATS ONEY NARRATING????? WHAT???

- the dialogue is Okay I Guess but cut the cursing sheeshus.

- i do not care for these voices, they need better direction. john is the least bad but rose is very Blugh, dave sounds like a worse yosuke hanamura while jade sounds like ruby rose if her va fell ill and was told to get into the studio anyways.

- i get its a pilot but this is way too fast paced, slow down!!!!!!

- way too many sound effects for my liking

The more I think about it the more I don't know what I think about it. I'm just gonna fire off some random notes about how I felt.

- The animation was very nice, but I don't know if I'm really feeling the art style. The more "accurately proportioned" and lanky character designs kinda rub me the wrong way, but it's probably way better for the animators, so it's whatever.

- 11 minutes is a really strict timeframe, and you can definitely feel them rushing through stuff. the whole pilot just felt like it didn't have any room to breathe, but I guess that's the struggle with trying to adapt something as dense as Homestuck.

- The voice acting was a mixed bag. I genuinely enjoyed Toby as John, and Jades VA did grow on me. Wasn't a fan on Rose and Dave's voices in the trailer, and yeah, they still don't really do it for me. Not much of a "critique" though, the VAs did a fine enough job in the pilot, its mainly just a personal preference thing. (the narrator was fucking Oney...?)

- The chemistry of the cast was a little weird to me? I don't know how to really explain this one, I just felt like the characters didn't bounce off each other as well as they do in the comic. It's a shame cause I feel like this is one of the main appeals of Homestuck for me.

Overall... I think It's okay? Kinda? It wasn't terribly bad. Its cute, at the very least.

i dont have the same problems with rose and daves vas that a lot of people seem to have. im used to rose as elegant proper ladylike and dave as unflappable stoic, yeah, but these vas emphasize that both of them are also kind of dorky losers as well which i think is important to understand about them. i really like roses whispery monotone, she sounds like the weird kid youd know in middle school who draws eyeballs and anotomically correct hearts on the desks and stuff. its a new take on her but one i like

i thought it was really cool!! the only real gripes i had are that dave sounds way too expressive to me, and rose seems... less amused by her friends than she should be? she seems genuinely annoyed by john's antics, which is out-of-character in my opinion. it also went a little too fast, but it is only a pilot, so the pacing in the actual show will probably be different. but i'm not really upset by any of these things, in all i think the pilot looks cool as hell and i hope we get more!! i'm especially excited to see how some of the more elaborate moments in the story would be animated, like dave and bro's strife :D

Second what Max said about Rose not funding John funny.

I said it before but unfortunately for the trailer I have so much Homestuck built up inside of me anything beyond the comic feels wrong lol. I also didn't love the animation style. The huge white on white house works in the comic but everything gets muddy when animated.

as much as i think john was swearing too much i honestly think dave wasnt swearing enough. his dialogue felt weirdly clean and unobtrusive

also the 2020s slang was a little jarring.... like especially considered they established in the first few seconds that this is still set in 2009. either make it april 13, 2025 or forego the modernness

also also dave having any voice other than awsten knight's was a little jarring but that's fully 100% a me problem

It was both what I hoped it would be and what I worried it would be

The narration is literally what I was worried it would be. I'm impressed they got Oney to do it, and I think if they're implying what I think they're implying, then Oney is the voice of the Wayward Vagabond, which is so much funnier than my own casting idea (Tom Kenney). But also, like, I don't want the narration from the comic??? I want this to be a fucking cartoon that tells its story with a modicum of normalcy, and this is literally what both the fan-made homestuck movie script and homestuck the musical did. I was hoping they'd integrate or adapt things like zoosmell and the game mechanics more naturally, which they kinda did. I think the recognition of game mechanics works if they really lean into the acknowledgement of them by the characters: then people will understand that the premise is their universe is basically a video game (which, technically, it is, but the audience isn't gonna know that yet, but this sets it up).

The music was fucking whatever. It's fine. Nothing crazy, just standard cartoon background music... it sounds good. I like Jade's theme.

They did kinda ruin the whole title card thing. Honestly, I was hoping we would start with the Homestuck next to the sun title drop and then descend to the neighborhood and just do the show normally.

Also a big fan of how everyone joked it'd be like Vivziepop's other shows and then the creators were like "Noooo Viv isn't even writing it, it's not gonna be swears every other sentence" and then it's swears every other sentence because it's still homestuck (im so excited for dave to drop the n-word in episode 3).

uhhhh what else, um, OH WAITER, MORE KARKAT PLEASE.

The fight scene was, I think, the best-adapted part of the episode beyond the pesterlogs.

The ending was stupid I think they just should've kept trolls being aliens hidden.

It's a good, fun pilot, but if this is supposed to introduce people to the series or be an alternate, better way of enjoying homestuck's story... well if this even becomes a full series... if someone asked me about getting into homestuck I would still just tell them to get the UHC. I'm hoping that if the series continues, it gives me a reason to change my answer. I like it, if that means anything to anyone (it doesn't because you don't fucking know me), but it could be better.

The inclusion of Oney as WV does fortunately mean Zach Hadel as Sollux is still on the fucking table so ignor everything i just said the pilot is a 413/10!!! wooo homestuck !!!! YEAEAHAHEH!!!!!!!!

i can't wait for the ytps that will spawn from this

Really liked how it starts with WV's console view. Such a good idea.

The 11 minute timeframe really did this pilot dirty considering the massive amount of shit crammed into it. "Here's this thing! And then this thing! And then this thing!". I can see how most newgens came out of it feeling very confused. It really should've been around 40 minutes, with some of the animation toned down to balance the budget.

As with most Popular Youtube Shows(TM) most of the dialogue/acting is also obnoxiously corny and over-the-top, which I really do not like. But apparently I seem to be in the minority with this, so whateva..

The narrator seems unnecessary in its current form too. I think a better way of doing this would be to show more of WV "playing" John, and the narrator is responding to WV's inputs. The sylladex and other game-like mechanics would fit a lot better if we saw WV actively fiddling with the controls trying to direct John to do stuff.

idk what homestuck is about but that was friggen awesome

I'm not zure how I feel about it. On one hand it'z Interezting, and I do wanna zee where it goez, but I'm honeztly hoping that they don’t juzt do Homeztuck original zauce. Doing Homeztuck again with all the extra context from the near decade that came zince, ezpecially conzidering how much Homeztuck leant into meta narrative

I do not knoooow what the point of recreating so many individual moments+details is... I guess just so the homestuck fandom doesnt get mad at "you removed the beagle glasses noooo you ruined homestuck!!!" so it's more likely to get picked up...????

but like... ok hold on. I was going to go off about some of those individual details like using Karkat's WIP room design just because it's in the Spades Slick panel they're redrawing. But like, that is Karkat already in the game, so maybe the reason we never see that room is because it's one of the ones Terezi added on to it later in the building stage? And that's why it's all grey??? Wow... Homestuck made sense all along. Genius. Anyway I forgot what I was talking about before this

My main takeaway is that nobody actually seems to know what a pilot is, lol. I think everyone whining is being kind of entitled, most fandoms would KILL for an animated series, and even in the OG fandom days, we literally said repeatedly that we want one... Modern fandom sucks so much. I haven't seen a single complaint about it that I agree with. It's made me lose hope and faith in the fandom, ngl. It's average pilot length and speed, yes that's how pilots are actually supposed to be, yes including the pacing, webisodes have ruined the word "pilot" and people are overreacting. Is it too much to hope that this actually chases some of the fake fans out of the fandom? XD

as someone who loves watching the pilots, this one kinda has issue of overexplaining everything that happens on screen, which i get why, but its does steals some time from overall time they had

I liked it a lot! It's supposed to be a proof of concept, not an actual first episode. The swearing make sense, they swore a lot in the comic and that's how 13 year olds with internet access talk, and the animation was nice! I get the criticisms RE: Dave, but I also really like the interpretation/theory that he's more expressive online with his friends since that's really the only space where he can be himself? I also liked all the voices! Rose felt the strongest to me character wise, I hope it gets picked up!

IT WAS FINE I SuPPOSE. LOOSENING ON THE AIRBRuSH MIGHTVE BEEN NICE BuT BESIDES THAT THE ANIMATION WAS WONDERFuL!

I HATE HATE HATE HOW THEY DID DAVE AND JADE THOuGH. I DISLIKE HOW THEY WROTE BOTH OF THEM. ESPECIALLY DAVE. I DONT LIKE HOW JADE WAS WRITTEN THOuGH :|...... IM KIND OF PICKY WITH MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS THOuGH. I DONT WANT TO BE A HATER BuT I PERSONALLY DIDNT LIKE IT. SHRuG.

I quite liked the pilot! I thought it was well animated and a lot funnier than I expected. Toby Fox did a great job as John, and I honestly really liked how Rose and Jade were portrayed as well. Jade especially was very cute.

The music was also really great! Honestly, excited to see more.

My two complaints are that... I did not like Dave at all. The voice acting, the animation, most of the writing, it all feels off. I wasn't a fan of the narrator, either. Mostly the voice acting. I feel the narrator could work with a different voice actor.

halar - respectfully, you're wrong. people are allowed to criticize and complain about stuff (within reason and as long as nobody's being harassed over it). kind of rude to assume everyone's stupid, entitled and doesn't know what a pilot is when there's valid concerns to be had (even if you disagree with them).