Zelda Valley

DstCoyote’s review:

So… what do you do when you’ve just made a video using paint and movie maker? Make another one! After JMAP did what is now called Episode Zero (which may someday be uploaded to YouTube, but don’t count on it), he and I decided to make a sequel to it. We wanted it to be longer and funnier. Episode Zero lasted about five minutes, so we wanted this one to last ten minutes.

It opens up with a little sequence of random gags while Pennywise’s “Bro Hymn” is playing. We wanted to open up with something along the lines of a “Previously, on ….” kind of thing, but with stuff that does not relate to the real story whatsoever. We got this idea from Space Ghost Coast to Coast where a two part episode occurs. In that, a character decides to leave and escape, but in the next part when it says “Previously on Space Ghost”, it opens up with an action packed and suspenseful sequence of scenes that supposedly happened, even though they really didn’t. We thought it was funny so we tried to do something like that. I’ve seen other comedy shows do something like this as well, such as Family Guy.

Unfortunately, when JMAP continued on it, he practically put in the entire video footage from Episode Zero to tell the story of “what really happened.” I think this was done just to fill in the film time to be able to say it was halfway done. When he sent me the update, what I saw was Episode Zero plus 30 seconds of new material not including the opening. It was those 30 seconds I enjoyed the most, but when I wanted him to make more, he claimed he was getting bored of it. When I inevitably decided to take over, I did not have Microsoft Paint on my computer, so the only program I could use was photoshop.

The part I did contains many references to Metal Gear Solid, and there is even an easter egg that mentions the new one, Metal Gear Solid 4. MGS is an espionage- stealth game, so that’s why we see Link sneaking around trying not to be seen rather than just killing the mushroom guys. It was actually planned for a “Metal Gear Solid” part to be done for the video, so that’s why I wanted to take over so bad, because I felt I knew how to get it presented just right.

I originally told JMAP that I’ll take over the next 2-3 minutes of the video; but I ended up making nearly 5-6 minutes! The total film time was well over the ten minute marker, so we decided we could make a lot more! Eventually there was about 20 minutes total of film time! What was planned as a ten minute video to be uploaded to Google Video ended up as a 20 minute video!

When we decided to go YouTube, This 20 minute video had to be split into two parts with the first ten minutes becoming Part One and the second becoming the present Part Two that we see today. Because the Metal Gear Solid part was near the half way mark, it had to be split as well, which is the reason why the last two minutes of it are on Episode Two.

In all, I feel that the original version of Episode One doesn’t really take off until after the halfway marker, around the time the newer stuff is being shown. We were pretty excited about making it, but even when we uploaded this version to YouTube, we felt compelled to write in the description, “We know the animation is bad, but it gets better half way through, so give it a chance!”

Today that description simply leads to the newer remade version. We both feel that the remade version is much, much better because it takes out everything we considered bad and is replaced by something we feel is more worth watching. Plus it no longer makes it the sequel to Episode Zero, but instead starts the series up.

My Overall Score: 6