Mr. Green

Created in an era where many directors were identified by the hand-made characters they showed off in the Animation Gallery, Mr. Green arrived much shorter and sloppier than was probably anticipated. It may have actually preceded that era, coming out in September 2003, but the character himself fit right in. It was one of those iconic-looking designs that stood out, but the movie itself is kind of an afterthought, created only so that the character could have a platform in which to exist. Mr. Green the movie certainly has the feel of being made on the fly, events unfolding as Dave tried to figure out what can happen next. It's sloppy and awkward, always wondering what should happen next and ending abruptly on a confusing note. Not particularly bad, just missing something that would make it a complete work rather than an unsteady character showcase.

Who is Mr. Green? The ending concludes that he is an alien, but I didn't think his origin is really necessary to address. Hand-made characters in 3DMM don't need explanations, as their design is by necessity simplistic and elemental. Mr. Green is spindly and extremely awkward in movement, with a flat green saucer plate of a head, massive monster teeth and a vacuous expression. He is what he is in the most basic sense of character design. It's not bold and well-formulated the way some of the HMC greats have been, careful to make their shapes serve a complete whole, but there's something about the way he jerkily stumbles around getting into disconnected adventures that works. Dave's animation is not much to write home about (except for a little-used technique using a default actor as an animation guide for the human boy), but Mr. Green's design and movement absorb the jerkiness and laziness into his being. It feels appropriate, if still a bit unnatural.

The lingering issue, which feeds into another problem I will discuss later, is that we never get a clear look of his movement on a decent-length shot. Dave seems reluctant to put in the effort it would take to animate him in a way that really solidifies our understanding of this creature. The first shot of Mr. Green, and the worst-animated: 19 frames. The next, a much more interesting angle and more fluid: 12 frames. A naturally following distant shot of him leaving the forest: 7 frames. The next several shots seem reluctant to give us a good look at how he moves, keeping parts of him out of frame (the stair tumble avoids showing his legs to save animating time, and you can tell while watching it), moving only his mouth when he talks, flinging him across the screen in ways that don't require his individual parts to move independently of each other. This seems like a roundabout way of saying the movie is lazily animated, and in a way, it is. But I'm also trying to illustrate the effect it has on the way the character feels alive to us, and that's one of the few things the movie really has going for it.

The other is a wonderfully demented sense of humor, both in the punchline of the film and in the way it listlessly floats from one thing to the next. Mr. Green saving the boy only so that he could eat him while he was still alive is great stuff, even if the Black Sabbath and spaceship sequence is too long and kind of unnecessary. But for the most part, Dave is unwilling to go the extra step to make things work. There's a patchwork quality to the scenery, animation, and camera angle choices, where he'd muster up the motivation to create a location and then not feel like recreating it for every following shot. I got the feeling angles were often chosen to avoid showing as much of the road, woods, or picnic area as possible. Sometimes angles are just bizarre, like in scene 19 where the boy and Mr. Green start at the bottom left corner and move offscreen as we zoom in to the staircase nearby. And why we never got a clear reaction shot from the kid at any point I have no idea.

Ultimately, there just isn't enough, and what's here is scattered and stretched out. It feels like an unfinished movie. I remembered enjoying it despite these problems, but watching it again for the first time in years seems to have brought back a lot of the issues I had when I originally saw it. It's kind of an underground hit, in that Dave had done little else up to that point and the character is wickedly demented, so the movie works as a stealth fighter. It's amusing and worth watching, but it's also a rush job, and much of the potential it had is not realized here. A closer look at the better shots in the movie shows that Dave has the skills needed to make this funnier, better, and more alive, but in the rush to get it released, it lost something. This is unfortunately one of the best examples of a character that overshadowed a movie much less than what it was capable of.

Critical Score: 55/100.
Personal Score: 65/100.

[Dave Miles]

I never really had any in depth criticism on Mr. Green like that before. You were so right about most of the movie that it almost hurts :P.
You mentioned the first 19 frames being the worst part of the movie, that made me laugh because it was actually the scene where I created mr green for the first time. There was alot of 'first tries' in this movie that probably could've used 2 or 3 more tries.

Anyways, I really do appreciate your words. a kick in the pants is exactly what I needed.

[Aaron Haynes]

Glad it helped! It really is a great character, and for a test run, this isn't bad at all.