Animated YouTube

YouTube has allowed the visions of creative people that in the past would not have seen the light of day to reach the world. It is the People’s Theatre. Presented here are three animated shorts from a varied group of people.

Enjoy!

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Resilience

• Directed by Yunie Choi
• May 12, 2023

A short on resilience.

This short film pulls a bit of a bate and switch but not in a bad way. You start out thinking Resilience will be about the resilience of the soldier in a conflict but in reality it is about the resilience of life and the world. Life goes on no matter the conflict with a new status quo settling in no matter the cause. Ultimately the issues that caused the fight will be forgotten as the world moves on.

That is something important and often not thought about: war does not matter. Very few ever do. Most do not change things. And that is said in an animated short subject. While it is a crisp and smooth animation that might be in line for use in a family friendly film, this has a message that mostly slips past your defenses until the credits roll because of that.

Resilience is a good looking bit of animation that will give you something to think about after you are entertained. I recommend this.

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Machina Mortem

• Written and Directed by Jan Postema
• September 28, 2016

A French soldier marches towards the front lines during WWI.

Machina Mortem is about three or four minutes and officially it’s about a French soldier marching to the front during World War. I say ‘officially’ because it is difficult to determine nationality for the uninitiated. As well as odd images of cogs turning makes what exactly going on confusing.

The cog bit sticks with me because I am not sure what it exactly means. Are these soldiers cogs in the machine of war? Not sure. They are certainly striking but it is difficult to draw any conclusion on their meaning.

The great sound design and animation combined with the unusual images makes this rather striking. The problem is Machina Mortem ends. Our main sees another soldier in the distance and that’s it. This ultimately is more of a short bit than it is a short story.

Machina Mortem is stunning but as a story there isn’t much there and that’s its biggest shortcoming. It’s a nice piece of art but as something to entertain or inform or persuade you can pass on this one.

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Parallel Man

• Directed and Co-Written by Jeffrey Morris
• March 28, 2022

Voice Cast

• Agent Nick Morgan-John Cho
• Atlas-Lance Reddick
• Major Mackenzie Cartwright-Ming-Na Wen

A man from a totalitarian parallel Earth tries to recover a lost piece of technology to prevent our Earth from being conquered.

Holy crap was Parallel Man good! I was hooked in seconds. Writers Jeffrey Morris and Fredrick Haugen packed in so much and set up everything in a few minutes. We learn that this takes place in a multiverse where another Earth having been devastated by war conquers Earths in other realities to sustain itself.

It is an action-packed story that is a wild ride through realities in a way better than Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. I think we get no more than three variations but each is such extreme from the other yet none feel exceedingly improbable.

The animation is good but not great and perhaps the only real weakness here. It looks a great deal like the short-lived Spider-Man: The New Animated Series from MTV a few years back. It looks somewhat flat and a bit bland.

But that shortcoming is made up for with a great story and fantastic direction. This hits the ground running and never lets up. And then Parallel Man stops. This feels like the first installment of so much more but no more came. It is so great and gets you hooked and leaves you wanting more. That is great storytelling!

This is something that should be right up Hollywood’s alley. I would think that what we get here is something that studios might be interested in for a film series or general big budget blockbuster. But one with some sophistication and depth. Our two mains go through a bit of an arc and in about ten minutes end this film different than how they began. Some movies cannot do that in 90 minutes.

This has action, excitement, and great characters. You care about what happens to them. Each is unique and is not just there so you can watch the action sequences.

Parallel Man is a fantastic short that will suck you win and bring you to the edge of your seat only to leave you dangling because the credits roll. Still I recommend it because it’s very good and definitely worth watching.

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Presented here were three animated shorts of varying quality. Each has something different and just shows that YouTube has so much to offer. I encourage you to look for yourself. You will find something you like!