Destruna - Animated Pilot by YouTuber Danger Dolan - TFW You Torpedo Your YouTube Channel and Sell Your Home To Pay For Your Animated Pilot That Doesn't Sell

[Fat Tub of Lard]

I used to watch quite a bit of Danger Dolan/Planet Dolan videos back in the day, but my interest gradually declined as the Reddit Stories ditched the segments involving the actual true stories, leaving nothing but videos that were mostly just lists of wacky incidents posted online, when the character/personal bit were what interested me in the first place.

Eventually, the channel stopped turning out content, as did the Super Planet Dolan videos, which I generally preferred because of their greater potential for character-based humor. I barely noticed until I found out why:

Yep, he made this big-ass animated pilot with the likes of Kate Mulgrew and David Hayter in the voice cast.

And that's where it all went downhill.

TL;DW He basically put PD and SPD content on hold so he could blow a shit-ton of money on an animated pilot. For an indie project that was just meant to sell the idea to a streaming service - yes, that was his goal - he decided it would be a great idea to bring in investors to start an animation studio, hire big name voices, and make a CGI pilot on the assumption that the effort alone was enough to get a greenlight.

Needless to say, he was wrong. He wound up thousands of dollars in the hole, had to sell his house, and basically killed his YouTube channel. And for what? To pitch a pilot that, as it turns out, none of the big name SVODs or TV networks actually wanted. Of the companies he pitched to, only Netflix got back to him, and even then they basically told him "Yeah, we like it, and we're impressed by the effort, but it just skews a bit too young for our target audience." Corporate doublespeak at its finest.

So after all that work, all he had to show for it was a failed pilot that will likely never be anything more than an ultra-niche curiosity. Just look at the views it's gotten so far. Since then, Dolan went back to YouTube, returning to doing top ten videos, which, for a channel that still has 5.2 million subs, haven't gotten more than a few dozen thousand views.

Thoughts?

 

[Boobie Bomb]

He could had just make porn instead just saying

 

[TokiBun]

Turned it off not even a minute in. It’s so generic and boring—who would want to watch this?

There’s a reason so many people watched Hazbin Hotel’s pilot and that’s because it looked like a unique idea with a decently structured story. This series Dolan is attempting looks like some CGI import I would have seen on Jetix 15 years ago.

 

[Telecom]

Are there any big youtubers who don't immediately waste their money on some unrelated dumb idea? The only ones I can name are pewdiepie and jontron, but they're still active and probably make a ton of money off each video.

 

[Dialtone]

I don't know what possessed him to make this trite, this is like a less interesting version of .hack//sign or something on Jetix equivalent as @Half-Blood Princess put. Plus the way the characters jitter around pisses me off.

Also lol at 7:39 in the vid where he talks about risking everything he says

"My heart sank, I went home feeling kinda depressed like; should we be investing in this show if this is how it's gonna look?"

that should have been your first flag to get the fuck out.

 

[Apochrypha]

Kate Mulgrew? how the fuck did he get Kate to do this.

 

[Übertroon]

Needs more overtly sexual content to attract modern studio execs

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

Turned it off not even a minute in.

Same here. That's so bad lol.

 

[NoonmanR]

Jesus, not even Netflix wanted this shit. You know you're done when they of all people won't even take it.

 

[Win98SE]

Most creative pursuits are financial dead ends. This guy was lucky enough to be successful once, then threw it away to see if lightning would strike twice. Bummer.

It reminds me of the CGI Ghost in the Shell show on Netflix. If there weren't 2 extremely well-written traditionally-animated seasons before it, nobody would give a shit. People are only tolerating it as a vehicle to get more GITS. This guy's show has nothing new to offer and looks like shit to boot.

 

[Haunted Dishwasher]

Also just like former posters, didn't last more than few minutes; animation looks extremely uninteresting and choppy - I swear I seen Garry's Mod machinimas have more fluid animations than this. I'm surprised how one does end up with CGI this bad these days given the good computation power isn't limited like 20+ years ago. Tons of SFM creators that produce videos and pr0n proves a fact that you don't need a massive budget to do 3D animation if you do it smart.

If anything, making shorts connected to each other within same universe with length of 90-120 seconds would be more digestible (due to abhorrent animation & art style), generate a constant supply of view on Youtube, probably garner some interest naturally that way instead of pitching 26 minutes chunk of garbage.

 

[Saxxon]

While I kind of feel for him because it's obvious that Covid fuck him over some of his plans, it was just retarded of his part to blow out all his resources into one thing with almost no experience. Only because people watch his Planet Dolan videos doesn't mean that they will watch and enjoy everything he does, they want Dolan not this generic weeb adventure.
The smarter idea would have been to gauge interest with short videos, not going silent while doing so, maybe a kickstarted, you know things to show to execs that people want to watch your show. Little things into big things, not big things into a multimedia franchise from the get go.

 

[Megaroad 2012]

People are only tolerating it as a vehicle to get more GITS.

The second CGI Batou showed up with a goofy smile I noped the fuck out of the new series. Fucking blasphemous.

 

[The Bovinian Derivative]

Props for him for putting together a team, doing animation work and actually seeing it through God knows its fucking hard, but putting up everything, including your house, as collateral might have been a step too far. I also agree with the posts above, the guy should have either made a long animation about his established work or should have put out feeler videos to see if this would stick, but hindsight is 20/20.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Also just like former posters, didn't last more than few minutes; animation looks extremely uninteresting and choppy - I swear I seen Garry's Mod machinimas have more fluid animations than this. I'm surprised how one does end up with CGI this bad these days given the good computation power isn't limited like 20+ years ago. Tons of SFM creators that produce videos and pr0n proves a fact that you don't need a massive budget to do 3D animation if you do it smart.

If anything, making shorts connected to each other within same universe with length of 90-120 seconds would be more digestible (due to abhorrent animation & art style), generate a constant supply of view on Youtube, probably garner some interest naturally that way instead of pitching 26 minutes chunk of garbage.

I think he was trying to do that frame-skipping animation stuff like Spiderverse did and modern anime titles try, and often fail, to do. But it comes off more like a bad MMD animation and makes my eyes hurt.

If this was either done with full framerates or even 2D, I don't think the animation would be shat on as much as it is now. But just watching it as is makes it come off as no one knowing how to actually animate. I mean I'm not familiar with Dolan's videos, what does the quality of the animation on them usually look like?

 

[The Day of Reckoning]

Kate Mulgrew? how the fuck did he get Kate to do this.

She got tricked into narrating a documentary that claims the earth is the center of the universe once, you can basically get her to do anything.

https://www.avclub.com/star-treks-kate-mulgrew-says-she-was-tricked-into-narra-1798267683

 

[Coolio55]

I actually like the limited frame animation but that's probably because I haven't been overexposed to it yet. The actual character design looks like shit. And the backgrounds genuinely look like a source map.
Limited frames and source map backgrounds could've worked in the show's favour if it wasn't so generic but as it stands this is completely forgettable,

Also just like former posters, didn't last more than few minutes; animation looks extremely uninteresting and choppy - I swear I seen Garry's Mod machinimas have more fluid animations than this. I'm surprised how one does end up with CGI this bad these days given the good computation power isn't limited like 20+ years ago. Tons of SFM creators that produce videos and pr0n proves a fact that you don't need a massive budget to do 3D animation if you do it smart.

It's not even fucking fair. Just look at something like Pyro Paints, Pootis Engage, Rappy "n" Demo or the Unusual Troubles series and despair at how much this cost.
Even the ones that abuse the fuck out of source's jittery 2004 havok physics have more soul than this.

Spoiler

 

[BrunoMattei]

I think he was trying to do that frame-skipping animation stuff like Spiderverse did and modern anime titles try, and often fail, to do. But it comes off more like a bad MMD animation and makes my eyes hurt.

If this was either done with full framerates or even 2D, I don't think the animation would be shat on as much as it is now. But just watching it as is makes it come off as no one knowing how to actually animate. I mean I'm not familiar with Dolan's videos, what does the quality of the animation on them usually look like?

Because animation is expensive as fuck what he should have done is either create a basic animatic of the pilot to shop around or see what needs to be improved. Or as others have suggested, create shorter videos as a feeler.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Because animation is expensive as fuck what he should have done is either create a basic animatic of the pilot to shop around or see what needs to be improved. Or as others have suggested, create shorter videos as a feeler.

And yet he didn't. Just boggles the mind.

 

[Yamma Damma]

Never heard of this guy but I watched his pilot.....up to 15 minutes.

The intro, while an exposition landfill, at least made me curious enough to keep watching. But I think my biggest issue here is the sci-fi elements aren't exciting or thought-provoking to how they might work thanks in part to sci-fi classics Back To the Future, TRON and Star Trek inspiring the tech we have in reality. No shit there's room for more newer sci-fi tech ideas but hologlasses, tech suits, scanable item cards (I liked those) and holograms have all been done and better. The backgrounds are all pretty good. Everything else is just...ehhh.

A shame he got rejected even by Netflix (and that explanation is bullshit, they have assloads of young audience content. What harm could another one do?) and a damn shame he bet the hard way on this crap. If he can take criticism as well as a hard lesson, he should bounce back in due time. Anything and everything has fans.