It is obvious the people who gave this flick low reviews have never watched a fan film before. It's not The Force Awakens, which is apparently what the naysayers were looking for, but you won't believe what these people were able to accomplish with fans doing all the acting, production, and absolutely no budget. I found this gem after a soul- crushing run of fan flicks that only reaffirm that the negative reviewers have never watched a fan flick... ever. I was so jaded that the trailer had me convinced they had cherry picked a couple of nice shots out of a bunch of crap, but I watched on and I'm so glad I did. If anything, the trailer showed the mediocre and saved the breathtaking for the film, and yes, some stuff does approach breathtaking.
Yes, there is some chromakey artifacting which I bet wouldn't have been there if they had a RED Epic and a soundstage with tons of expensive lighting, and yes, some of the CGI was a bit simple in places and that could have been fixed with a multi-million dollar render farm. Still, in other places it was rich and vibrant and looked extremely professional and absolutely gorgeous. Some of the sound effects were changed; I don't know if that was for a copyright reason or if they wanted to make a point that it was nearly a century after the fall of the Empire, but who cares - they weren't out of place and were mixed very organically. As a project, it was damn near TV ready in quality, and past that point in several places. If you've ever seen Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, I'd put it on par with it, and those guys went on to produce actual feature films based on that work. It exceeded any fan film I have seen to date by a large margin.
The acting was wooden at times, but these guys weren't actors... they were fans, and you could see their passion showing through. Truthfully, Raven Darkham, Lord Siege and Karus Kahn carried the film quite capably on their own. Lord Siege was deliciously evil... he made Darth Vader's military discipline seem like a motivational speaker who handed out gold stars.
As for the story... it's a young knight, a cocky pilot, an evil guy and a princess... light versus dark in a battle for the galaxy... it doesn't get more core Star Wars than that! The love story was way better than Anakin and Amidala. It was rushed but had that feel of the classic cinematic love story set in the swashbuckling era... which is exactly what it was supposed to be. And there were so many nods to the original, right down to the Wilhelm Scream. I had no problem with the pacing. It established, sped up, let you catch your breath, action, caught your breath... then the finale actually started with something that made my jaw drop and elicited an audible gasp and kicked my tail till the end of the movie. The battle was EPIC and I would put it up against several of the actual movies. The final saber battle was awesome.
My only three complaints are there could have been more humor thrown in, and the space station sequence went from cinematic to hand-held for some reason... but it wasn't enough to detract from my enjoyment.
You do yourself a disservice if you miss this because a bunch of people who don't know what a fan film is would have rather gone to a movie and took it out on this absolute gem of a fan flick. I watched it twice on my own, again with my kids, have it set as a date movie and shared it on Facebook. This flick is frigging amazing and gave me faith in the "fan flick" when it had all but been extinguished. This is a fun ride and I really hope they do a sequel.
Yes, there is some chromakey artifacting which I bet wouldn't have been there if they had a RED Epic and a soundstage with tons of expensive lighting, and yes, some of the CGI was a bit simple in places and that could have been fixed with a multi-million dollar render farm. Still, in other places it was rich and vibrant and looked extremely professional and absolutely gorgeous. Some of the sound effects were changed; I don't know if that was for a copyright reason or if they wanted to make a point that it was nearly a century after the fall of the Empire, but who cares - they weren't out of place and were mixed very organically. As a project, it was damn near TV ready in quality, and past that point in several places. If you've ever seen Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, I'd put it on par with it, and those guys went on to produce actual feature films based on that work. It exceeded any fan film I have seen to date by a large margin.
The acting was wooden at times, but these guys weren't actors... they were fans, and you could see their passion showing through. Truthfully, Raven Darkham, Lord Siege and Karus Kahn carried the film quite capably on their own. Lord Siege was deliciously evil... he made Darth Vader's military discipline seem like a motivational speaker who handed out gold stars.
As for the story... it's a young knight, a cocky pilot, an evil guy and a princess... light versus dark in a battle for the galaxy... it doesn't get more core Star Wars than that! The love story was way better than Anakin and Amidala. It was rushed but had that feel of the classic cinematic love story set in the swashbuckling era... which is exactly what it was supposed to be. And there were so many nods to the original, right down to the Wilhelm Scream. I had no problem with the pacing. It established, sped up, let you catch your breath, action, caught your breath... then the finale actually started with something that made my jaw drop and elicited an audible gasp and kicked my tail till the end of the movie. The battle was EPIC and I would put it up against several of the actual movies. The final saber battle was awesome.
My only three complaints are there could have been more humor thrown in, and the space station sequence went from cinematic to hand-held for some reason... but it wasn't enough to detract from my enjoyment.
You do yourself a disservice if you miss this because a bunch of people who don't know what a fan film is would have rather gone to a movie and took it out on this absolute gem of a fan flick. I watched it twice on my own, again with my kids, have it set as a date movie and shared it on Facebook. This flick is frigging amazing and gave me faith in the "fan flick" when it had all but been extinguished. This is a fun ride and I really hope they do a sequel.