BROKEN ALLEGIANCE
creators' Web site
Web site for downloading @ TheForce.Net

review written 2/22/2003

This film's trailers led to high expectations. And it didn't disappoint.

We start with an opening crawl which doesn't look perfect (or read perfectly), but after that crawl, we pan down to… something that'll make you crap your pants.

I cannot say enough good things about the space scenes in this film. They are simply gorgeous, not just in terms of looking right, but looking stylish. It's not merely a matter of photo-realism. Look at the colors! (I especially love colors.) The composition! Only one space battle beats what we see here, and that's ROTJ's.

The fun doesn't stop when we see 'real' people either. Paul Hooper and Niobe Dean (pause for swooning) aren't just plotzed in office chairs, they've got red lights on their faces and they're shaking. When they engage in the time-honored ritual of screaming about crap on the spaceship all blowin' up and stuff, I feel their tension. These are trained actors, yes, but even trained actors complain of working with weird stuff like sci-fi dialogue and the dreaded bluescreen. Hooper and Dean make it work.

Now let's face it. Nick Hallam and pals had a little bit more in the way of resources and money and education than the average fan filmmaker. So I'm going to shut my mouth about the great effects and production values for a bit, and point out what the BA boys did right that you can too.

Let's talk about Niobe Dean's hair. I'm serious. How is that ponytail wrapped? That's not a twelve-cent scrunchie from the corner store. It might be something they bought off the shelf, though. Or it might be a custom-made prop, one that I can't imagine is very hard to fabricate. The point is that someone thought to take the time and put her hair in something you might find in the Star Wars universe of cool stuff. (Note: I first noticed this prop in the long dialogue scene starting at 8:20, which is not exactly the best-written or best-acted scene in the bunch, so... well, let's just say they should have tried to shorten it. Moving on.)

What's that healing stick thingy that gets whipped out at 11:30? Someone had to think of that. I never saw that in a fan film before.

I have seen lightsaber duels, of course. And this has one, a very good one. The sabers look great, the choreography is neat. The "clothesline" move at 13:57 had me giggling in appreciation. The fact that Korbain Thor had invented a little "gunsaber" was very cool. The "wrong species" joke—funny, funny stuff, and BA got there well before Men in Black II!

And 15:08... I don't want to spoil it, which makes it hard to talk about. But WHAT a surprise. (For now, let's call it "pie throwing".) We've seen pie throwing before. And the pie throwing was in both cases precipitated by a line, a glance, a pose—something to alert you to the fact that something big was coming. Neither the Star Wars movies, nor (to my knowledge) any fan films had ever had a character just pick up the pie and throw it without any warning.

This takes imagination.

15:08 alone could make up for a lot of flaws. And there are flaws. I don't like how in the duel someone seems to die every thirty seconds, and the bait-and-switch tactic later takes too damn long... and why the building of suspense on "Show me your face" when the audience KNOWS who's wearing the helmet?

Most irritating of all (in my view) is the original music. Which is wonderful! The music itself is not the problem! But it does not seem to mix well with the John Williams music—it seems muffled, quiet, dull in comparison. The pie throwing (you know what I'm talking about) music in particular seems to be running out of breath. Were there problems in recording, or mixing?

Still. Don't worry. Believe the hype. Download this film now, and be sure to watch alllll the way to the end of the credits for something that will make you happy.

(No, not Niobe Dean as Jabba's slave girl.)