A DECEPTION OF THE FORCE
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review written 5/9/2003

There was an awful lot of pre-release drama about this, which resulted in a fair amount of buzz. It's all about the buzz, and there's no such thing as bad publicity. That said, anticipations were pretty high based off a few trailers and a very spiffy-looking Web site.

I gotta say, as I downloaded the film, I was excited.

The "long time ago" and the SW logo look pretty darn good, among the best I've ever seen in a fan film. (Please don't let them have been just ripped from the movie!)

The crawl... okay, "Episode III.V"? Sorry, but I can't stand it when fan films give themselves Episode numbers to sound cool, and III.V just reads like something you'd see in a comedy. I also wasn't impressed with the typography—the body text is freakin' huge. And five paragraphs? I wonder how long this crawl would be if it was spaced correctly.

But nice fade. And a nice pretty blue planet. And a very classy dip to white bringing us to a tilt down as our film begins in earnest. Has ADOTF recovered from its stumble?

A forest. Uh-oh. Actually, the ADOTF team seems to revel in their forest, giving us some beauty shots of nature. I like the winding, twisting, wiry trees. They seem kind of spacey. We're told this is Yavin 4 in the crawl, and I buy that. It looks like Yavin.

The next location impresses me even more. I like the rocks. (How often do you write that in a review?) The beautiful formations, the weird flatness. They look more-than-sufficiently Yaviny.

Gotta dig chicks with lightsabers, too.

"Clones," says our Jedi hero Tha-Sau. ADOTF has told its story without dialogue for over four and a half minutes. This is a commendable achievement, although admittedly there's not much story to tell.

I really like this location, trees be damned. These are some great rocks. I'm not so thrilled with the guy in the black-and-purple outfit who looks to me like he was lifted from some cheap Japanese cartoon. I like the music used to introduce the camoflauge-clad character.

Another line is spoken, two minutes after the first. I'll say this for ADOTF, it does its best to avoid the fan film pitfall of poor dialogue. Unfortunately, I'm not getting much of a sense of the characters.

When characters do meet and talk, I get a sense of what ADOTF is trying to do visually and from its screenplay. This is a Jedi Western. The lone sheriff, the long shots of the untamed wild. Men of few words. I wish I'd paid more attention to film class lectures about Westerns so I could elaborate more, but this is definitely the vibe I'm getting.

And what do you know, a little gunplay, right on time.

When we meet the bounty hunter (another Western staple), he has a very cool scope, and nice makeup pattern, and a weapon that suffice to say we don't get to see much of in fan films. I can't say I think much of his acting—he seems to be talking more to himself than his prey—but his action figure would sell well. Gotta love the seamless effect on the scope.

A familiar spaceship pops up (not telling you which) in another seamless effect. It's these kinds of effects—unannounced ones—that people forget are sometimes more fun than the inevitable lightsaber duel.

Yes, this film has its share of saber play, which I'm not going into, because it's nothing special. Actually, the most interesting saber work is at 18:35, when Tha-Sau passes between two rocks (yes, more rocks) with his saber thrust ahead. It's composition, not fancy fighting. That's what it's all about.

The ending (no spoilers from me, sorry) feels a little false but at least is interesting. I like the tilt up that matches the introduction to the planet we received earlier. Yes, the fact that the sky looks white instead of blue is sort of irritating, but it also matches the dip to white mentioned earlier.

And then horrible typography for the credits. Good Lord.

There's no 'director of photography' per se on this film, so I'll give director Wes Young the points for the best elements of this production. There is some excellent framing and camera work. The technical proficiency doesn't end there—the sound is crisp and clear and the effects range from passable to excellent.

This is a solidly made piece of work. I can't say it moved me, but when the worst thing I have to say about a flick is my usual string of complaints about fonts, you gotta figure it's worth taking a glance at.