Star Wars: Threads of Destiny

First the good news. The storyline is excellent. The music is excellent. The outer space shots are excellent. The chicks are gorgeous Swedes. Unfortunately there is only one good actor in the flick. That's the guy who plays the Sith Lord. I suppose playing a bad guy does a give an actor more meat to chew on.

The guys playing Jedi both had the most annoying habit I have ever seen in a film. They walk about in nearly every scene with their hands clasp together in front of them. They appear as if they're covering or supporting their dangly bits. Someone should have yelled HANDS at them every time they did it. I can't think of habit I've seen an actor have in a film that was more irritating. These folks are stoic Swedes acting in this film so they have little energy or charisma. It's not their fault. That's just the way they are. If another movie gets made by the same crew I would recommend requiring the male actors to shave daily. Having a few days of beard on the face of every male that's old enough to grow a beard is not becoming. If you ever use that king again, get him a crown. He might clean up nicely with a shave and a crown.

From there I'm afraid things get a little worse. As a photographer I was constantly annoyed by the lighting and cinematography. For some reason the light was constantly spilling over into the scene around the edges. Nearly every scene had haze and smoke and fog for no apparent purpose. That constant light spilling in from the edges coupled with the particles of fog and smoke or whatever it was made many scenes blurry which is to say pretty awful. Many scenes appeared to have been shot through glass that had reflections on it's surface.

Still, when all is said and done, I enjoyed the movie. It was apparently the herculean efforts of one guy and a few other people. They are to be commended for the efforts. I hope they make another film and get better acting, lighting and cinematography.

For an amateur Fan Film this is top notch. The special effects are well done, though the same problem most fan films have shine through in the story and acting. It hits upon the clichés, and by the numbers, and the actors come across more than a little stunted, sounding a bit more like Live Action Roleplayers (LARPers).

For all that I stayed with it through the whole thing, which is actually pretty impressive. The acting, as it was, and story were at least if not better than Episodes 1 and 2. I'd really enjoy seeing something like this done by some passionate people willing to push new boundaries instead of the normal Star Wars tropes.

This is going to be a mixture of pros and cons; no spoilers. I came across it by accident while searching something else on YouTube, came here and read the reviews (love to hate). I was 20 in 1977 so I saw the 1st (a.k.a. 4th) Lucas Star Wars movie when it debuted and many times after.

Is this anywhere near the insight and writing skill of George Lucas...no. Is it the best fan film (and I've probably seen about 50- 60), yes. The "Summary" line says I want to look at 2 things; movie and reviews.

The script is a combination of concepts of scenes from all 6 films (the 7th hadn't come out at the time I wrote this). While the dialog wasn't taken from the original movies, the themes for most of the movie were. I won't say which ones. Just see the movie. However there have been multiple reviews that make it seem like the writer is stealing from the original. Now the counterpoint: this is a movie about an ancient order (think back...you got it, the Jedi Knights, steeped in custom and tradition). While the writer uses concepts from the original films, why shouldn't he? If this is an ancient order than changing the rules would be bad script writing. Yes the dialog could have been snappier in MANY places but the writer did, as Lucas did in the 2nd 3 installments, keep the rules of the Jedi order constant. They WOULDN'T change over time. So while he should take a writing class to learn to give a script a better flow, he stayed loyal to the ideas of Star Wars.

Something that I couldn't believe as I read this were a comments about the fact that the actors had accents. It leads me to believe that these reviewers might never have seen the original movies; perhaps books on tape. LOL Does anyone recall one or two scenes from ANY of the Star Wars movies? How about the admiral on Vader's command ship? Anyone remember him (before Vader used the force and killed him) he had a few lines as did his subordinates (one of whom was later promoted). And then there was Tarkin (Commander of the death star, etc. played by Peter Cushing), of course let's not forget a couple other minor characters. They would be Alec Guinness and Anthony Daniels. I think they played Obi-Wan and 3P0. Guess what they all had in common? ACCENTS! Why this was even mentioned I can't imagine. And to suggest they take diction lessons. Talk about absurd.

Back to the film. Let's address special effects which people seem again to like or find endless criticism of. I've done computer animation for several large advertising campaigns; concept to sitting at a computer and creating. Was the green screen perfect? I agree with many of you and the answer is no. But would I criticize it to the degree I've seen here...you guess the answer to this one. Just to do a still shot of something against a green screen is an art in just lighting the screen correctly let alone putting moving characters in front of it (and I mean even the slightest move). The fact that this was started in 2005 and is complete is amazing! Having done this work I saw every imperfection there was and probably more than most because it was my business so I know what to look for. BUT, it's a fan film with relatively no budget. Even with the software that was available in 2005 for home or small commercial use they pushed it to its absolute limits so for that alone it should be appreciated. And for the people who commented that this was really a special effects movie, ever seen the behind-the-scenes documentaries of the original Star Wars. Lucas did the same thing only he had a movie studio budget behind him. He wasn't creating his animations on a variety of PCs/Macs/small commercial workstations or whatever they used for this film. And if you think the original Star Wars CGI was amazing I could point out about 100 artifacts (computer image glitches) in Lucas' 1st film alone and it's my personal favorite because it started the whole thing. When people write reviews criticizing an art form, they really should do a little research before "opening mouth and inserting foot". I agree this movie was far from perfect but at least know what you are writing about before making a comment.

Will they make another movie? I actually hope so. Did it have faults? Plenty. Was it an amazing effort? Absolutely. And to all the "arm- chair" critics: a well thought out critique is a pleasure to read. Good or bad in regards to what is being reviewed they can be valuable and might help people from wasting their time. But, there's the key. Know what you're talking about. And regarding the fact that a Swedish person might have a Swedish accent (sorry, you still get a DUH on that one) you neglected to point out which version of English, you as an expert, feel they should be speaking. Did you wish a proper English accent (as in, from England), an American dialect? Just using those 2 countries alone, how many dialectic variations are there? Either country, you have recognizable and very different dialects: north, south, east, west, central region of either country. Who decides?

To people reading this, by now you have probably guessed that about 1/3 of this review is about the fan film. If you are a true Star Wars fan you will probably enjoy it once (you may not want to watch it 1,000 times like the Lucas films but you'll probably enjoy it). The summary of the film here on IMDb is accurate (again, not giving any spoilers). Read what the critics/reviewers have to say with a "grain of salt" and form your own opinions. Enjoy.

If you want to be impressed by special effects on-the-cheap, then this is the movie for you. Provided you watch less than 10-minutes of it. Otherwise, the writing is pedestrian at best and atrocious at worst. The acting isn't much better.

However, I could have stomached that if the editing had been tight. Unfortunately, the pacing is set to the speed of poured molasses. The creators needed to cut about 40% of the material they presented.

At the end of the day, this is just a hot mess of self-love. I wouldn't be shocked if the creators thought they were making the next great epic Star Wars story. Instead, they've just emphasized that if you were good enough to make a great movie, you wouldn't be making fan-fiction.

For a fan film, this is a huge undertaking I bet. I found it not so well executed, as the acting, directing, screenplay, script are mostly amateuristic. The audio was fairly nice and the CGI is jumping out as the classy aspect of this movie. Impressive, really. The blue-key was not properly applied and it shows, badly.

We see a Jedi master, kind of Obi wan, and the prodigy, kind of like Anakin. Throughout the film there are lots of scenes and lines that look very familiar. It seems this film is more like a tribute, re-hashing bits from the originals, stitched together with a story around a truly naive princess.

Also some action scenes were fairly nicely done, where one can see they had to make do with little equipment. Conclusion: not all was that bad. I was slightly entertained, but the big damper is the lack of consistency. I just couldn't just go with it you know. The only way to watch this and properly enjoy it, is to be a true Star Wars fan.

Key to understanding this movie is not to compare it with big budget studio productions