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Ok, umm... let's just ignore all that for a moment and dedicate some more time to Jay...

(btw It is winter here in AUS, and reaches sub-zero temps quite often... minus 6 is the forcast for tonight here in canberra, I'd be WARMER putting my head in a fridge...LOL)

Ok here is the review:






**********SPOILERS********************










Ok, I've watched this one numerous times now, and I'm writing from hand written notes:


Warm Feedback:

Compostiing: (ie Layers, Masking, Chromakeying)
Ok, now this was just rediculous! To me, these are what really make the film, from the opening scene in the Jedi Council, to the city scenery, underground, in the corridor and then lift, and the duel in the (lava, molten steel?) final region that contributes to the final 'form' of anakin as darth vader.

My personal favourite set was the one with the steps in the background whilst anakin and palpatine were walking and talking.

Customs:
Well, as much as I usually think this level of customisation is EVIL (ie using clay and blutack in a lego film... maybe because I am not prepared to... and a nerdy 'purist'...) they worked fantastically, contributing immensely to the feel that this WAS the star wars universe... there was even one of those weird long neck things out of focus at the jedi council...

Oh and that monster! Cool, and it sounded great as well!

Cinematography:
Zooms, pans, jumps, mutliple angles from the same scene, and my personal favourite, anakin peering over his lightsaber in extreme close-up. Only careful storyboarding and a strong visual understanding of film results in this kind of visual style.

We saw it in The Gauntlet and we see it here... except it is far better.

Lighting:
Where do I start? If the scene was supposed to be during the day, it seemed like daylight, or artificial indoor light, or lighting in underground passages, or that light in a lift, or the type of ambient light you'd expect to see when leaning over, or falling into, a pit of motlen lava or steel. No unwanted shadows (that I have scene as yet), no nasty reflections. Well done.

And just to mention it one more time, the red glowing...awesome.

Star Destroyer Models
Well, I have to say I have gone and just paused this scene over and over to peer at these models. The ULTIMATE in minimalist creations, very few lego bricks, and yet...well... they ARE star destroyers. Damn you Jay! lol. In addition they all follow separate paths that convey a real depth to the scene and a true understanding of 3d rendering and point of view drawing.

Other Effects:
The holographic emporer was excellent. I thought bluntman's was awesome and could not see a better way to do it in lego, until yours (sorry bluntman...). Once again, not only the 'actual' hologram (with flickering, aura and interference) but the way the background movement was matched perfectly to the cam pan past and slightly around the hologram.

Blaster fire was awesome too. Seeing those clone troopers chase them into the lift, and have some blaster fire just creep through and scorch the wall. Excellent. Once again, the angles of fire and speed were excellent.

The pre-x-wing scene: The use of motion blur and lighting excellently disguised the composting in this scene. The movement also accuratley mirrored that which we see in the actual space scenes in starwars films.

Sabers:
Smooth, clear, switching on and switching off look excellent.

Music:
Not much that hasn't been already said, except to reaffirm that the pacing of music is very important and it matched the action exactly.



Cool Feedback

(note: To casual readers of this forum some of this may seem quite picky, but do note that Jay, as well as a number of other people around here, are really pushing the standard of lego films to new heights, if we expect this to improve as a community, then we have to help each other by suggesting where we think/feel improvements can be made in all aspects of a film, and not just be blown away by awesome special effects, cinematography and general production)


Compositing...lack of movement in scenes:
Ok this is not every scene with major composting, but after seeing Bluntman's films where he manages to have movement occuring all the time (whether it be two characters looking at each other quizically while another character talks...MOTBOB...or crazy background animation... MOTFADWEWAR...etc..)
During my second viewing I noticed that very little movement occured in the foreground of the big compositing scenes. For example, the opening scene is a slow zoom of the jedi council with lots of (excellent!) traffic flying by outside... but no movement of the council.
In the senate, it looked awesome at first, but now I see little lego animation and mostly composited movement.
The first time we see Padme and Anakin, no animation! And then compositing of the hand.
The jedi council again at dusk, outside heaps of movement, in the council, no movement.
First shot of the hologram, no movement.

What I am trying to get across is that the Effects disguise the fact that very little is occuring in the main subject areas of this scene. AND if worked WONDERFULLY during the first viewing... but each one after that I think... why didn't Jay add some movement... or was it too hard?

(NOTE: I do realise there are some great scenes where stuff is moving everywhere with composited backgrounds, the lasers and space ship near end, the saber turn and swing in the city near the middle of the film. I'd have loved to see more of this!)

Suggestions: Can you do it Jay? I dare ya. More movement in the foreground, in addition to the background compositing work? Actually, don't try too hard, I may just break down and give up this hobby altogether.


Voice Work/editing:
Not so much a problem with the voices, but with the editing, at times you could really hear the 'pops' in and out of the samples (i think you could in my film too...btw...) but the reason I mention this is that my partner noticed too. IN fact, mostly she just has a look at the lego films and says... ok lego..animation..so what... but she was intrigued by this film and straight away mentioned the pops and clicks...

Suggestions: A bit more care with audio recording, and possible post editing by fading out the last few milliseconds of a cut sample not to nothing, but a faint white noise sample.

Gravity:
During the very first viewing all of the falls looked...err..wrong. Especially when minifigs fell from walls. The acceleration did not seem right. Now I know these characters are on other planets, but even in the films falls due to gravity resemble that of earth. It almost seemed like you sacrificed smoothness of animation for accurate representation of gravity...

Suggestions: I would have used motion blur to smooth the frames, a fall is a fall, and the more realistic, the more exciting/scary.

Sabers:
There were two main problems I had with the saber work:
a) The aura and light source was perfect, too perfect! I will stoop to the low of comparing them to my starwars film, but if you re-watch mine the level of aura and brightness changed from frame to frame, presenting (i feel) a more realistic (if overly fanned ) saber.
And even though my absolutely favourite camera angle is anakin looking over his saber, it just looks STILL... surely there would be somelighting blur, or some movement from the saber here.

b) The motion of the sabers was great, I now see why ppl said there was too much fanning in my sabers, so I congratulate your work, Jay! Now this bit is a picky comment, but I was frustrated by the way the sabers changed shape in an exaggerated way during fast movement (thus they looked like their length was changing dynamically in proportion to speed).

Suggestions: LOL...sorry. Here I am trying to find something to improve upon in a film so awesome that I say the sabers don't flicker enough. So.. ummm... to improve I suggest you employ ILM to do your sabers as that is the only way it seems I'm gonna be happy with them.

Plot/Storyline:
This was certainly the weakest part of the whole trailer.

In choosing to make a trailer for a forthcoming film, it is a challenge to not be too out there, knowing full well actual star wars fans are watching, but then again, to walk down the 'expected' path is a trap as well. I think you chose the hardest path to walk, Jay... and you didn't arrive at the other end too bruised!

I think the problem is that the recent starwars film's dialogues and plots have been pretty, well, uninspiring (everyone knows where they are headed in the long run...) and in mimicing this very accurately you did what starwars seems to do to me these days, be interested in the effects and NOTHING else.

Anakin certainly crossed over to the darkside too easily, and I think you revealed a little too much, no worse than me, and of course it allowed you to play with more animation techniques. I would have (and i guess did) done the same as you in this respect.

In this lead up, what I am saying is that the plot didn't interest me anywhere near as much as in bluntman's or egoless' film. Yes, it is easier to 'make up your own' story, rather than to stay faithful and I applaud you for going down the path knowone else attempted.

Suggestions: ??? I cannot really make suggestions when I was too scared to walk this path myself...

Emotion:
This is a hard and totally subjective one, and thus the easiest of my opinions to ignore:

When I first saw The Gauntlet I could not believe how awesome it was: I showed it to all my friends, discussed it on end, compared pretty every brickfilm to it and still watch it to this day...(in fact, I use it in Class to show budding animators just how to use excellent cinematographic construction (cam angles etc...) to portray EMOTION.

Then came bluntman's starwars trailer. When I first watched this film I actually got goosebumps and that cool tingle down the back of your neck when something amazing is being viewed (the same thing occured to me during the city car chase in EP 2 ). I even got the same feeling the following time I viewed it. Why? I think because I 'cared' for NIVEK. I felt his anger and frustration.

At not one moment during Rise of the Empire did I feel that excitement. Sure, I was blown away and excited by the effects... (WOWOWOWOWOWO!!! at the same time as OH NOOOOOOO!!! damn him... ) but I did not get the same BUZZ as watching that other trailer.

Why: I'm not completly sure, maybe it moved a bit more slowly, maybe because this is where anakin BECOMES vader and I expected that with this film, and the pacing (and quick defection of anakin) did not seem right.

Of course, these are my feelings, and certainly not everyone's...and I'm being ultra picky in direct proportion to how awesome this film is!!




SUMMARY/CONCLUSION
Well! I really had a rip at the end there! And i know I'll edit and fix any typos etc, but I've put more time into this review than any other I have done I think.

Jay, you are amazing. This film is amazing. We are all in awe, and even after I found many things to 'pick' at you really blew all competition way out of the water... in fact, you blew the competition out of the water high enough in altitude so that you could take pot shots (with your accurate and trusty laser blaster) at all of the little viable bits of the competition still left falling towards the surface...

This film has RAISED THE BAR for lego animation. More so than than the recent spite your face productions, and even more than the gauntlet did after what seems like so long ago.

The only thing you need to do now is give us a 'making of' page. Share your new found knowledge and excellent skills with the community...please?

Thankyou for this film.

Nick (hali)