Official BROKEN ALLEGIANCE comments thread

Quite simply:

I liked it!

 

If and when Azeem can post a smaller verison of it you better be sure I'd be a happy camper.
Well done!

H. Gibbens huh? Couldn't have found a better person for the modelling job than that!
I've drooled over his 'Sacrifices' short for almost three years now.

Man this is shaping up to be a stellar spring with both Spiderman and AOTC coming out and seeing Blade 2 man o man this is well up there with first class entertainment.
Well worth the download...

 

Broken Allegiance is overall a winner. Its just as good as KnightQuest and Seeds of Darkness.. of course I still think these movies are missing alot of things..for one length and a well developed story. Of course I guess no one wants to bust out a real blockbuster, even though it seems like some of these players have potential. The movie was great for a short fanfilm. Everything that I dont say.. is good about the film.. everything i do say is what I'm picky about the film on. Such as the lightsaber fight. Man for watching the behind the scenes footage i thought it'd be alot more intense... the fight was to repetitive.. believe me i watched it in slow mo over and over. And it did that whole bologna thing again where a guys fighting one person and doesn't get attacked by the second person at the same time. Its like they made an escape from a two on one fight each time it was seem to be getting there. Like there'd be a kick to a face to one person so they'd fall back. Even worse is they got lightsabers marching right toward the enemy.. yet they get kicked in the face. Another thing i gotta atleast whine about is the music. I agree with one of the previous post.. it did sound high schooly. It reminded me of my high school band.. where you hear the brass kick in in some ackward time that sounds like a scratch.. err. Well i think the orchestra could of pulled off the original music better. I could whine about little things like bounter hunters exageration on being well mean.. chill off and be cool. And the idea he lives... we need to see a sequel cause i wanna know what happens to the two jedi and why they dont show up to help luke or why this bounter hunter didnt get assigned to capture Han Solo. I still like the movie alot. Cause well its one of the better ones out there. Great job guys.. sorry about whining. It aint my movie. Come to think of it... i dont have one. When i make one you guys can tell me off about mine. Cool beans. Peace

 

I just watched the film again as I wanted to give it a proper review.

All in all, it's a really good movie. Entertaining from beginning to end, and it had the one thing that all Star Wars flicks should have: diversity. It had drama, romance, action, suspense, and some good old humor. "Wrong species"...gets me every time.

I didn't have many problems with the movie that haven't covered already. One thing I noticed, and this is real minor, was that the accents of the two leads slipped in and out. But hey, they did great jobs in this movie that I really didn't care.

I liked this flick alot. The CG was excellent and the design was amazing. I loved the exploding structure at the beginning. Very cool stuff.

So yep...I like Broken Allegiance alot, and hope that the makers aren't too burned out that they can't make a sequel, cuz man...it is SO ready for one.

Peace Out,

Mark "The Admiral" Rosenthal

 

I will be honest, by the end of the film I felt a bit disappointed. It had nothing to do with the film not being great, but it didn?t meet the expectations I personal had. The acting, special effects, sound, cinematography, and costume design were all excellent! The areas I felt disappointed in were the light saber fights, and the story line (Darth Vader having apprentices). The idea of the bounty hunter taking his helmet off for know apparent reason also bothered me. Overall this film shows the enormous talents and hard work of many people. Thank you for your wonderful contribution to the fan film universe.

 

Wow... I finally registerd for no other reason than to post a review! That's gotto say something.

Uhh, anyway, yeah. Broken Allegiance.

There have been 4 fan films that I have looked foward too. So far it's been a hit or miss procewss. I've liked two of the 4, disliked two of the four.

I disliked The Dark Redemption and Knight Quest. Total let downs.

I REALLY REALLY like Duality and Broken Allegiance.

I have nothing bad to say about Broken Allegiance other than the CGI was a bit "so-so." I know a lot of animators and some of the stuff they put out is amazing. This was good (and the tunnel stuff was clever), but it looked like 3D animation.

Other effects were great.

Sabre fight was interesting, although not as good as, lets say, Duality or A Question of Faith (which I saw for the first time last week!).

The Bounty Hunter was cool. "Wrong spiceis!" Great line.

The apprentices were nice and the girl was believable.

Antonio Banderes (only Llama fans will get that) was good as well, but for the love of God, NEVER get a Kiwi to do an American accent! It just doesn't work!

The officers were great!

Music transition were good, but it was too low to make an impact on me.

Other than that, it was fantastic. Very much worth the download and lived up the hype (unlike KnightQuest).

BYE

 

Wow, you guys do get nit-picky. I'm almost afraid to release The Soft Drink Menace now. Gosh, if you can nit-pick all that about BA, I can't image what you guys would say about my fanfilm...yikes...ha ha.

Well, about the film. GREAT STUFF. I won't nitpick about anything, because hey, I can't do any better! No body here can do any better, so don't let it get to ya. You guys did a fabulous job with the acting, effects (should have had me on the effects crew *wink*), music, everthing. Which reminds me, WHY IN THE WORLD ARE YOU GUYS NITPICKING THE ORIGINAL SCORE? I'd like a show of hands of how many people here have an original score....hummm??? Lord Rive, yep, anyone else besides Lord Rive? Yep, that's what I thought. The music was fantastic. I was mainly looking at the effects though. The Soft Drink Menace is nothing but an effects show with minimal story line. So, you guys should be proud. It was a good story and very well done. I'm so glad that your actors didn't suck. Cause I know a lot of fanfilm where the acting sucks. MINE, for one...ha ha. Anyway, good job.

 

I don't know as most people had a problem with the score itself, so much as the transitions between the old, classic WIlliams material at the beginning, and the new, original score created for this film.

I think BA gets big props for going to the lengths required for creating an original score, and I (as well as others) would very much like to have the music converted to MP3 files for separate listening, but I also feel it's hard to beat out one of the best contemporary composers alive today.

 

Congratulations Nick and crew, Broken Allegiance was fantastic!!

-tm

 

over all BA is really good. so of the best cg in a fan film i've seen. great acting , great story. i know everyone is going to pick this thing to death and i would to but this is a fan film. I think it's an acomplishment when one of these thing get finished. most of them are done on a shoe string buget and come on the film maker can't even make money off of it. So to all fan film/video makers keep them coming.

 

I just had to say the following:

Well done I loved it

 

OK, first of all, I liked Broken Allegience VERY much. In fact it's now my favourite Star Wars fan film, and there's nothing more to say here. So, on with the criticism! Don't take it personally though...

Of all fan films this one has the best visuals I have seen so far. Nevertheless there are a few questions I have, and a few problems I noticed. I'll start with the questions. What software did you use for the CG? What software did you use for compositing? I noticed you used some stock-footage explosions, and some self-made FX. Did you use "Illusion" for it? It sometimes felt like it.

OK, now some problems I saw. The main problem (though it's not a problem that makes the film any bad, I HAVE to stress that) are the different looks of the different CG-types, like space-CG, CG-bluescreen-backgrounds and CG inserted into real footage. For our fan film I'm trying to keep the look consistent, though I'm not sure if I can manage to do that. I'm not really sure, what the problem is, but I guess it's something about the lighting. There are some exceptional scenes though, like Korban's ship landing on the planet, or the damaged ship of our two heroes in one of the establishment-shots.

Concerning the chase-sequence... let me say D'Arrrgghh... our film will have one too, but now it won't be that original any more. But I will try to do better (again, not sure if I could do that ). The problem in this sequence is the speed. The transporter has an adequate speed, I think, but the TIEs are WAY too slow... especially when one of them gets hit and tumbles towards the camera. Comparing it to the asteroid-field sequence from TESB makes the TIEs feel a little too heavy.

I know bluescreen shots are very hard, I'm fighting with them myself right now. I'm not sure what to do about the problem with partially transparent parts. It's really a hell of tweaking.

OK, I hope you're taking this as constructive criticism and curiosity about how you did the stuff you did. I really liked it, and I'm really looking forward to a sequ... uhm, I mean... well, get some free time. You deserve it.

GREAT WORK, GUYS & GALS!

 

"Vader's gesticulations didn't seem to go with the voice"

So they kept it authentic

Pixel - Rive had an original score?!

I didn't even notice the music that people keep picking up on, except during the credits. Am I deaf, or am I surrounded by a load of fan-boys who have watched it 6 times already

Jedi-Jewel - Yep, I think you're an airhead, but you're definately one of us

(I think that worked well, not too obvious...)

Pete

 

Here we go, Halibut's official review

First of all - great film. loads of brilliant plot twists (I'm assuming spoilers are no longer needed judging by the amount of people that have now posted here). Most of my nitpicks are just that - teeny little things, but nonetheless, things I noticed after the first time watching

First of all - music (my big love)
Brilliant job on the score, Rich. Damned good all around. The thing that bugged me was the use of the Imperial March in one of the scenes. For me it just took away from the originality of the rest of the score. Without that, you could probably have sold the music, but I'm not sure you can now. Also, I don't think JW was sufficiently credited at the end, seeing as you used some original tracks from SW. The London Symphony Orchestra should also have been credited.

Right, now let's go through the film

Opening crawl. Possible grammar here. "The pair has" or "The pair have"? I would have gone for "have" myself.

I thought it was a shame that the female lead got irrational and emotional on the ship when she used the comm system. It just seemed a little "stereotypical" Her character had always seemed stronger than that.

Later on in the transport ship, one of the lines bugged me "Vader was lucky to avoid execution from the Emperor". I can't see that being the case. Palpy would never have killed Vader for that. It would have been Tarkin's fault, and he'd already paid the price

There were a few glitches on the rotoscoping of the still lightsabers. The blade seemed to "lag behind" the movement of the hilt. No biggie

The "force push" was amazing. Brilliant work

When the female lead used the force to get her saber back for the first time, it looked as though the shot was played backwards and sped up too

"Wrong Species". Nope. didn't do it for me at all. Too reminiscent of Star Trek VI. I appreciate the need to inject a little humour at some places, but I don't think this was the time. It seemed "out of place"

Force Lightning. Fantastic. completely took me by surprise. By this time, I'd forgotten that the pair were trained as Sith, so this was cool

It was brilliant (though unrealistic!) that the Imperial Officer wouldn't recognise the people he was sent down to capture, but done very nicely all the same.

And the fact that the pair weren't on the shuttle at the end was absolutely inspired, although I've got NO idea how they managed to convince the officer to betray himself when they're not even there is beyond me!

The shot after the credits - Is it just me, or did he look like he was wearing a gimp costume!

All in all, a fantastic film. Outstanding music, effects. The story is brilliantly crafted and totally engaging. I'd love to find out what happens to these two. Will they join the rebellion or not?

A great job all round

Hal "I" But

 

i think the whole "vader was lucky to escape execution" was from something said in one of the novels. the only way vader got out of execution was because of the way he felt the force in luke

 

Someone has expressed concern that I "spent more time nit-picking than in awe over what an amazing film it is"

This was not my intention. This is one of the best films I have seen to date, but you can only say "I love it" so many times!

Hey, I'm MAJORLY critical when it comes to films, and if I'm struggling to find things to say like "Should it be 'has' or 'have'" then you know you've got a damned good film on your hands!

 

Awesome!! Sometimes the easiest way to decide whether a movie is good or not is basically if you enjoyed it. Obviously I enjoyed BA very much!! Great job Nick and Co!!

 

First of all, THANK YOU VIDMAN AND EVERYONE ELSE INVOLVED IN BA!!!
The tremendous amount of time, effort and dedication that you all put into this project has produced one of the best FanFilms released to date! Absolutely FANTASTIC work.

On a side note...
I sometimes get into conversations with non-die-hard SW fans that have never heard of Fan Films. I usually recommend to them what I consider my own little "A" list of films that I feel could be enjoyed by anyone, and are representative of the best this genre has to offer. The list has included only Troops, Duality, and Dark Skies. For me, this list has now grown to include BA.

As it has been said many times, the CG, acting, score and FX were all very good, but for me the element that really sets this film apart from ANY other is the combination of an engaging, complete, yet compact plot, that fit precisely into the running time of the film. From the perfectly executed opening crawl ([nit-pick] though the proper names, like DARTH VADER, should have been in all caps[/nit-pick]) to the very last line of the film, every word, action and shot had a purpose and belonged exactly where it appeared and carried the story forward. Excellent duplication of the "economy in story-telling" style that Lucas used in the original ANH. I think there are several fan films today that are comparable, or better, in terms of CG/FX, acting, music, etc., but I really can't think of anything out right now that has a plot this deep, with so many twists, turns and surprises, and, at the same time, consistently maintained the story's pace through out the film. Fantastic!

With all that said, here is PadawanNick's bullet list review....

The Great!
- Opening crawl: Sounds simple, but I was actually skeptical of the concept of Vader having apprentices, let alone that they would ultimately "break allegiance" with him, but the opening crawl totally set up the story for me. Great Job.
- Plot: I've already gushed about this, but again, Just Fantastic! So many surprises! So many twists. So many great, believable characters. Just great writing all around. (I'm still taken back by the ending. Just when I was thinking, "Ah, what a cool film." you sneak one last, subtle surprise. Totally unexpected, and at the same time, a perfect fit.)
- Direction/Editing: I never once "noticed" a shot. There are many fan films where a shot lingers too long, or is too quick or has some tick in it that such I forget the story for a moment and think about the shot itself. That never happened when I watch BA. Great job.
- Costumes: There are so many costumes in this film, and every single one is top notch. Easily the best collection of costumes in any fan film.
- Casting: Every character, (and there are a lot of them!) was well matched with an appropriate performer. There wasn't a single instance where a performer looked out of place with their roll. Very nicely done.

The Good:
- CG, acting, score, and effects:
With films like KQ, Duality (with original score), SoD, and Dark Skies already released, none of these elements was particularly "better than the best". ALL of these however, are far better than what is typically seen in amateur films, especially when you consider that they all came in the same package.
- Sets: Very cool. Especially the live pyro used in the transport cockpit. Honestly, IMO, the construction wasn't particularly impressive beyond the fact that so much effort was put into creating them, but the CG enhancements!! especially the various video displays!! These take the sets to a whole new level for fan films. Well done!
- Fights & Choreography: Very well done. Not too flashy, well paced, some "dirty" fighting thrown in and great camera work to show the emotions of the characters.

The not-so-good:
(These are purely intended as constructive thoughts for the BA team and other aspiring film makers (like me). I'm trying not to nit-pick, but rather just mention a few things that detracted a bit from my first viewing of the film)
- Sound engineering: There were a co

 

I dissagree with you halibut I think there should have been more usage of the Imperial March in the Fan Film. Darth Vader had a big role as well as the Empire it'self the March should of been put to good use. I guess a have always been a bit anal about the usage of Star Wars theme is Fan Films. I think they should be used more often.

Ronald C

 

Well, I certainly have to say that I am impressed with most of the reviews posted thus far. For the most part, you have all communicated your opinions in a very respectful and constructive manner.

Albeit, there have been a few of you who have thrown daggers at a couple of other films in comparison, which didn't really seem necessary (i.e. "X film and Y film .... total let downs")

Despite the few somewhat disprespectful comments, the overriding fact remains that everyone has his/her opinions, likes and dislikes when it comes to FanFilms. I am actually on the same page with halibut when he indicates that he is "ultra critical" when it comes to reviewing films. I am generally the same way ... although I endeavor to keep in mind the entertainment aspect that a film represents as it's overriding purpose.

On the whole, it appears that most everyone is generally impressed and congratulatory of Nick Hallam and his crew for the hard work they all put into this project. The comments/suggestions made have been, for the most part, constructive and respectful of Nick's efforts.



The Forum has come a long way in three years.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing where the next three will lead.




JediTAC

 

JediTAC is right

My definition of a good film (Hollywood at least) is one I would be happy to pay to see a 2nd time.

With BA, even though I only have a 56k modem, I would be happy to download it a second time, so yes, it was a brilliant film

From the perfectly executed opening crawl ([nit-pick] though the proper names, like DARTH VADER, should have been in all caps[/nit-pick])

I believe it was only ANH that had any capitalised words in the opening crawl

 

As a nobody with no experience and no right to be a critic of this film, I would like to give you a fanfilm-fans review.

I've seen much much much worse films made for TV. Anyone ever see an NBC Miniseries? ;-)

For a FanFilm, this was a 9.9 out of 10 in my opinion. Simply fantastic.

The attention to detail was amazing. When the bounty hunter was searching through his database of planets I was blown away at the detail! Everywhere I looked there was something going on and it all looked like it should have been there.

The cockpit sets were perfect. I was very very impressed. That is not even strong enough. I was BLOWN OUT OF MY SOCKS!

The CGI chase scene was amazing overall. There were times that it felt like a Space Sim computer game, but then it would improve. I guess what I am saying is that you had mixed quaility of 3D vehicles within the same shot. Some looked on par with an Lucas created film, while others looked like a video game. There was also an effect where fire was supposed to shoot out of a tube (trying not to spoil things) and it didn't look as realistic as it could have. But again, I'd like you to understand that I realize it is a FanFilm and it can't all be up to my standards.

I didn't really like the story much though. I have my own opinions about how things work in the Star Wars universe, and when things go against my beliefs, I reject them.

The sith work in pairs. There are only two. A master and an apprentice. The way I feel about it is that if the apprentice dies, the master finds and trains a new one. If these guys were being trained by Vader, that would throw this whole idea out of wack. You'd have the Emp:Master Vader:Appren:Master and the two main characters Appren:Appren.. huh? This is the same problem I had with Duality. Two apprentices??
I could be wrong in the way the system works, but this is how I view it and therefore I had to reject the characters at the get go.
The acting had its moments. These are not professional actors and it is obvious. For a Fanfilm, they were great! But if I had to sit though two hours of them I'd never rent the movie. But it is and was to be expected. Even Attack of the Clones has bad acting. Hayden Christensen is a bad actor. In the trailer when he says something like "I'm in charge of Security m'lady" I just shake my head and wonder where George finds these people. And why he keeps them. Horrid. Your actors are no worse then he is an he was paid a lot of money I bet.

Laser bolts in the chase scene felt really slow. Especially comming from the super star destroyer. The Tie-Fighters felt slow too.

The light saber duel was very slow and .. gosh, I just didn't like it at all. It seemed like they practiced hitting each others sticks and not trying to hit each others bodies. When saber meets saber, it is supposed to be to intercept a blade before it strikes flesh. But the whole fight seemed to be "lets see how artistically we can hit eachothers blades" and it didn't go over well with me.

The music lurches from the opening crawl into the opening sequence. Just lurches. And as someone also pointed out previously it lurches from the last scene into the end credits.

I gave this film a 9.9 out of 10. And I meant it. It is very very good! How can I say that after all the negative things I just said? Because in context, it IS amazing. I am simply pointing out the things that in MY unprofessional and inexperienced opinion would make it of equal quality to a high budget production and not a fanfilm. Keeping that in mind, it is the best of the best.

 

Thanks for everyone's great words of support and praise. I am incredibly gratified, along with all the rest of the BA cast and crew, that the reaction to the film has been so positive.

BA was truly a team effort and congrats to all the people that worked on it.

The sucess of the film is the result of a lot of hard work from a lot of dedicated people and we are all wrapped with the final result.

Thanks again.

 

I thought it was set up that the two 'heroes' were not Sith, just trained in the Jedi arts.

Pete

 

Hayden Christensen is a bad actor?

Man...I KNEW them Golden Globe nominations were all a sham...

Peace Out,

Mark "The Admiral" Rosenthal