THE RENDARIAN BACKLASH
Web site

Read an interview with writer-director-etc. Jeff Cole

review written 2/24/2003

The title of this film impressed me. Possibly more so than any other title ever. Okay, I couldn't picture a Star Wars movie with this title, but certainly a novel or comic book. It fit well. (And now I've got an idea for a spoof about post-production woes... The Rendering Backlash. But I digress.) The film weighs in at about half an hour, which is impressive as well.

The crawl is not very well-made and hard to read, though it leads into an interesting space sequence. I really liked how the standard music was interrupted, completely out of the blue, by voices and shooting. The space sequence also has some nice shots of ships pouring out of the Death Star and circling around. And I like hearing the disconnected voices during the battle—it conveys chaos. I just wish the ships didn't move so slowly.

We get to the planet. There's one shot where a CGI element looks good, one where it doesn't. Then—the funky yellow building. Hey, it's not a bad location, actually. Fits in well with the OT style of spartan design. What is it really—a library, a university? Much like in Legacy of the Jedi, it's an obviously Earth building that still works for the task at hand.

At 5:04 we see a lightsaber used for something I don't see it used for much.

When the camera stops panning at 6:04 we're left with an interesting composition. Once again, the filmmakers take advantage of their location.

Then the music abruptly cuts out, and we get some less-than impressive CGI biker scouts zooming past another location I was impressed with. (Those biker scouts should have been left in the distance.)

Then a scene with some interesting colors—shadows against reds, oranges, blues. When it ends, I notice another fade-to-black. Is it my imagination, or does this movie have a lot of those, more so than Star Wars typically does? Just an observation.

There's little specific to discuss in this first of three chapters that this movie is divided into for downloading. There's a nice scene in a grassy area with some well-done CGI (the CGI only works in this film when the objects are far away). And then a scene that's obviously some dude's living room. I mean, come on, there's a lamp in the shot!

Time to open up the second QuickTime file. I realize that thus far this film's been decent enough to not make me mention the fact that the files I'm watching are all squished so everyone seems short and stunted. Yes, it's unfortunate that this had to happen. But the fact the film doesn't open on people makes this less jarring.

The second QuickTime file opens with one minute and thirty-six seconds of dialogue-free non-action scenes. (Then out come some lightsabers.) But I liked how the material preceding it was entirely visual. Not in terms of effects. Just telling a story with what you saw. Let us not forget that film is a visual medium...

It's more than four minutes into this file that an actual conversation happens. (Why this conversation has to use "freakin'" is beyond me.) Then comes another conversation in a space defined almost entirely in yellows and browns (which is not meant to imply a toilet).

I don't think more than a minute of the ten-minute file is dialogue-laden. George Lucas would be proud. Let's face it, many fan films don't work well with dialogue—the speaking of it, the acting of it, the recording of it (The Rendarian Backlash has recording problems in particular). These guys found a way out—returning to film's roots, the image.

The third QuickTime file opens with some unfortunately washed-out shots and dialogue that is presumably meant to be exciting (we can tell it's exciting because the music sounds that way). I did like that music choice, actually. What is that? It sounds sufficently Star Warsy without being "Duel of the Fates". This scene also has the most impressive saberwork of the film, and only gets better when all of a sudden the image quality increases and we can see the colors nice and saturated.

Another interesting music choice comes up when we see a lightsaber duel set to "Across the Stars". (Although I hope they didn't make that choice just because a female was onscreen.)

And then more dialogue-less scenes. Blah-blah-blah. You've heard enough from me on that.

The credits (which I am not thrilled with the execution of) are interesting because Jeff Cole credits himself as Director below all his other functions. Oh, but interestingly enough, I think this fan film reflects more director-based choices than most.

I liked seeing a tale told with the images rather than the dialogue. I liked seeing the camera tell the story. At least when it was static. (The camera moves, zooms, etc. are almost all shaky and messy, which is a shame.)

This film loses points on execution—but not ideas. The Web site advertises a film called Crimson Uprising in the works. I'm there. Hopefully Jeff Cole and company learned something from The Rendarian Backlash and can apply their experience and skills. If nothing else, they sure can pick titles.