ROGUE
creators' Web site
Web site for downloading @ TheForce.Net

review written 2/23/2003

Rogue starts on the wrong foot. Following the TFN Fan Films logo, it gives us a flash of bars and tone. Is that a glitch? And why does the opening crawl spell Alderaan wrong, and move at breakneck speed only to spend over thirty seconds crammed at the top of the frame illegibly?

Then we pan down, and the fun starts. We waste no time in getting right to the action with TIE fighters pursuing rogue Imperial Jake Dinn in a nicely-done space chase. There aren't a lot of actual wars in the stars in Star Wars fan films, and I'm glad to see Rogue giving me one. Although those TIEs do blow up more impressively than a ship that size should.

Pan down to reveal Syun Nav Way Station, identified as such with a caption. That's not a very Star Warsy shot, nor is that out-of-focus POV shot of the healer. And, in fact, Jake's whole first scene with Minerva and Derran doesn't feel like Star Wars.

If you interpreted that as a criticism, you might not like Rogue. If you sort of liked the idea of doing something different, as I do, then rock on. Rogue is small and intimate, which is not Lucas' way of doing things, but it often succeeds on its own terms.

We see Imperial officers plotting and giving some unfortunately clunky expositionary dialogue which is not rescued by the cool John Williams music underneath. I would have prefered to skip this. Nobody needs to know why the Empire does things.

I do like the dappled lighting playing through the trees when we get back to our heroes. And that's one heck of a shot at 9:58.

And what do you know, it takes until 10:43 to see a lightsaber in this film. Proof that you don't need lightsabers to tell your story, kids. It's a decent-looking sword, too, considering that it has to sit still AND pass behind objects for the whole scene. (I wish I could compliment the laser blasts as well—which look ridiculously slow.)

The torture sequence does not look like Star Wars. It looks like a 'regular' movie. And the TIE bombings seem more inspired by Vietnam films than the galaxy far, far away. And while the beautiful shot of the shuttle taking off is sufficiently sci-fi, you don't often see a Star Wars fan film end on the "jump note" this film does.

It does something new and different in a Star Wars fan film. This plays more like a Dave Bundtzen movie than a George Lucas knock-off, and for that I commend Bundtzen. And I commend writer James DeRuvo for doing something different.

It's done well. Not wonderfully. But well. I wish more fan filmmakers would walk this path. (But, for the love of God, not use the worst typography ever.)