Bricks in Motion
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LEGO Star Wars - The Old Republic
There just aren't enough great Lego lightsaber battles out there. With this animation, I set out to make a short lightsaber battle that would inspire others to create more great Star Wars action films.
Music by Kevin Macleod (edited and mixed by Christopher Gearhart). Filmed on a Canon T2i.
Wow, I must say I didn't expect much reading the title, but the thumbnail promised well so I decided to give it a look.
Animation was fantastic (I particularly enjoyed the part where she is smashed through a door), the camera shake was well done, you used some interesting angles, and the effects were nicely done. Too bad it doesn't have a more interesting story, and the choreography of the fight could have been pulled off in a better way.
Impressive job anyway. I hope to see more from you. 4/5
Good job!
Wish granted! 
This is a pretty good fight, but could do with some more story. Not that just having an all-out fight is bad, but having a good reason to fight makes it better. While the fighting is good, it suffers from a lot of stop-and-go with the timing. They'll fight for a little bit, then one will get knocked down and stay frozen for a few seconds while the other just sits there. If this was a "real" fight, the guy on the ground would get up as soon as possible, and the other guy would do everything in his power to keep him down. Also, when the Sith was swinging his saber around, his other arm should have moved more either because of, or to generate, momentum. The punching near the end seemed out of place, why could she have not simply force pushed him away?
The effects were good, but the background got messed up when the grenade was thrown. (Take a good look at it and you'll see what I mean.) And at 0:38 the girl's saber apparently goes right through the Sith guy's body without harming him. It's too long to do that realistically, so next time you may want to film with physical lightsaber blades attached to the handle to keep that type of thing from happening. You can then simply add the glow on top of the blade. And since when does a guy stand up for five seconds after his head has been stabbed by a saber?
The finishing blow was also somewhat underwhelming.
After all of that, she gets zapped a little, then lightly knocked against a wall? She was groaning just fine when she hit, and if she can go flying through a wall as shown before, why would that have killed her? And although I like the ending with the eyes, it felt like there was going to be more before it, but for some reason that was cut out.
A better ending (IMHO) would have been him standing over her with his saber raised and his eyes glowing, then as he swings down for the killing stroke the screen goes black.
I did point a number of minor flaws, but overall I think it's pretty good. Keep up the good work!
Great job! As Pritchard points out, however, it was rather anticlimactic, and it seems like you were trying too hard to make some breathing time. In a fast-paced fight like this, you could easily take every spot where there's no movement, and cut it in half. A quarter of it, even, and it would still look better. If there had been a storyline, then pausing would've been more appropriate, but dramatic pauses don't work the same without dialogue.
Overall, it was great, and is certainly one of the better lightsaber duels I've seen, but that's just it - it's just another lightsaber duel. As much as that's what you were going for, trying to add a little something that hasn't been done before (or at least hasn't been done often) would've really helped, I feel.
4/5
-kcirbfilms
I second everything that has been said, adding one thing: The grunts from the Sith and the Jedi really add a lot to the fighting. Grunting/breathing are one necessity most fights are missing. Good job! 
Well, it's not bad, but it seems like you're borrowing pretty heavily from the "Force Unleashed" formula here:
Stormtroopers complain about lack of action, are killed instantly, assailant duels a Sith lord, lots of pauses and focus pulls on broken wall bricks, and the Sith lord eventually wins out by smashing his opponent against a wall.
And unfortunately, it's not executed with quite the same precision as Fancypants, so it falls a little bit flat in that regard. There's really no reason for this to be called "The Old Republic," since there's really no connection to the video game other than the title tie-in and the OC Jedi, I suppose. The fight is decent, though the choreography wasn't particularly inspired, IMO, and for a lightsaber duel, there wasn't a whole lot of actual "dueling;" it amounted to two brief bouts, some force pushing/lightning, and that was that. Some little individual bits of animation were nice, though, like the breaking through the wall and the force-grabbing of the lightsaber.
One other thing I should bring up, and I had problems with this in Fancypants' film, too, is the improper use of pauses. I understand its purpose as a dramatic tool, but I think you overdid it quite a bit. It seems like after every major move made in this, there's an extended 2-3 second pause where they just stand there and do nothing, and most of the time, characters are left completely vulnerable to attack if one just decided to lunge forward. Pacing is key when it comes to action scenes like this; it has to be quick and frantic to some degree, and long pauses like that completely throw that off and take you out of the moment.
Well, it's not bad, but it seems like you're borrowing pretty heavily from the "Force Unleashed" formula here:
Spoiler (click to read)
Stormtroopers complain about lack of action, are killed instantly, assailant duels a Sith lord, lots of pauses and focus pulls on broken wall bricks, and the Sith lord eventually wins out by smashing his opponent against a wall.
Please watch this video (not just MindGame, of course, but all y'all complaining about unoriginality)
I find that a lot of people here talk about the concept of a particular video being very "unoriginal", but in this case fancypants' plot isn't anything new either, but the execution is, and that's what matters. Some people say there are, I believe, two plots that have been repeated throughout the course of human history in literature and film, but the way you take that idea and make it your own, how you personalize, customize, it, is what people are going to want to see. And though this film's structure was pretty much exactly the same as in fancypants', the execution was still interesting and I enjoyed it. After all, "imitation is the best form of flattery", right?
On a different note, I do agree with what has been said about the animation, so keep working and you'll be great!
Hey guys, thanks for all the input. I want to start out by clarifying that I in no way expected the animation to match or even come close to FancyPant's Lego - The Force Unleashed. I only had less than a month to make this, and I wouldn't ever imagine topping fancy pants' level of animation or expertise either way. I am honored that you all are comparing me to him 
Oh and one more thing, Sateel didn't die. I wanted to leave the ending open-ended, something I didn't much see in animations before.
This is awesome!
Very nice! But too short for me. 
Good, although Malgus and Shan both did a lot of standing around. In a real lightsaber duel, or any kind of swordfight, that kind of hesitation would get you killed. Just read Legacy of the Force: Invincible.
There just aren't enough great Lego lightsaber battles out there. With this animation, I set out to make a short lightsaber battle that would inspire others to create more great Star Wars action films.
Well congrats on that, 'coz I'm now planning to do two (one New Republic era, and one in the same era as yours), Mara Jade versus Luke, and then I haven't decided which Jedi or Sith for the next.
By the way, what program did you do you lightsabers in? They were nicely consistent, and a good shape. You got them down pat.
Also, did the Republic trooper helmets come with the set? I saw that there's a Jace Malcom minifigure, but I didn't think he had a helmet. If he does, I may be even more tempted to get the set...
Glad you all enjoyed it! I agree, the pauses were probably a bit overdone.
jampot wrote:
Well congrats on that, 'coz I'm now planning to do two (one New Republic era, and one in the same era as yours), Mara Jade versus Luke, and then I haven't decided which Jedi or Sith for the next.
By the way, what program did you do you lightsabers in? They were nicely consistent, and a good shape. You got them down pat.
Also, did the Republic trooper helmets come with the set? I saw that there's a Jace Malcom minifigure, but I didn't think he had a helmet. If he does, I may be even more tempted to get the set...
Great! Good luck with your animation. I made the clone helmet myself, and did the lightsaber effects in Gimp.
That was alright. I gotta say the animation where the minifig was thrown through the wall was very well done. Most of my gripes were already pointed out by the other reviewers. Therefore, the best advice I can offer is that you just keep practicing. You've got talent, it just needs to be refined a little bit.
Last edited by Walrus (September 2, 2012 (07:20am))
Posts [ 13 ]
