Fan Film - The Stolen Knowledge (Review)

  Between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, several Jedi managed to survive the purge. In The Stolen Knowledge  one of these Jedi discovered an ancient Sith Holocron, which would be a great help to the Empire. An Inquisitor is hunting that Jedi.

  The opening shot of the Star Destroyer moving across the screen is awesome. The only light exposing it are the lights coming from the Star Destroyer itself, which is a nice effect. The floating droid, D4 , is well implemented. The TIE attack creates immediate tension, and our protagonist flees into the forest so they have to find him with ground troops. The firefight is done well, and although the lasers hitting the tree would have benefitted from practical effects, the special effects serve their purpose. And the Wilhelm-scream is always a welcome inclusion for me.

  Then we get to the lightsaber battle, which is very practically done. No fancy choreography, but straight up strikes going for the kill. D4 flanks a stormtrooper and stuns him, which has me chuckling. The skirmish of the Jedi and Inquisitor, resulting in them trading lightsabers, is very entertaining and a nice touch. Then the Inquisitor beats him, but doesn't finish him off, and that arrogance is going to cost him.

  We get a second good look at the holocron, which looks amazing, and the antagonist opens it. I like how they made him a typical Star Wars hologram, but red instead of blue. If you have trouble making out the distorted words, like me, the creators were kind enough to add some subtitles. The Inquisitor is about to get access to huge amount of knowledge, when the Jedi intervenes. The delayed explosion when he puts his lightsaber through the holocron is pretty cool, especially with the Inquisitor approaching. Then the Jedi flies away in the A-wing that we saw parked earlier, again very nicely done. The Inquisitor contacts Vader, who sounds so incredibly accurate that I suspect they took his lines from official material. The acting is good, the special effects are mostly great, and the story keeps me engaged. Great job.

Article by: Joel "Mith" Storms