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We praise:

-great animation for such a long film

-the characters have real personalities

-variety in voice acting; a chance here for other brickfilmers to learn something

-original soundtrack raises standards which we are ready to match with our upcoming fantasy movie

-seems like you are just getting better and better with cinematography (if the scenes were shot in the order they are shown)


We hate:

-your characters have the worst names ever
and, by the way, Ogel is a Lego
registered trademark (see Alpha team or Lego
Island series)

-nothing much happens in 11 minutes!

-how lazy are you? Did this really take you two years to finish?!When is episode 2 coming out? 2006?!



It is difficult to say anything about your story-telling abilities; this series has only started so far...
(even though it builds excitement, the plot in this clip is as good as anything six-year-old children playing with bricks can come up with, hooray)

Your special effects are the best and if the story plays well and you keep on improving your camera angles and compositions, we are in for a real treat during the next ten or fifteen years.

First off, anyone woried about the large file size, its actually a fast download. I have high speed internet, and was done downloading in less than 5 minutes. But there is one problem: for such a large file size I was expecting an incredibly sharp picture quality, However I was a bit dissapointed to see how blurry much of it was. Despite this dissapointment I quite enjoyed the film. It was definately a good first film, as well as a great way to start the new year at Brickfilms. Well, on to the review...

SPOLERS!

Animation

One thing that really bugged me about the animation were all the Still frames with no animation going on. They seemed to last too long and occur too often. Not to mention the fact that most of the still shots (mostly the ones that involved some panning and zooming) were extremely blurry. This is most likely because the pictures were blown up and moved across the screen to give the impression of a pan or zoom. Another gripe about the animation were the motion blurs on the walking. Overall the animation was ok, but some things, the walking in particular, were not so good.

6.5/10

Cinematography

The cinematography got off to a great start with the begining pan through the stars. Even thought this scene was a bit bluerry, it was really cool. Then there was the pan down to the planet, definately one of the best shots in the movie. But after the awesome opening shots the cinematography falters. The numerous pans were all very jerky, and the ones that weren't were still frames. The set disign was also very good, as was the lighting. In the end the cinematography left me slightly dissapointed. I guess after the opening shots I was expecting some more breathtaking shots, what I got was a movie with slightly above average cinematography.

7.5/10

Effects

The effects were all well done. From the chromakeying to the CG pan to earth to the glow of torches, everything was good. But the pan to earth was particularly awesome. But some blurry effects mar the other wise great effects.

8.5/10

Sound

Ah the sound, Loweeks specialty. The sound track is one of the definitive points in the movie. It fits the mood perfectly. The only problem here is that the music occaisionally overpowers the dialogue, making it hard to comprehend. The voice acting, while good for the most part, was occaisionally a bit hard to understand. Not only because the music was to loud but because the accents were occaisionally too exagerated, making them sound forced. The biggest problem with the audio is that the voices occaisionally had a slight echo to them. This is most noticeable when the two peasants are in the field just before the space ships fly over.

8/10

Story

Most brickfilms don't have very complex stories, not so with NIS. This is obviously just an introduction to a larger story, and due to this it doesn't have a a definite end, but I can tell that the story is well thought out. I'm guessing that the other stories are already planned, if not written. I am particularly looking forward to teh next episode, seeing as how this one ended on a cliff hanger. I want to see the battle! And what happens to Ogel! The story is good, and the dialogue believeable. In this aspect, NIS succeeds more than anywere else. Now under most circumstances the story would get and 8.5 since the story is kindof slow pased and doesn't really end, but I am giving it a little bit of lenience knowing that this is the begining of a much bigger story.

9/10

Fun

Fun. Arguably the most important aspect of a film. This is the factor that will really decide how good of a film NIS is, and trust me it is a good film. Its not the most fun film I've ever seen, but it is fun. And definately worth the download.

8.5/10

Well there you have it. My review of NIS. I hope It doesn't seem to critical as I realize that this was a massive undertaking and I don't want to Make anyone think that I didn't like it, because I did. But there is room for improvement.

Make a film this good yourself. One we can underdstand!!!!