Archetype

A nice Sci-Fi. First- for the premises. Second - for suggestion of a great story. Not the last - for the science to explore a subject who is not real used by the genre. A seductive film, interesting for the manner to propose the basic pieces. To short for impress, enough for give a reasonable story, with few touching nuances.

Another example of everything that can go wrong with sci-fi. You would expect a short to focus on story instead of special effects but not this time. This plays like the first line of a script someone was writing before the power ran out... and they just thought they'd go ahead and produce it as was. There's not even enough to prime a story, it's like hearing the first 4 words of a joke. And not a terribly clever or original one.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the execution is also pretty bad. The direction is banal. The acting is terrible, especially the robot's voice.

Nothing there. Hell, the ending credits have more creativity than the rest of it. And they should, they account for half of the total runtime.

I want to rate this a 10. The acting, the CGI... perfect, just perfect. I even loved the battle droid's voice - very human and as a result, conveyed the kind of pain and raw emotions it(?) was dealing with.

The issue: it turned into a tease. It's a 5 minute short and while it conveyed a tremendous amount of information, in the end, the video wasn't meant for us. It was meant to impress the writer/director's future employers.

It left us hanging when an extra minute or two could have made a great (self-enclosed) short story (and still impressed future employers). It's not unlike a TV series that isn't sure it's going to get renewed.

They end the season on a major cliffhanger (screwing over their most loyal fans - on purpose). The purpose of which is to manipulate the viewers to fight for them - when simply writing a great series ending would have achieved even better results (and long-term good will).

Video = 10 rating. Feeling used and manipulated = 1. Overall = 6 rating.

I came upon this short by accident, and it was definitely a lucky one. Now, I must admit, I am a big SF-fan, so my judgement is a bit clouded. But: Wow! In just 7 minutes a whole interesting landscape of characters, time-lines and current state of society is depicted with stunning detail.

Aaron Sims and crew made this short as a low-budget cry-for-attention-of-Hollywood. Luckily, it worked. The amazing work they portrayed and showed in this has earned them the opportunity to make a full feature. I will be one of the first to watch it, and hope all who try this short as a teaser will feel exactly the same.

I couldn't give it a 10, because of the painful feeling of I-need-to-see-more it left me with.