Review - Incursion at Sagan

Red Squad: Incursion at Sagan
Episode 1
Created by Chris Kroznuski

Introduction
Overall a lot of potential in the premise of having Starfleet cadets faced with impossible scenarios, however, there is a distinct correlation to The Wrath of Khan or DS9’s episode “Valiant.” Unfortunately, there is very little story and no character in this episode that the only thing left to look to is the mechanics which sadly fall flat with a very amateur quality to them.

Acting
Incursion at Sagan has no characters in it and therefore no acting. The only form for characters is through the text dialogue that appears whenever a character speaks. Unfortunately, this becomes more like reading a book, however reading a book allows for the descriptions of the moods, emotions, fears and backgrounds of the characters involved and therefore that is lost in this film.
With regards to the written dialogue, it is very inconsistent and there is a definite confusion as to who is talking. The only connection to the plot is through the dialogue which is weak at best and overall makes it somewhat boring.

Cinematography
Being completely animated with only shots of the starships, the first thing that comes to attention is lighting and textures, both of which are very poor. There appears to only be a single atmosphere light which evenly lights everything and has no shadows. This makes all of the ships appear white with a bizarre black rendering artifact where there are corners or edges.
The quality of the models are obviously quite poor, with the edges of their polys noticeable, especially around curves. The texturing of the models are quite basic, usually with only some bump mapping and basic colours. It appears as if no style was intentional either, it is neither realistic or animated looking, it is simply fake. There is little to no actual detail on the ships and mixed with the poor lighting, creates a very bad look overall.
There are one or two shots that stand out, the primary one being when the Enterprise leaves spacedock and flies overhead, however there is a noticeable moment where each shot begins and ends, the ships picking up speed at the beginning and lessening at the end. On top of that, timing appears to be an issue, with shots taking longer than they should and ships sitting still for several seconds before warping. There is very little pace which makes it very slow and amateur and the shots are obviously not contributing to any form of story.
Sound quality for the most part is all right, with some noticeable issues once in a while. The soundtrack isn’t original but is primarily Star Trek themed music. The musical cues appear to be fitting, however this aids in shots being too long as they “wait” for their musical cue to occur.

Story
The premise is very simple; some cadets are thrown into a rescue mission as a klingon ship attacks another Federation ship. Unfortunately, that is basically all there is to the story and for the approximately seven minute duration of the film, that is the only thing that occurs. There is no anticipation or build up to the climax. The climax itself is cliche and anti-climactic as a result with its “to be continued” not being overly dramatic or instilling the desire to wait for the next episode to come out. Mixed with the lack of characters and the amount of reading required, the story is extremely weak and not overly engaging.

Conclusion
Unfortunately there are too many mistakes and problems that this short lacks any real entertainment value. Even for simple things such as ships fighting each other, there isn’t any excitement or drama and there is very little point to the film.

1/10

Oh yeah, hopefully you're not offended by that, I did it from a review standpoint and not a "I love this project cause it's so awesome" standpoint. If it was, than the score would have been much, much higher

Of course I'm not offended. I asked for an honest review, and I appreciate that I got one. But after someone on SFM complained that he couldn't see it because he was in Germany and it was blocked there, that combined with this review makes me want to pursue a "re-envisioning" of the episode, with better graphics, better character depth, etc. However, my current focus is on episode 3, and I plan to accomplish that before anything else.

Heeey, I was thinking the same thing yesterday when I was writing the review...at least the remaking the episode bit.

BTW, where do you get your models like the intimdator and whatnot? Do you think you could send me all the primary RS models in maybe .3ds format? Oh and make sure none of the textures are .gif, it's a pain in the rear end to fix cause AM doesn't read .gif

Ill pack everything up when I get home from work

Nifty