A short Star Wars animation, focused on the Empire, drawn and shaded in the style of classic '80s anime. Empire and rebel forces engage in a frantic all-or-nothing dogfight in space, but the Empire has 3 Tie Fighter aces up its sleeve. "TIE Fighter" is an American 7.5-minute short film from 2015 that managed to get millions and millions of views on Youtube after its release roughly 2 years ago. Writer and director is Paul Johnson and apparently this is his only work so far. The film's popularity is of course mostly due to its (relative loose) connection to the biggest film franchise of all time: Star Wars. You don't get it too often that animated films are made about characters and films that are originally in live action, which of course does not include all the superheroes from comic. But here we have one example of such an attempt. And visually, the film is certainly a success. it looks pretty decent and the effects are truly spectacular. Sadly, this cannot make up for the weaknesses in story-telling and character writing as it feels this one has none of it really. It is basically one spectacular scene following the next and it seems Johnson forgot about the core of it all: namely creating a story that justifies the visual side. Nonetheless, for a first film, it is not a bad achievement overall and certainly something to build a career on if he manages to improve in the coming years. Until then, I give "TIE Fighter" (despite the decent soundtrack) a thumbs-down. Worth seeing only for the biggest fans of science fiction animation. Combining incredible animation and a score that will get your blood pumping, this 7-minute video will make you want to sign up for the Imperial Navy.<br/><br/>Heavily inspired by the TIE Fighter video game (probably still the best space flight-sim to this day), no shortcuts are taken on the animation when to comes to rapidly changing camera angles and sleek design. In ways it reminds of the "Call of the Primitives" episode of the original Transformers, but it also has a strong hint of anime (more Akira than Ghost in the Shell).<br/><br/>The reaction videos are also great. Finally, I suppose there's this: if you played the original TIE Fighter game, or or a fan of the X-Wing miniatures game, you'll love this short film.
Randaing replied
293 weeks ago