Alternate Vlarion 3 - Echo Of Time

First off, I would like to say that I liked the Vlarion movies from as early as episode one of the original four movie long series. That said, I think this movie is light years ahead of the other movies of the series, in terms of story development, direction, animation...you name it. That said, I'll start talking right away about what seems to be everyone's major complaint with this movie- the pacing. I agree, this movie starts off *slightly* slow. The beginning of the movie instantly shows that the movie has a few things in it that are normally considered big "no-no's" in the 3dmm community. First off, there's no spoken dialogue, all of it is written out in text boxes. Secondly, the movie uses an all midi sound track (from what I remember anyway...). Finally, the scenes of the movie are anywhere from 300 to over 1,000 frames long. With all of that out of the way, I would like to say that regardless, this movie works incredibly well.

I'll get the technical stuff out of the way first. As far as the animation goes, the movie starts out kind of so-so, but gradually gets better and better, until near the end it's just mind boggling (mostly due to the insanely good looking and inventive spell effects). The sound effects work great- they're doubly impressive when you consider that many of them were made by Aaron. The midis were chosen well and always worked with what was happening on screen. I really don't get what people have against midis, (especially when there are no voices to drown out) but I don't have time to get into that right now, given the fact that I now have 10 minutes to finish up this review, and haven't even got to what I really liked about the movie yet.

Animation and sound aside, what I really loved about this movie was the story. This is easily one of the most well thought-out stories ever told in a 3dmm movie. I have no idea how the director thought of some of this stuff. I'm not going to bother explaining the storyline here, since half the fun of the movie is watching it play out. Needless to say, given the title, something happens that changes the Vlarion storyline greatly. Some characters die who had lived in the original series, and some of the alliances the characters originally made have changed. The storyline here deals heavily with time- and what may happen if it is altered even just the slightest bit. The dialogue that furthers the storyline is very well written, even though it occasionally doesn't stay on screen long enough for some of us slow readers out there to completely take in. Also, as with any storyline dealing heavily with time, or time travel, delving too deeply into it can cause a severe migraine headache- so don't. The storyline is deep enough as it is, although it somehow keeps itself from becoming confusing. As complicated as it all got, I always felt like I understood what was going on. Yes, the storyline starts off a little slow- but if you stick with it, you won't be able to walk away until the end credits roll. At the very least, give it 15 minutes, if your not even slightly interested by then, this movie probably isn't for you. I personally was into the plot after 5 minutes.

I've run out of time so I'll wrap things up. Give this movie a chance, stick with it for as long as you can. If you're anything like me, you will thank yourself later. One of the most memorable and interesting fantasy movies ever crafted in 3dmm.

91% out of 100%