'Fierce' Machinima Review

                I knew I was going to have a problem with Fierce as soon as I learned that Rage was supposed to be part one of a trilogy. You see, I thought that Rage was supposed to be a plot-less, one-off video. An extended fight sequence in the same vein as Out of Control. The trailer immediately corrected this assumption by telling me that, in actuality, Rage was the first chapter of an epic trilogy that would redefine the way we look at war and tell the story of the brilliant tactician Colonel Gatton. A more fitting name for him would be 'Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Film' since I'll be damned if we've ever seen him once.

               

There's no reason for me to critique this thing based on its merits as a narrative. Where would you even begin to critique it in that manner? There is no clear protagonist,  no set objective that the protagonists or antagonists are trying to achieve, and not even the most subtle hints towards a three act structure. I can barely even remember any of the lines of dialogue because every single line is the same regurgitated military jargon that you'd hear while playing Call of Duty. There is no characterization here, just worthless, plot-servicing junk.

The few characters that we are presented with are your usual pick-and-mix. There's your squad of gruff-talking Spartans (who I swear were all voiced by the same person), there's the token female support character who ultimately has nothing to do with the storyline (which I will start referring to here on out as 'Dolphinie Syndrome'), and there's the inevitable guy who commits a heroic act of self-sacrifice (which was blatantly ripped off of Sam's death in 'Fall of Reach). I don't count that as a spoiler because it's almost a requirement of these videos to have at least one act of martydom during the series running.

               

The lack of a stable plot and solid characters is something you'd expect from a video like this. I'd be perfectly fine to let the lack of plot go by unchallenged if it weren't for the fact that this is also one of the most poorly shot machinimas I've seen in recent memory.

               

I lost count on how many times the 180 rule and the Rule of Thirds were broken. The action is constantly being shot too close to make out the fights, which are a series of poorly choreographed Spartans shooting Elites on generic Forge World maps and campaign footage. The overall capture quality is astonishingly poor, which is compounded by the director's apparent love for adding in zooms in post-production which means that every ten seconds we're treated to the lovely sight of blurrier visuals and visible interlacing. It's the machinima equivalent of watching a B-level horror movie and suddenly noticing the zipper in the monster's costume.

               

The action itself is also too pervasive. Without characters we can relate to and feel invested in the battles are nothing but light shows, and even if we did care in the slightest the battles themselves are too long for any of it to matter. I think there was only one scene in the entire episode, the briefing, that didn't take place on a battlefield. That's two minutes and five seconds of plot (if you can even call it that) for a fourteen minute and thirty-seven second battle sequence. I didn't even bother paying attention to what they were saying because I knew that it was only going to lead to more people getting shot.

               

The sound design is choppy at times as well, there was a recurring sound effect of what sounded like spiker shots (Landfall trailer, perhaps?) that seemed very out of place. I will admit that the vocal filters were well done, even if they did make the soldiers sound that much more robotic and un-relatable.

               

I mentioned before that the action was poorly choreographed and I cannot emphasize that enough. ArmedShadowFox's idea of 'changing the way we look at war' is making us look at the same Spartans shoot at the same Elites behind the comfort of chest high walls ad nauseum.  If he was trying to tell us that war is boring, then he definitely succeeded.

               

As Fierce came to a close I couldn't help but wonder, 'what was the point of any of this'? Lack of narrative aside, videos like these are just old. We've been watching gruff-talking Spartans fire at Elites since 2005, and it's been parodied and lampooned since at least 2007. It's 2011. Enough is enough. It's time for directors to start trying something new.