"Star Wars: Origins" is a British English-language live action short film from 2019, so this one has its fifth anniversary now and the writer and director here is Phil Hawkins and there are two other writers credited and these come right from some of the biggest film franchises in history. So these over 20 minutes, over 21 actually, are a fan film and in the title you can see already the name of one of the franchises. That's right. It's Star Wars, the series that brought out more fan films that any other perhaps or I don't know. Maybe Batman has more by now. Anyway, Batman is not the second Franchise, but Indiana Jones it is. Actually, I saw it this way too that it looked very much like Indiana Jones at times without knowing that they gave actual credit to Kaufman. There is pretty much a clean cut. The two protagonists are in touch with each other, but they never share the screen. It is always either Indy or Star Wars with Star Wars having more screen time and therefore probably also the mention in the title. I would say I liked this film at the beginning, but the longer it went, the less impressed I ended up unfortunately. The strengths of the film are probably the locations, the costumes and also here and there the effects. They had to get in the light saber part of course. The story was not great at all, however. The American girl getting away from the camp would have been enough superhero material already for the entire 20 minutes, but well, she also manages to take out the villain gang later on and for some reason they just stand there with all their guns when she kills their leader. Totally randomly, a huge army of Nazi soldiers shows up as well then and they are disposed of even more quickly. Not sure what this was. Perhaps this should have been a 100-minute movie, so it would have made actual sense with all that Hawkins stuffed into these 20 minutes.
The film ends again with a special effects sequence involving the sky. As for the Indiana Jones parts down in some cave or so, they were not particularly interesting. I never shared the male protagonist's joy and delight there about what he found. What made things even worse was that he had a really rough moment of overacting in one of his first scenes. Or well, the actor did. I will spare you the names of the cast as you probably have not heard of any of those unless you know them personally. It's a fan film we should not forget, so no big budget and what they had, clearly went into other areas than the cast or the story. Hawkins should have gone for another writer and stayed with the direction only. I also did not like the film's politically correct messages at times, like if we take the brave fella who is killed early on. Or if we take the mention that there is no religion to the gang of antagonists here. Well, look at them and you may think differently. I know I did. This is not a Star Wars film that includes Yoda or any characters that resemble animals or are just aliens. Everybody in here is pretty much human. If it wasn't for the mask found down there that maybe connects the two franchises this is all about, I would not even have seen the Star Wars reference really. Could have bee Dune too. You watch, you decide what is dominant here. Or better don't watch. It may be an above-average short film, but in general it is simply not good enough for a positive recommendation. Skip.
The film ends again with a special effects sequence involving the sky. As for the Indiana Jones parts down in some cave or so, they were not particularly interesting. I never shared the male protagonist's joy and delight there about what he found. What made things even worse was that he had a really rough moment of overacting in one of his first scenes. Or well, the actor did. I will spare you the names of the cast as you probably have not heard of any of those unless you know them personally. It's a fan film we should not forget, so no big budget and what they had, clearly went into other areas than the cast or the story. Hawkins should have gone for another writer and stayed with the direction only. I also did not like the film's politically correct messages at times, like if we take the brave fella who is killed early on. Or if we take the mention that there is no religion to the gang of antagonists here. Well, look at them and you may think differently. I know I did. This is not a Star Wars film that includes Yoda or any characters that resemble animals or are just aliens. Everybody in here is pretty much human. If it wasn't for the mask found down there that maybe connects the two franchises this is all about, I would not even have seen the Star Wars reference really. Could have bee Dune too. You watch, you decide what is dominant here. Or better don't watch. It may be an above-average short film, but in general it is simply not good enough for a positive recommendation. Skip.