Lucas Calls for Star Wars 3D

And also...just to follow up on something you mentioned Queeq...about GL not having any limitations...

I think one of the reasons they PT didn't live up to the OT for a lot of people is because sometimes not having limitations is bad thing. You play around with all the great effects, which is cool, but you lose site of backing those effects up with a good storyline.

I don't think that PT's story is as rich or in depth as the OT by any means, but I recognize that the PT was never meant to be the OT, but a new breed of films. They do have tons of flaws, but when you overlook obvious flaws such as mediocre dialogue and Jar Jar Binks, there's a beautiful story of a boy who just wanted to control what he couldn't control...fate, destiny and attachment. It's all there, you just gotta dig a little deep to find it. 😉

Originally posted by Sith Master X
I think it's just the way they turned out to be honest. Sometimes a decent story can be overshadowed by a poor atmosphere.

I think the biggest disadvantage the PT had going for it was the fact that Vader (behind the helmet) was only something we would get to experience at the end of ROTS, where in the OT, he was the dominant force in ANH, ESB, and ROTJ. Think about it actually, what is the OT without Vader? I think he's the one that made those films as iconic as they are. I know Han Solo and the rest of the cast made it great also, but Vader was the foundation of it.

It's just weird though. I can promise you, as a director, nobody goes out with the intention of destroying their films. Spielberg I'm sure didn't mean to ruin Indiana Jones....even though, while I enjoyed Krystal Skull, it certainly wasn't on par with the original 3. Just because GL pushed for an alien storyline doesn't mean the film couldn't work. There have been several "alien" films that have all worked incredibly well....it's just how everything pans out in the end. The locations you film, the chemistry, the look, feel atmosphere....sometimes by luck it works....other times, it's just didn't have it. Of course, having a good story is a given.

I will tell you where Lucas screwed up with the PT. By writing it himself. The man SUCKS at dialog. I mean he could have written the story and then turned it over to a decent screenwriter because he's hideous.

Yeah, but let's not forget, he also wrote ANH, and Harrison Ford crabbed about the corny dialogue while filming. Bad dialogue didn't just come out of the prequels.

Ford, Hamill and Fisher changed a lot of the dialogue. They worked on set to make it work. From what I saw from the Behind the Scenes featurettes of the PT there was no such room at all...

Originally posted by queeq
Ford, Hamill and Fisher changed a lot of the dialogue. They worked on set to make it work. From what I saw from the Behind the Scenes featurettes of the PT there was no such room at all...

Wrong, the room existed but it was in CGI.

And I bet the computers added a lot to the storyline...

They did. Don't you know how Mr. Lucas operates? Who needs a script when you have computers. 😛

Hehehe, sounds about right.

Thing is though, I see nothing wrong with computers and CGI...when it is used effectively.

The PT had a mixture of really good, and not so great.

To me, the not so great....Kamino....Naboo, Utapau. Jedi Temple from Episode II.

The Good: Space Battles....Mustafar....Coruscant...Geonosis (in some areas) Jedi Temple looks much better this time around. Kashyyyk was nice.

Some of the sets added in with CGI looked good as well, like Padme's Balcony in Episode 3.

It wasn't all that bad to me. But some parts could have felt and looked better.

THey look slick but a little dead as well.

THe thing they didn't quite grasp was the look that made Star Wars great: the used future look. It used to be Lucas' big thing. He had it in THX-1138 and in all the SW movies. He used to say: no matter how new stuff is or how far in the future, it's always beings used and therefore looks a little worn.

Why he suddenly abandoned that idea and went to a self-concocted time frame where everything suddenly DOES look brand new and unused is quite beyond me.

Very true. It looked almost "too new."

I think some of that's because of the CGI being too clean....and nowadays with the quality of these DVD's and blue ray, you notice the fake texture look more as opposed to old VHS tapes that are grainy and hide some of that "cleanness."

The other major disadvantage you get using CGI is "lighting." I don't care how advanced technology gets, you can never get that "natural lighting feel" using CGI then you do if you build an actual set and light it with equipment, or have natural sunlight.

CGI lighting is not where it needs to be yet, and while it can be quite good, it can often times look terrible.

This screenshot from Episode 2 is a perfect example to me of "fake lighting" that kills the CGI.

Originally posted by queeq
THey look slick but a little dead as well.

THe thing they didn't quite grasp was the look that made Star Wars great: the used future look. It used to be Lucas' big thing. He had it in THX-1138 and in all the SW movies. He used to say: no matter how new stuff is or how far in the future, it's always beings used and therefore looks a little worn.

Why he suddenly abandoned that idea and went to a self-concocted time frame where everything suddenly DOES look brand new and unused is quite beyond me.

You know he set out for a deliberate look & feel for the PT. He wanted to show the tech evolving from more fanciful designs to the more mechanical - Naboo's royal cruisers would stick out more in the OT, with their silver sleek, Flash Gordon look.
And the settings are completely different. Instead of the cramped military headquarters the rebels are always on the verge of abandoning, and their motley mix of star cruisers that make up their assembled fleet, the PT is set in the political halls of power for the most part, in places that get regular cleaning. When they went back to Tatooine in the PT, he kept the same look used from the OT (it had already been established, so he couldn't really change anything.)

I know all that. But the fact remains is that the whole used-future look is gone. All you have to do is watch the movies. Even Tatooine looks clean. Well, maybe in TPM it's not that bad. But in AOTC Tatooine looks brand new. Even the Tusken Village looks like some Swiss dudes came by to clean the place up.

So that he chose for the silver, sleek, Flash Gordon look, is contradictory to the whole philosophy he had during the 80s and contributed to the succes and unicity of SW. He lost that here and I don't understand why. As I said, it was his big thing.

Yeah, I can understand wanting "newer" looking things in the PT, before the galaxy degenerated into war, but it was too big of a leap in technology. It's like Apple computers vs the old clunky computers of the 1960's.

But still, as Lucas argued in making THX-1138, even when stuff is new and futuristic, it's always being used. Our society is pure science fiction compared to the fifties, yet do we not have monitors and keyboards with stains on them? Yes we do, even brand new ones.
In THX-1138 he made sure the pristine white walls he used even had a smudge mark here and there... because that's what happens with brand new white walls: they get smudged. And, most importantly, it takes them away from being a fake set to something that people actually live in. The CGI sets in the PT don't look like people actually live there.

I thought the PT capture the used future look well. Just check out the visual dictionary for any of those movies. You can see even in ATOC the rough Clone Trooper armor. Plus without the Empire hoarding resources I would assume items and vehicles would be in a nicer condition.

They already looked nice in ANH.

Originally posted by queeq
They already looked nice in ANH.

Not the sandtroopers. I imagine the Death Star ones had higher standards.

And they should. That was very nice, the sand scarred uniforms.

i wouldnt see any of them in 3D..