I think there's a notable different in old special effects versus the new flood of CGI. While I did cringe everytime someone flicked on a saber or opened an automatic door in A New Hope (Remember the film was apparently chopped as they edited it), there is an atmosphere to those films that the prequels lack. I think it has a lot to do with just how grimy and dark and unfriendly this futuristic world looked. I mean, let's take AOTC as example (Since I've forgotten TPM in the past two years, and ROTS is nebulous to me)...
All the outfits are more or less clean. The backgrounds are too crisp and defined to be real (mostly because they aren't real). The streets seemed too clean, etc. etc. It doesn't seem like many of the locales where even filmed on earth, and while that seems desireable, it takes away from the realism of the movies. I know, that's a funny word to put in when we're talking SW, here. But I mean it. There's a realism to all the environments in the sequels. Whether you're in the Millenium Falcon or racing down the corridors of Jabba's Palace, there's something about the backgrounds and whatnot that is very real. The dust is in the corners, the grime is on the guard's outfits. The human eye has a tendency to notice imperfections, true. But it's even better at realizing perfections. And most CGI is too good to be real, in almost all cases.
Exactly. The real sets of old had that worldly feel to them. They looked solid. Lucas set out to achieve that, and it payed off big time.
There was less "designing" back then too. Back in the OT, everything looked like it was BUILT. Clunky, functional and simplistic, it still looks more real to this day.
Pretty much everything about the PT is that everything looks forced and designed, rather than looking like it has always been.
I mean, look at the "Gonk". It looks like a bin with two legs. It's someone in costume, but it's real.
As you say, the eye picks up imperfections much better than perfections.
That's why the OT was so successful. Sometimes our eyes would see a tattered edge, or a wonky computer screen, something that looks flawed, looks more real. The flawed quality of the sets, the grime, inconsistent paint jobs, the tell tale footprints, and the uncontrollable factors of having a REAL set such as finger print smudges on plastic, hasn't been replicated with CGI in the PT so far. With the OT, the locales looked like they were real intergalactic structures of some sort. WIth the PT, you can so easily tell something is fake by very subtle, unseen things. Things such as geometry moving perfectly, panning and rotating seamlessly, or having a perspective change that looks WRONG. I noticed that in AOTC, when the camera would pan around a room, it gave away it's CGI properties because it was so SIMULATED. The movement was too fluid and crisp to be real. Life is full of imperfections, and we take them for granted, which means when those imperfections aren't there, they stand out like a sore thumb because the human eye is accustomed to flawed perfection.
Also, acoustics and sound within these sets also added to the idea that they were really there on set. The new blue screen sets have poor and very false sounding acoustics.
Oh and by the way I think CGI is fantastic for ship battle scenes.
CGI is good enough now to make spaceships look photo realistic, even ultra realistic. I love the CGI work on the PT ship sequences, they are amazing and I think using CGI for the ships is the best idea in this day and age.
However, I have issues with where CGI has been apllied elsewhere. It simply isn't good enough for living creatures or replicating humans. Using CGI for characters still looks crap. Puppets and anamatronics look ten times more realistic. Compare puppet Yoda from ESB and the crappy CGI Yoda from AOTC and see what I mean.
I'd also like to point out that I think ILM are very capable of pulling off realistic ships, but they REALLY overdo it with the dynamic lighting. Some of the best work, in my opinion was when they made a few CGI scenes for the dogfights in A New Hope. The CGI there is excellent and adds a lot to the film, while being consistent with the "look". The new PT space ship battle sequences are chromed up, specularly lit with all the colours of the rainbow and it's overkill. It's simply too much.
It's a shame because sometimes, ILM get a scene absolutely spot on and it makes me say "Wow that looks good", but I'd say the majority of the PT has been overly done up and squandered, and I can see why the haters think George Lucas is just CGI masturbating.
i may have posted a few bullshit posts but i have a pologised for that
you have under 10 posts meaning your a noob or a sock (cylob cylob)
You havnt got any reason to report me buddy nothin will happen to me.
Darth Janus, Red Superfly, I agree with you completely...
Also, everything is "over-user-friendly"...
Like: for every little thing there is a hologram involved. For instance; in ANH when R2 is locating Leia in the Death Star, you see the locations flickering on a monitor (which works for me). Whereas in ROTS (and I won't be specific, for spoilers sake) he does a similar search, but he's immediately projecting it by hologram.
Why does Qui-Gon have to show a hologram of his J-327 Nubian to Watto?
Why does Dooku have to show a hologram of the Death Star, seconds after it was on a screen (possible answer: he wanted to check if the data was on the disc, but still)
And also, while it's nice to have a universe populated by all kinds of strange aliens, droids, Wookiees, etc., in the end, it's about the human characters, it's they who go through the emotions and everything. All the rest is atmosphere. I think they should keep distracting CGI out of key scenes. Chewbacca was accepted, because you know it's just a tall guy in a hairy suit in that fysical space between the actors and on set, and after a while, you tend to forget that, and just look at him as the character. Jar Jar however (aside from being a crap character with crap lines and crap voice with a crap look) is impossible to achieve by a guy in a suit, the way he looks on screen. You're always -even slightely- aware that he's not really there. When Chewie passes Han a screwdriver on the Falcon, one thinks nothing of it. Yet am I the only one who keeps seeing things technically when Qui-Gon grabs Jar Jar's tongue in TPM? I can't see the action for what it is, even if it's done seemless in a computer; I just keep imagining Liam sitting there grabbing thin air.
For instance: imagine ESB's "I'm your father" scene, with CG creatures walking/crawling in the background. It would be distracting from the scene's realism and emotional impact, because these things -even subconsiously- tap you on your shoulder and say "hey, it's just a movie". These CGI creatures work in spaceport, senate and cantina-like scenes, not in every single shot of the movie.
To finish off: who else thinks the Conveyor Belt scene from AOTC is by far the ugliest, most redundant scene of all six films?
My favorite scenes are things like the binary sunset in ANH, Obi-Wan talking about Luke's father in ANH and Luke/Darth Vader duel + revelation in ESB.
__________________ They stole me lucky charms... you know what to do laddie...
Burn them down!! The lot of them!!
And no, he wasn't saying that. Take the time to read it. It's not like this message will self destruct in under thirty seconds.
And my favorite scenes would include: the prison break on the first Death Star; the final battle in ESB; and the battle near the shield generator on Endor.
Why are people flipping out? Sure, some of it is pretty petty nitpicks and I found myself saying 'you're an idiot' a few times but I got some laughs from reading it. Consider it a roast and chill.
__________________ Pointing at the moon does not make you the moon.
Of course it's nitpicky, but that's my point. All these little things don't really matter, but they really add up in the end and make you take the new films less seriously than you did the OT.
yeah that's exactly what I said. congratulations dude, you really see the big picture of everything, right? hey look, a tree!
__________________ They stole me lucky charms... you know what to do laddie...
Burn them down!! The lot of them!!
Ever had a paper cut? I'm sure you have. Small and insignificant, but nagging and uncomfortable, and always on your mind.
The prequels are full of paper cuts - it's like Japanese torture.
I feel sorry for the actors. They get the flak for crap performances, and I don't even blame them. They have to put up with working on crappy sets, with such little character interaction - and it shows. Not even Christopher Lee could pull off a convincing conversation with a CGI Yoda due to their isolated stances and camera cuts. Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, and SAMUEL FRIGGIN JACKSON are astounding actors, but actors have their limits, and George Lucas, with his blue screens and very cold approach to directing, didn't give a shit about that, and it shows.
Ever notice how the best scenes in Attack Of The Clones are where they are on Tatooine on the old ANH set? That's because Padme and Anakin are really there, interacting on a human level. Haydens temper tantrum really spoke volumes and was possibly the one decent scene in AOTC.
That was another good point about the CGI distractions. Most of the scenes on Coruscant have huge windows with tons of CGI traffic in almost every shot. The eye is directed towards that rather than the actor. It would have been better to have an establishing shot of the CGI stuff outside, and then make sure the performances are shot with nothing in the background (on a real set maybe? who's have thought?). I'm not that keen on the sound, to be honest. I think Ben Burtt spent too much time creating five hundred different lazer and engine sounds, rather than focussing on bringing those lifeless empty sets to life. That's what I meant about poor ambience. In the OT, the acoustics and ambience was naturally generated on the sets they were in. There are some scenes in the prequels with absolute silence. Any sounds are very fabricated sounding. Lucas should have realised that when going for simulated realism, sound is also as important as visuals.
These Star Wars Geeks crack me up, This is a good thread for pointing out things in the movie what ARE true..
Reason #79
Lousy Jedi
brought to my attention by Tony F.
During the Coliseum battle between the Jedi and the droids, this one rather ridiculous looking Jedi lands on the balcony with Dooku and Jango Fett. Jango just pulls out his gun and shoots the Jedi square in the chest and he then falls off the balcony to his death. I know Jango's supposed to be this really really great bounty hunter but these are Jedi! At the very least he could have engaged in a short and unsuccessful battle with Count Dooku. I refuse to believe that Jedi (who make a living off of deflecting rapid-fire laser blasts with their lightsabers) would be able to be dispatched this easily. And how humiliating to die in such a manner after a lifetime of training. This just confirms my suspicion that this was just some guy that grabbed a lightsaber because he thought it would be cool to get in on the action.
This is the most annoying part of the film for me, the Jedi what jumps up is a Member of the council, and he gets kill F**king stupid by Jangos Laser Bullets.
I did find that pretty weak, but then I have heard that the Jedi who landed on Genonosis (Around what? 200? Maybe half that?) who almost all died out, all were practitioners of a very blaise style of lightsaber combat. Do I think that would make them terrible enough to die as did the one above? No. I think that was just to give Jango props after Obi made him look stupid at Kamino.
And the screenshots suggestions and ambience I totally agree with. I'd thought the same thing myself. Id' have to say, the scenes in AOTC I enjoted the most were the bar scene (With all those people it just felt real), & Tattoine (Because, again, people were really there)
Yeah I quite liked that bar, it was real, but it lacked that atmosphere that the Cantina bar had from ANH, there was no hostility.
The death sticks bit I actually enjoyed - I don't know why this list has those as a bad idea. Comparring them to cigarretes isn't fair. I mean they coulda been the intergalactic equivalent of ciggies, but who cares? They are bad and that's all there is to it. Coulda been the same as heroin or God knows what. One of the many points on this list I found to be quite rediculous.
In fact I wanted to see MORE of Obi-Wan and other Jedi helping citizens like this. Like they'd be on a death defying mission, and still manage to help out a little scally-wag by mind tricking them.
In fact, that bar scene really established Ewan McGregors Obi-Wan as Obi-Wan, was actually pretty good. Could have done with this more kind-hearted and empathic Obi-Wan than serious action man Obi-Wan.
Last edited by Red Superfly on Apr 3rd, 2005 at 03:28 PM
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Mar 28th, 2005 10:58 PM
nothin will happen to me. 
They stole me lucky charms... you know what to do laddie...
