Looks good Ady. The opening laser fire between the blockade runner and the star destroyer seems a lot more crisp now, and I like how the laser bolts seem to disappear more naturally into the distance than they had before.
I just stumbled across this thread, and thought I’d post this to see if this rings a bell for anyone:
I remember seeing the end a movie sometime around the late 70s or early 80s (possibly made-for-TV) in which people were shooting at what I remember to be some kind of grey tar/sludge monster. I seem to remember this shootout happening on a ship, with the creature possibly at the top of a mast, but I can’t recall this part with certainty. I believe the monster is then shot/killed, and it seems like a happy ending is about to unfold, but I remember the last shot pans or zooms in on some sort of vat/drum full of the same grey, bubbling liquid that the monster was made of, which I guess was meant to insinuate the creature could return.
Sound familiar to anyone?
Amazingly, I found it: The Intruder Within.
I’m shocked at how accurately I remembered the film’s ending, considering the first and last time I saw this was 37 years ago, at which time I would have only been 3 years old.
Awesome news Mike. Thanks for keeping us up-to-date on what’s going on.
Anyone figure out a definitive way to fix the jerky/choppy playback? I’m trying to play the file on my Apple TV 4K via Plex. I’ve tried remuxing it with both MKVToolNix and MP4Tools. Neither worked…
I’m streaming from my iMac to my 4th generation Apple TV via Plex without issue… I can take a look at my Plex settings when I get home if you’d like to compare.
Out of curiosity, it wouldn’t be an issue with your router, would it? I used to experience notable buffering times when streaming large movie files or streaming trailers via the Apple Trailers app before upgrading my router.
That’s so weird… And you’re using the 4k version of the film not 1080, right?
I don’t think it’s a buffering issue. It does take a while to buffer initially so I get the spinning wheel for a bit, but once it starts the playback is like stuttery. It not stopping and starting but just not playing back smoothly. It’s hard to explain without seeing it.
Yes, I’m streaming the 4K version, but to a 4th generation Apple TV (which I just learned caps out at 1080p) which itself is hooked up to a 1080p TV, so I guess our situations are not as similar as I had thought. That being said, I did bring a copy of 4K77 over to a friend’s house who does have a 4K Apple TV, a 4K TV, and Plex, and it streamed just fine there too.
If your router’s not the issue, could it be a transcoder setting in Plex? In Settings > Server > Transcoder, I have the following settings:
Also, under Settings > Web > Debug, I have both the “Direct Play” and “Direct Stream” boxes checked, which from what I understand will allow Plex to avoid converting video or audio streams unnecessarily.
Anyone figure out a definitive way to fix the jerky/choppy playback? I’m trying to play the file on my Apple TV 4K via Plex. I’ve tried remuxing it with both MKVToolNix and MP4Tools. Neither worked…
I’m streaming from my iMac to my 4th generation Apple TV via Plex without issue… I can take a look at my Plex settings when I get home if you’d like to compare.
Out of curiosity, it wouldn’t be an issue with your router, would it? I used to experience notable buffering times when streaming large movie files or streaming trailers via the Apple Trailers app before upgrading my router.
I’d argue that there’s more detail overall in 4K77 than in the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray has been degrained, sharpened, and regrained so that the resulting image is very ‘flat’, meaning that fine details in already in-focus areas are distorted, whereas out-of-focus elements are sharpened. So whereas the impression upon seeing the Blu-ray is that it is sharper, you’re losing the natural depth of field from the original photography. 4K77 retains this.
The most noticeable issue with 4K77 is the inconsistent color grade, but that’s just how it looked on a Technicolor print.
Funny, I was just comparing 4K77 to Despecialized last night, and although there’s more textural detail in Despecialized (visible in characters’ skin, fabrics, etc.), I couldn’t help but feel that the overall image felt “flat” compared to 4K77. Thanks for explaining why this is.
Just like Bart, Chewie likes to stick with what he knows.
You’re right…
Awesome work Sky_!
That new trailer looked great. I can’t wait to go see it. But that guy has absolutely ZERO Han Solo attributes. I can’t believe they made a Han Solo movie where Han will be the worst part.
Although it’s too early to say much about Ehrenreich’s performance yet, I will say that, as far as physical comportment goes, I think he’s totally channeling Han Solo’s stance.
I mean, really. Honest question. What IS it about steelbooks that people love SOOOO much that they sell out in a day or rise dramatically in price when you can get the same exact disc in a regular case for a normal price?
I think it’s the same reason people buy Apple products. 😉
This comparison would imply that regular BDs are poorly made and cease to work after 5 years 😉
NeverarGreat said:
The problem with that scene from a scientific perspective is that it’s strongly implied that a Hyperdrive is literally able to accelerate objects up to and past the speed of light, instead of opening a tunnel into another dimension.
DrDre said:
No, there’s normal speed driven by normal engines with normal physical limits, and there’s lightspeed for which you need a hyperdrive. The former is normal motion in real space, while lightspeed is achieved in another dimension called hyperspace.
I’ve only read the last few pages of the thread, so my apologies if this has been mentioned already, but on the topic of whether hyperspace involves simply travelling really quickly or entering another dimension, ANH would seem to establish that it’s the former, since one is still at risk of interacting with physical objects in the universe. As Han says, “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”
I used to think the stormtroopers conversing after Ben shuts down the tractor beam said, “Do you know what’s going on?” “Maybe it’s another girl.” It was like Leia had already been a thorn in everyone’s side, now they thought some other female was also giving the male-dominated Death Star trouble.
That’s what I thought they were saying too.
SkyNet, this ain’t.
That’s just silly… John Ritter’s torso should obviously be bigger.
New interview with the designer behind these:
StarWars.com: Let’s start with the Dreadnought. Can you tell me about coming up with the design and how closely you were working with Rian Johnson to bring it to life?
Kevin Jenkins: All of my work was with Rian. Direct with Rian. The Dreadnought didn’t actually come to life until we got into post [production]. We had made some passes that were similar that Rian had approved that were on set, but it kind of turned into the final version that we are seeing now when we were in the post process, and we were going into full model-build stage. Basically, it evolved from story reasons because Rian needed a new battleship in the script called the Dreadnought. Essentially, it needed to be a ground-firing gun platform, and the other limitations that Rian put on me was he needed and required a flat surface with gun turrets on it. So basically, it’s an armored gunboat, an armored gun platform. It’s sort of a heavy artillery that’s much bigger than a standard Star Destroyer, about two-and-a-half times the size of a standard Star Destroyer. That was the original brief to me.
StarWars.com: As you were developing it, what were you looking at for inspiration? Were you looking at real-world craft or were you going back to the original trilogy and building off what came before? How did you approach it?
Kevin Jenkins: Combination of the original trilogy stuff, in the sense that I designed everything in Episode VIII as if it was to be a model. World War II and the Korean War and that era was a heavy influence in all the design, going into the ‘60s. But also using the mentality that Rian and I talked about a lot, which was an iteration-type idea. War makes you adaptive. So you start off with one vehicle, tank, gun, ship, and it evolves through combat into something else. The gun platform, of course being a larger Star Destroyer gun platform, we initially started with a giant triangle, which was the shape of a Star Destroyer. But then flattening off the top became a big design requirement. Quite late in the design phase, the under side of it was also sloped like a traditional Star Destroyer, because they are kind of a trapezoid shape if you look at them in a cross-section.
We had all sorts of design ideas and things, but when seeing an early cut with Rian, I just remember straight afterwards we talked to each other and went, “We need guns.” We tried radars because, obviously, you look at Return of the Jedi and there were radar dishes. There’s one on the Death Star. So it was also part of that retro, Flash Gordon-esque sci-fi thing, and we went down that path for a while, but then the cut just went, “Nah. Big guns. It just needs big guns.”
StarWars.com: You can never go wrong with big guns.
Kevin Jenkins: Yeah, exactly. I spent a lot of time looking at real-world references. Looking at the big battleships, the Yamato and all those kinds of things from World War II, and the way those guns would lower or rise. So the idea of them coming out the bottom of the Dreadnought became a design feature, because rather than just being there pointing down, we wanted to imply the danger that they sort of unlocked themselves and then moved into position. Just like the big 14-inch guns you used to see on those old battleships. It was a capitol ship. That was what we were kind of going for.
StarWars.com: Let’s jump over to the AT-M6. Walkers are a huge part of Star Wars and a fan-favorite thing. We see them in the original trilogy, the prequels, the animated series. So in coming up with a new kind of walker here for the sequel trilogy, what did you want to accomplish and what direction was Rian giving you?
Kevin Jenkins: Well, there were a few ideas that were kicking around before we came up with this idea. Funny, just before I took a vacation, sort of half way through preproduction, I talked to Rian about “what is a walker.” We went through this whole discussion about iteration. Iteration, to me, makes more sense than random walker design. So we talked about the way a Sherman tank in World War II evolved into an Abrams tank, for various reasons, or a Chieftain tank, or a Challenger, or whatever you want to say. And so we were trying to think about what made sense for a walker and I just said, “Look, a walker, to me, it’s essentially a Panzer tank mixed with a dog.” One of the questions that tied us up a lot is the fact that they’d been taken down by snowspeeders in The Empire Strikes Back, and it felt like everyone else is trying to avoid the problem of a four-legged version of a walker because they had been defeated on Hoth. So I sort of took that on board and I suggested to Rian, “Well, instead of a dog, what about a gorilla?” I can’t remember why I said a gorilla, but I just said, “They have a great stance, they are very aggressive,” and that’s how the idea of the gorilla came. And literally in profile, I molded it over an actual photo of a gorilla to get the initial base pose.
The front legs are very heavily armored, and you can see can almost up to the forearm. And again, that’s my take on, “You can’t take these down with a snowspeeder.” They’ve armored up the front or maybe they just cut the ropes because they are too big now. Also, the way they are balanced now is like a gorilla, because their knuckles are turned backwards and they’ve got very high shoulders. They are a completely different poise. Maybe they could even sort of kneel down or something. So I just took that gorilla design iteration, with the very high back, and just went to town with it. Actually, I didn’t do many conceptual designs or even images for it. Funny enough, I literally just took my laptop on holiday and I modeled it by the beach over two weeks and brought it back to Rian. Did the only two or three pictures that were done for it, and then showed those to Rian, who was really happy with it, and then I just made the physical models. Because the other thing I was doing on this show, compared to Episode VII with a lot of the vehicles that I was doing, I actually got Rian to approve them as physical prototypes. I would 3D print them from my 3D files, and then I would sort of scratch-build them. They are fully-painted. Rian has a fully-painted gorilla walker I’ve made for him. That was done for a number of the vehicles on Episode VIII.
StarWars.com: I’m glad to hear that they finally figured out how to defend against tow cables.
Kevin Jenkins: Well, it was more of a thought process of trying to base the design not upon something random but to move it forward. That’s also the reason for adding the large guns on there. It’s become the heavy assault walker. Also, I really love the idea of going, “What if the old walkers become the scouts for these walkers?” Because these are literally about a third or twice the size of them. So in the artwork, in the designs I initially did, I always put not scout walkers, but the actual classic walkers next to them, which sort of showed off their size. I think I called them goliaths for a while or something, but that’s how they got to where they were.
StarWars.com: That’s interesting. It sounds like you had the idea of, “Let’s have this really make sense from a design perspective.” But how did you hit the balance between, “We have to make something that the audience is going to respond to visually and like,” versus “Let’s have it make sense in-universe and have it move the technology of walkers forward.”
Kevin Jenkins: Yeah, I mean, I think the way I approached the design was purely from the design-that-makes-sense approach, and I heavily wanted to mix it with the feeling of a gorilla, and you can see tons of that in there when you look at it from the side. But then, really, the final aesthetic came from something we were doing on Episode VII — this is why I made a physical model. If it feels like a model and I felt like it probably could have been in the original trilogy, then I’d be happy with it. I kind of did that bit for me. That was why Rian liked some of the physical models that I was making so much, because it made us realize that, “You know, if this could have been around 1983 and if it feels good, then we’re fine.” That was pretty much the internal checkbox that I took forward with that.
StarWars.com: With these two designs, the Dreadnought and the AT-M6, what are you particularly proud of?
Kevin Jenkins: I’m very proud of the gorilla [walker] from the point of view of exactly what I said, that I feel that it’s an iteration forward. A spitfire and a modern jet, you can see the link there. They’re part of the same thing. That was always my intention with the gorilla. It’s not a start from scratch. This is the aesthetic, this is the way that the First Order, who was the Empire, work. So that, I’m really happy with. When I found the final model balance, I kind of thought, “I don’t think I can move this around anymore. I think this is it.” Rian saw it and his eyes lit up, and he just went, “There’s our walker.” That was really cool.
But then on the other hand, the same kind of goes with the Dreadnought, and that evolved a lot harder and over a lot longer period of time than the walker, which was pretty much kind of stab one, almost. With the Dreadnought, I feel that we are making sense of First Order technology and trying to tie it together, rather than just doing cool ships. It’s hopefully cool because of what it does and its design makes sense for the story, and then hopefully future generations will think it’s cool because of what it ends up doing in the movie. But again, trying to move the design forward. That’s why it has that super-wide bridge. When it’s lit, it’s like a submarine because everything goes red when it’s going to fire.
So I don’t know, I’m pretty happy with them, to be honest with you. But for different reasons, because when the Dreadnought was [requested], “Oh, we need another ship,” I thought it was just a flippant, “Oh, we just need another thing,” and it turned into a whole sequence around what it needed to be. And the walkers for different reasons, because that 10-year-old kid in me, when I saw The Empire Strikes Back, thought that that was the coolest thing I had ever seen. And it’s very hard to live up to anything that Ralph [McQuarrie] did, but if we captured a little bit of that feeling of what was done in the ‘70s and ‘80s, then hopefully we succeeded.
While I appreciate the appearent thoughtfulness behind the designs and the desire to make them logical evolutions of previous vehicles, the end results simply seem uninspired. And, honestly, I don’t really see the logic in the AT-M6’s design – how does having bulkier front legs make this any more resistant to cables? If they somehow enable them to move more quickly, as Lord Haseo said, then okay, but I doubt it.
Yeah but slices of pizza with vertical interest are never as tasty, no matter how they look.
There have been times “Star Wars” in general has been supplanted in my life by other things I’m an enthusiast for, but I always come home.
My sentiments exactly. I go through phases where I’ll obsess over other films (Alien, The Shining, The Big Lebowski, The Wrath of Khan, The Fountain), but ultimately nothing ever tops the original '77 Star Wars in the long run.
What if the only thing you’ve got in trying to remember a movie is a VHS cover or a poster?
If you have either the VHS cover or movie poster, look for large, letter-like symbols. There’s a good chance they may spell out the name of the film. 😉
Frink is the forum… no, wait, I’m thinking of Bingowings (he’s still everyone, right?)
What do you mean by “current injustices that are derived from these things?” How do you wipe out the legacy of slavery?
As for white kids going to private schools, I am not sure what can be done about that. This is America, if you have enough money amd want to send your kids to private school, you can.
I pretty sure that housing segregation is not allowed under the civil rights act. People have the right to live where they want regardless of skin color, assuming they can afford to live in said place.
I think a few people (CatBus, DominicCobb, and suspiciouscoffee) have already done a good job of responding to this, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents. You ask how racism/segregation is still prevalent in American society, and you have twice answered your own question. If the ability to live in “nice neighbourhoods” and attend “good schools” is contingent on having the money to make such things possible, and if certain races generally don’t have access to such money, then this is a form of racism/segregation.
Now one might argue that anyone, regardless of race, has the opportunity to make enough money to live where they wish and attend whatever school they wish, but if society is set up to keep people in their existing socioeconomic class, and if people in lower socioeconomic classes are generally minorities, therein lies the institutional racism mentioned earlier. If a child lives in a poor neighbourhood and attends a poor school due to his family not having enough money to do otherwise, then the child himself is likely to grow up and find himself in the same boat. The cycle perpetuates itself, not because any one person is saying, “Don’t live here” and “Go to school there,” but simply because society makes it difficult to escape one’s current class, and due to American history, many racial minorities find themselves in the lower class.
For anyone interested in learning more about the culture of poverty, and why it is so difficult to escape it, I’d recommend reading Building Bridges out of Poverty.
Just watched ESB:R this afternoon. What an amazing and professional job! A huge thanks to you Ady, as well as everyone else involved.
I would like to think I caught most of the changes, but I’m sure half or more slipped right by me, which is a testament to how well integrated the new FX are. Like everyone else, I loved the new Battle of Hoth, but my favourite additions have to be the subtle facial movements on Yoda. It’s incredible how much more alive he comes across now — a perfect marriage of digital wizardry with Frank Oz’s puppeteering skills.
Lastly, I was blown away at the amount of physical prop-building that went into this edit. Although I’d followed the development of this project since its beginning, I had forgotten just how much you had built… the wampa, hangar set, asteroid chasm, Dagobah set, Han in carbonite. It’s astounding how much time, love, and dedication has been poured into this endeavour.
Thank you Ady, and the rest of the crew, for this wonderful gift.
Even though he said a while ago that he wouldn’t kill Lando off in ROTJ:R, I still feel worried if he changed his mind.
Thank goodness this is the ANH:R thread then, where we don’t have to worry about such things.
I suspected quote mining was involved.
Let’s not pretend that luke skywalker was ever a interesting character to begin with…his non presence in TFA is a parallel to how interesting of a “character” luke is
You’re right, aside from:
Luke is a completely uninteresting character.
I’m glad to hear you’re giving the wampa one last shot, more for your sake than anything (I can only imagine your frustration at creating the costume only to not be able to use it). I hope you’re able to make use of it yet. Best of luck!
