Originally posted by: darthbeej
Think the idea is great however some changes I would make...........
1) Slow the movement of the planet / camera / death star / star destroyer down a bit
- it appears to race by quite quickly and shows a bit too much "sliding" of objects rather than giving the impression of static solid objects in space - (best way I can describe it)
Due to the elements used to create this sequence a static shot was impossible and also while i wanted the theme of the Death Star was constructed above a planet to mirror ROTJ a static shot would have been too similar. The shots used have been slowed down from their original speed about as much as would be possible without affecting the footage too bad. I always felt that the the first time we get to see Death Star needed a bigger reveal than it had. After all, in Empire, there is a large reveal for the Superstardestroyer, so why not for the Death Star. After all its supposed to be their ultimate weapon, but all we got had was a quick shot of a single stardestroyer heading towards it. Its one thing that always bugged me after seeing Empire.
This sequence is set at the opening of the conference scene. the officers would have been summoned to the Death Star for this meeting. In my way of thinking for this scene they would have arrived by stardestroyer so it would be logical that there would be more stardestroyers by the death star for this scene. Plus, as infoDroid pointed out, it was not yet opertional so there would have had to have been a fleet presence to guard the Death Star. Once the meeting was over they would have returned to their sectors and only a minimum stardestroyer presence would have been required the closer the Death Star was to being operational. Also when the Death Star leaves for Alderaan then there wouldn't have been the need for any stardestroyers as it was about to be fully operational. The Empires arrogance, as noted in the conference room scene, was its downfall. They believed that the station was the ultimate power in the universe and that nothing could touch it so the Stardestroyers would have been ordered to stay behind and therefore when the battle of Yavin occurs there would have been no stardestoyers.
3) Change the colour of the planet - blue implies Alderaan which we dont see for another 30 mins (roughly!)
- Could the planet be Coruscant in the background rather than hovering over a blue unidentified planet in orbit, would this give the destoyers a reason to be there.
Think the idea is great however some changes I would make...........
1) Slow the movement of the planet / camera / death star / star destroyer down a bit
- it appears to race by quite quickly and shows a bit too much "sliding" of objects rather than giving the impression of static solid objects in space - (best way I can describe it)
Due to the elements used to create this sequence a static shot was impossible and also while i wanted the theme of the Death Star was constructed above a planet to mirror ROTJ a static shot would have been too similar. The shots used have been slowed down from their original speed about as much as would be possible without affecting the footage too bad. I always felt that the the first time we get to see Death Star needed a bigger reveal than it had. After all, in Empire, there is a large reveal for the Superstardestroyer, so why not for the Death Star. After all its supposed to be their ultimate weapon, but all we got had was a quick shot of a single stardestroyer heading towards it. Its one thing that always bugged me after seeing Empire.
2) Lose the star destroyers in the background if not all together, there wasnt much need for a fleet as they had a Death Star!?
- The fleet appeared on a large scale in ESB in a Battlestar Galactica type of manner IMHO, including them makes you wonder what happended to them when the rebels attack later in the film!? Wouldnt the Empire have used them as frontline of defense if they were hovering by the Death Star when the rebels xwing fighters appear??. If they are there for show then the planet needs to be something worth hovering over....see next point
- The fleet appeared on a large scale in ESB in a Battlestar Galactica type of manner IMHO, including them makes you wonder what happended to them when the rebels attack later in the film!? Wouldnt the Empire have used them as frontline of defense if they were hovering by the Death Star when the rebels xwing fighters appear??. If they are there for show then the planet needs to be something worth hovering over....see next point
This sequence is set at the opening of the conference scene. the officers would have been summoned to the Death Star for this meeting. In my way of thinking for this scene they would have arrived by stardestroyer so it would be logical that there would be more stardestroyers by the death star for this scene. Plus, as infoDroid pointed out, it was not yet opertional so there would have had to have been a fleet presence to guard the Death Star. Once the meeting was over they would have returned to their sectors and only a minimum stardestroyer presence would have been required the closer the Death Star was to being operational. Also when the Death Star leaves for Alderaan then there wouldn't have been the need for any stardestroyers as it was about to be fully operational. The Empires arrogance, as noted in the conference room scene, was its downfall. They believed that the station was the ultimate power in the universe and that nothing could touch it so the Stardestroyers would have been ordered to stay behind and therefore when the battle of Yavin occurs there would have been no stardestoyers.
3) Change the colour of the planet - blue implies Alderaan which we dont see for another 30 mins (roughly!)
- Could the planet be Coruscant in the background rather than hovering over a blue unidentified planet in orbit, would this give the destoyers a reason to be there.
I'm still not convinced that having a blue planet would make people jump to the conclusion that it would be Alderaan when watched in context with the movie. After all, as i stated before, the similarity between the appearence of Alderaan and Yavin 4 never caused confusion because we knew that Alderaan was destroyed. This planet is a water planet and contains no land mass whereas Alderaan has a lot of land mass and Tarking gives an order to set course for Alderaan so we know that they are not orbiting Alderaan. But, after saying all that, i really do like the idea of it orbiting a grey moon or dead planet.
dumb_kid, I like the look of the planet in the pic you posted. Do you have a hi-res pic that you could forward to me please so i can have a play with it? Toning the puple down and bringing it to more of a grey moon look will possibly work for this sequence because the moon looks pretty natural and not CG. I've checked out www.nasa.gov and, apart from our moon and the Earth shots, the other planets look a little too Cg to me and would also need to be a lot higher-res for me to be able to use them because they are all a full planet shot and not horizon shots like in the sequence.