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Crystall Skull has GL's fingerprints all over it — Page 3
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Tiptup said:
What happened to the painstaking care that used to look at each shot and scene for excellent visual details? I preferred it when people did real work to make sure that a particular image was as good as it could be. Though, I suppose that Guillermo Del Toro does a fantastic job in his movies. I can't wait for Hellboy 2 and he gives me hope for a good translation of the Hobbit.
What happened to the painstaking care that used to look at each shot and scene for excellent visual details? I preferred it when people did real work to make sure that a particular image was as good as it could be. Though, I suppose that Guillermo Del Toro does a fantastic job in his movies. I can't wait for Hellboy 2 and he gives me hope for a good translation of the Hobbit.
A lot of visual effects artists would find that offensive. Using computer-generated effects is incredibly painstaking, regardless of what the public at large may think.
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Johnboy3434 said:
A lot of visual effects artists would find that offensive. Using computer-generated effects is incredibly painstaking, regardless of what the public at large may think.
Tiptup said:
What happened to the painstaking care that used to look at each shot and scene for excellent visual details? I preferred it when people did real work to make sure that a particular image was as good as it could be. Though, I suppose that Guillermo Del Toro does a fantastic job in his movies. I can't wait for Hellboy 2 and he gives me hope for a good translation of the Hobbit.
What happened to the painstaking care that used to look at each shot and scene for excellent visual details? I preferred it when people did real work to make sure that a particular image was as good as it could be. Though, I suppose that Guillermo Del Toro does a fantastic job in his movies. I can't wait for Hellboy 2 and he gives me hope for a good translation of the Hobbit.
A lot of visual effects artists would find that offensive. Using computer-generated effects is incredibly painstaking, regardless of what the public at large may think.
I agree. CGI can be even more painstaking than the old-fashioned methods. Theres a very big misconception that, from the standpoint of the artists, it takes less effort or less skill. Its easier for filmmakers because they have more control but from the standpoint of the technicians and artists it takes more time and effort in most cases--which is why the pos-production phase on FX film has gone from about 6 months, as it usually was back around 1980, to about 12-18 months as it usually is now.
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But I wasn't so much debating the visual quality of CGI as I was the assumption that it's easy. It most certainly is not.
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I heard G.L. wanted to shoot Indy 4 in Hi-def but Steven said no 1980s Film Stock would be fine. so the blu-ray will have "grain" that's ok with me though. it would have been better if it was shot in Hi-def IMHO.
and the CGI was ok with me.
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It might be analog but many things that are analog are actually better than digital.
Also film is archival digitally stored video is not.
I'm surprised nobody is shocked that the prequels and special editions being stored in this way is utterly foolish unless George Had them bounce the digital video back to film for archival purposes.
as for cgi if it matches the original physical effects which was not done for the special editions i am all for it. Daren Docterman is an excellent example, the work he did on the directors cut of star trek the motion picture was done as to match the original effects.
I think the prequels should have been made as to match the oot, the effects were to modern and flashy. since the timeline of the prequels predate the 1977 star wars the effects should have shown that.
I agree that cgi takes a lot of finessing to make it look real, for example gollum in lord of the rings feels less fake than jar jar, even though they are both cgi rendered. too bad Peter Jackson succeded in making him rediculously annoying almost as bad as jar jar. He is more a sympathetic character in the books.
In those films i love the old school models and location shooting, but they went way overboard with the cgi as if they were trying to outdo George Lucas.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
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skyjedi2005 said:
He is more a sympathetic character in the books.
He is more a sympathetic character in the books.
You really think so? I thought the Gollum of the book was just the typical cowardly villain with a dash of pathos. The movie Gollum damn near made me cry (although that may have been Serkis' absolutely stunning performance).
As for trying to outdo GL, exactly how were you expecting them to depict the Pelennor Field without CGI, again?
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Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
Earlier this week, IMDB had a reader review score of 9.0 for Crystal Skull. That's utterly insane -- higher than every great film ever made! It's already down to 8.1, and clearly after another month the review will more properly reflect the film's true quality.
WHy are people so dumb? If a film's crap it's crap, don't kid yourself. The same thing happened with ROTS - people convinced themselves it was a good film and George had finally pulled it off. But it wasn't a good film, it was shit. Not as shit as TPM and AOTC, but shit nonetheless.Earlier this week, IMDB had a reader review score of 9.0 for Crystal Skull. That's utterly insane -- higher than every great film ever made! It's already down to 8.1, and clearly after another month the review will more properly reflect the film's true quality.
I'm glad we have two threads to diss the new Indy film in because it deserves it.
Mielr said:
I saw it tonight and it was fun to watch. I liked the nod to Raiders in the beginning, and I liked the way the film ended. The film felt sillier than the previous 3 and the plot was a bit murky, but it was still enjoyable. I liked seeing Marion again. It's no Raiders, that's for damn sure, but it didn't offend me like the prequels did.
I saw it tonight and it was fun to watch. I liked the nod to Raiders in the beginning, and I liked the way the film ended. The film felt sillier than the previous 3 and the plot was a bit murky, but it was still enjoyable. I liked seeing Marion again. It's no Raiders, that's for damn sure, but it didn't offend me like the prequels did.
But it had Aliens in it!!!
The only good portion of the film was from when Indy meets Mutt up to when they get captured outside the tomb where Indy finds the skull hidden behind the mummy. All that was pretty good. But it NOSEDIVED after that.
War does not make one great.
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Johnboy3434 said:
A lot of visual effects artists would find that offensive. Using computer-generated effects is incredibly painstaking, regardless of what the public at large may think.
Tiptup said:
What happened to the painstaking care that used to look at each shot and scene for excellent visual details? I preferred it when people did real work to make sure that a particular image was as good as it could be. Though, I suppose that Guillermo Del Toro does a fantastic job in his movies. I can't wait for Hellboy 2 and he gives me hope for a good translation of the Hobbit.
What happened to the painstaking care that used to look at each shot and scene for excellent visual details? I preferred it when people did real work to make sure that a particular image was as good as it could be. Though, I suppose that Guillermo Del Toro does a fantastic job in his movies. I can't wait for Hellboy 2 and he gives me hope for a good translation of the Hobbit.
A lot of visual effects artists would find that offensive. Using computer-generated effects is incredibly painstaking, regardless of what the public at large may think.
I don't care what they take offense at. Most visual effects artists in the movie industry are either lazy or they have no skill. :P
A bunch of time and money spent on a CG model is worthless if the final result in a given movie looks like crap. In other words, what I care about is the end result we're given in the actual movie's frames (not the relatively unseen details put on some CG leaf). I'll enjoy the real puppet we had for Yoda in Empire more than the shitty, CG Yoda we got in AotC any day (on the basis of the realistic textures, flexibility, and lighting). In comparison to Farscape quality puppets, or a CG character of Gollum quality, the CGI of Yoda was a joke.
Most movies, though, are filled with shit CGI that's even worse than what we got from Lucas in AotC. (I'm not sure why this is, but hopefully movie studios are at least getting more bang for their bucks or something to justify it.) You'll get an occasional movie with fantastic CGI use (like Episode I, Lord of the Rings, AI, Hellboy, and many others), but the capacity of CGI elements to look terrible is more often realized than its capacity to look good. I'd guess between old directors, who have trouble spotting bad CGI, and new directors, who think they're making video game cut scenes, and the fact that everyone tries to stuff too much crap into their movies in general (just because they can) is the primary culprit of this. Oh well.
Anyways, you dumped on some of the special effects in Temple of Doom (which I'm certainly not fond of by any means either), but I can honestly say that I'd take some of its worst models and matte shots over an emotionless, flat-looking, digital blob filling my screen. Essentially, I expect more from CGI because I know what it's capable of. Being a huge animation fan and someone who knows quite a bit about digital art, I'm not going to let a movie get off easy when it's budget is twice as high as Temple of Doom's budget (adjusted for inflation).
My biggest problems with CGI (using my own silly terms and in no particular order):
1. Movement flicker; when a moving CG object is hard to follow in a smooth way as it moves on the screen and seems to jump from position to position with a mess of blurry crap offered in between. (This problem has been intermittent since the first uses of CGI in movies and it's still around today. It ruined the insect fairy from Pan's Labyrinth for me since I know what a real insect movement caught on film should look like.)
2. Poor texture; shiny, rubber balloon surfaces are generally gone now (. . . generally), but we're still often left with internal surfaces that clearly appear to have no real depth in relation to other, nearby surfaces on the model. (Gollum suffered from this flatness at places on his model despite having an excellent design for the coloring and shape of his skin texture in general.)
3. Poor lighting; this is when things like contrasts and highlights present on a model don't look soft enough, hard enough, or generally complex enough to be real. (This looks the worst when a model is placed within a filmed image since fake lighting doesn't merge well with what we see on real objects.)
4. Hover; when CGI seems to not look solidly connected or in a fixed position within a filmed image but instead seems to look like it's closer or further away than the real objects it is supposed to be aligned with. (Gollum's arm looks like this when wrapped around Frodo's neck.)
5. Flatness; this is a general, flat look that CGI will almost always seem to have due to something I'm not quite sure of (whether it's the focus of different depths or it's the way light would wrap around a real surface, the logical shapes of a CG object just don't seem as pronounced as a real-world object that's put on film would be).
6. No sense of subtlety; considering how the positional nature of CGI can be tweaked to the finest of small degrees, I'm far too often surprised at the absurd extremes that are used when animating the expressions of CG characters or the movement of an entire object in relation to the physics involved. (Gollum was a masterpiece in this regard, and even Jar Jar looked great, but the CG Yoda looked like he had liquid skin on his forehead.)
The problems I have with CGI would be avoidable or at least properly minimized if directors and technicians were looking for these things and using every appropriate technique in the industry to get the best results (instead of throwing pure CGI at every problem). This is what I mean by the lack of care involved. CGI can do a lot of amazing stuff when coming from the most skilled of artists, but money and time spent on computers does not automatically equal a good special effect and CGI still has its limits no matter how skilled an artist is.
"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself. It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005
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Oh, & give me models & puppets any day!
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skyjedi2005 said:
I think the prequels should have been made as to match the oot, the effects were to modern and flashy. since the timeline of the prequels predate the 1977 star wars the effects should have shown that.
And I maintain that if Lucas had done exactly that and turned out a retro sci-fi movie that looked like it was shot in the seventies with (high quality) puppets and models he would have received untold respect and acclaim.I think the prequels should have been made as to match the oot, the effects were to modern and flashy. since the timeline of the prequels predate the 1977 star wars the effects should have shown that.
War does not make one great.
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"With a model, a light can hit it a certain way or you can find a new camera angle and have that 'happy accident', but with CG, you have to plan for that accident."
To me, that's the problem with CG in a nutshell. All the optics and physics that we take for granted and happen naturally in the real world have to be consciously and purposely accounted for, calculated, adjusted and balanced in the computer. There's just too much of that, and too much interaction between them, for CG to come off as fully 100% indistinguishable from reality, at least under current limitations of programming. Even if you can't figure out WHY, you can usually sense when something is CG and when it isn't.
My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.
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I think a major problem with cgi is that the animators & filmmakers have TOO much control. It's those "happy accidents" that can really make something work and those just don't happen anymore with CGI.
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I also am aware of the "weight" issue with CGI. The CGI characters don't move with the same gravity that real people/animals do. The CGI stormtroopers in ANH:SE and the action scenes in the Spiderman movies spring to mind. They just don't look/feel/move like organic beings. It was really obvious when Spidey was CGI and when he wasn't.
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I agree that cgi takes a lot of finessing to make it look real, for example gollum in lord of the rings feels less fake than jar jar, even though they are both cgi rendered. too bad Peter Jackson succeded in making him rediculously annoying almost as bad as jar jar. He is more a sympathetic character in the books.
That's a kinda strange argument. The bulk of Jar Jar's animation would've been done in 1998. A substantial amount of Gollum was animated in 2001 and 2002. LIGHT YEARS in CG advancements had taken place in the interim. Plus, Jackson got pointers from Lucas and McCallum.
for me the logical conclusion of the trajectory Jackson set up was some kind of redemption, even if he still killed himself, because for most of Jackson's Return of the King Gollum just kind of casts aside all the wonderful conflict in the previous film and becomes bad
I've not read the books (something about them being too damn boring) but I dig the way Gollum's arc plays out in the films. He goes from being conflicted about helping Frodo and Sam reach Mordor but ultimately Smeagol subsumes the Gollum persona and there's a taste of redemption there... which is lost when Frodo appears to turn on him when they're all detained by Faramir. Smeagol was so close to redemption but he ultimately lost his battle and his actions in ROTK are the aftermath of all that. I dug that aspect of LOTR even if I don't like that trilogy over all.
Regarding all this CGI hooplah, I think models and such appear more convincing because the nature of their use brings a kinda realistic look to it by default. The effects in the prequels (even model shots and such) seem to be more biased towards creating eye candy as opposed to shooting for "realism"... and in that sense, for as impressive as the Death Star passover in ANH remains to this day, it was clearly intended to be eye candy as best as could be created in 1976. In fact, a lot of ANH effects fall into that eye candy category, imho.
There's just too much of that, and too much interaction between them, for CG to come off as fully 100% indistinguishable from reality
I don't think people are as perceptive about this as some of you guys do. I've heard critics whine about "too much CG" in specific reference to prequel effects shots that unquestionably were based upon models. On top of that, every single shot in AOTC and ROTS have some sort of effect or digital gimmick and I defy any of you to identify the edit in every single shot. As you guys say, CGI has certain limitations... I just don't think it's as limited as all of you seem to say.
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skyjedi2005 said:
Also film is archival digitally stored video is not.
I'm surprised nobody is shocked that the prequels and special editions being stored in this way is utterly foolish unless George Had them bounce the digital video back to film for archival purposes.
Also film is archival digitally stored video is not.
I'm surprised nobody is shocked that the prequels and special editions being stored in this way is utterly foolish unless George Had them bounce the digital video back to film for archival purposes.
I don't know where you get this idea from. Film decays over time. Digitally stored video (think of an array of hard drives) will look the same in 10 years that it does today. Do you think LFL doesn't have redundant discs? They have all kinds of redundant storage and backups. As long as they keep moving the data to new storage as new media becomes available (large drives, larger optical media, larger tapes, etc), there will be no loss at all.
I have data on mirrored drives that goes back 10 years, possibly longer. If one drive fails, I simply replace it and I'm good to go. That's all digitally stored (1s and 0s) so it's all archival. I even have video on DV tapes that still looks the same today as it did when it was shot, just about 10 years ago. Assuming I get the video off the tape and onto a hard drive, I don't have to worry about the tape degrading.
Bouncing the digital video to film wouldn't do any good in the case of the PT anyway. They were shot in 1080p, so storing it on hard drives would be just as good, if not better, as storing it on film.
You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.
Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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This will only become truer as storage drive capacity expands beyond what it is today. The expense and logistics of terrabytes of storage is only an obstacle right now. It's only going to become easier, cheaper and more efficient from here on in.
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Mielr said:
I also am aware of the "weight" issue with CGI. The CGI characters don't move with the same gravity that real people/animals do. The CGI stormtroopers in ANH:SE and the action scenes in the Spiderman movies spring to mind. They just don't look/feel/move like organic beings. It was really obvious when Spidey was CGI and when he wasn't.
I also am aware of the "weight" issue with CGI. The CGI characters don't move with the same gravity that real people/animals do. The CGI stormtroopers in ANH:SE and the action scenes in the Spiderman movies spring to mind. They just don't look/feel/move like organic beings. It was really obvious when Spidey was CGI and when he wasn't.
You're definitely right about that one. I'll have to add that to my oh-so masterful list. ;)
Hmm, anyways, it occurs to me that effects are sort of a one way street for me. Particularly with new films, I'll expect them to not have worse effects than previous films unless the effect they're going for is more difficult. I hate the idea of making an effect noticeable or obvious on purpose.
Also, I like what thecolorsblend2 had to say about eye candy. There definitely is a difference between eye candy and realism. The prequel trilogy often went overboard in the eye candy department. I love just about every effect and CG model in the prequels for their neat-looking nature. Unfortunately, the dramatic element is totally dependent upon the realistic nature of an effect and whether or not that effect is of a likable character. While the effects in the original trilogy were glorious eye candy (for their time) they were also aimed towards realism and character which served to enhance the emotional drama of the stories. Eye candy is not necessarily incompatible with real, likable drama and the OT proves this despite the failure of the PT to do the same.
"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself. It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005
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thecolorsblend2 said:
Data is always at risk for being lost or damaged beyond repair, whether it's physical or digital media. That being said, ROTS will never have to be remastered -- at least not in the same sense that, say, the Godfather has been.
This will only become truer as storage drive capacity expands beyond what it is today. The expense and logistics of terrabytes of storage is only an obstacle right now. It's only going to become easier, cheaper and more efficient from here on in.
Data is always at risk for being lost or damaged beyond repair, whether it's physical or digital media. That being said, ROTS will never have to be remastered -- at least not in the same sense that, say, the Godfather has been.
This will only become truer as storage drive capacity expands beyond what it is today. The expense and logistics of terrabytes of storage is only an obstacle right now. It's only going to become easier, cheaper and more efficient from here on in.
In the case of Star Wars thats probably true, because the material is basically controlled by one company who only has to worry about those films, so keeping 6 films preserved is easy. The problem comes with a studio--how do you preserve 100, 000 films digitally? Its much easier to just make a celluloid negative and keep that properly preserved in a climate-controlled warehouse with thousands of other films. If your library has 100, 000 titles you want preserved, at roughly 200 GB per film thats 20 000 000 GB. But you can't have just one, because digital data is so easily corrupted, you would make a back up, so now its 40 000 000 GB. Not only do you have to pay the huge electric bill to keep those millions of hard drives spinning, you have to have a guy checking and maintaining them, and becase hard drives only have a lifespan of about 2 or 3 years, that means all 40 000 000 GB has to be back up almost bi-annually. Thats an enormous effort, not to mention a huge cost (just the act of telecining them alone would cost near a billion dollars).
So I don't really see digital storage replacng the old fashioned way any time soon, not in our lifetimes. They'll continue to co-exist, and as studios slowly build up their digital library storage cost will go down and physical hard drive space will shrink as well, but it'll still be a co-existance for a very long time, and they'll still continue to preserve the negatives they have, they aren't going to just chuck their history.
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