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Crystall Skull has GL's fingerprints all over it — Page 5

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I enjoyed the films and shall see it a third time before it leaves cinemas. As I've already stated, I joined this board more for the random Indiana Jones projects in comparison to reading alot of SW fanboys bitch and moan about everything.
For KotCS, I was expecting a new adventure with the appropriate spin on what was popular at the time. The B-Movies, UFO's, the Red Scare, 1950's, A-bombs and other things. So yeah, I wasn't expecting a retread of the previous three films. I got that and am entirely happy for it.
It won't change my own personal opinion of how much fun I had watching KotCS either. I'm entitled to my own opinion and dammit, I thoroughly enjoyed KotCS. Hell, I'll even buy the DVD on the date of release.
Also due to the fact I'm far more of a fan of Indiana Jones in comparison to Star Wars. Star Wars is reaching Franchise Fatigue at the moment. Clone Wars movie? Thanks but no thanks, it's a pass for me. Oh, The Force Unleashed videro game? Where's that Indiana Jones video game you've been working on LucasArts?
Yeah, so what if I own the 2006 "GOUT" DVD's? I also own RotS. No, I won't bash Lucas every chance I get.
Only detractors I have for this film, Nixie-display instead of LED ones for the Rocketsled sequence and a longer running time. Sure, there might be some minor things too but I don't frankly care. I know KotCS isn't supposed to mirror RotLA, ToD and TLC. Just another adventure for Indiana Jones. It's what I paid to see and it's what I received as I mentioned.
Pardon me while I scarper off and play Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis while you die-hard SW fanboys nitpick more. It's only a damn movie. Oh, I had FUN watching it too.
Hell, I even enjoyed 1941. Oh, does that make me lower in status compared to you? It's just a damn forum. Speaking of which, I'll pre-order KotCS come to think of it.
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I finally saw Indy IV today, and have to say this is all Spielberg, and anyone who has problems really can't blame ol Georgie on this one. I thought it was OK, and rank it at the bottom along side Last Crusade, but it was what it was, and I didn't expect anything more.

Spielberg does typical sequels, and none of his sequels have ever tried to outdo the originals, or even try to equal them, as Cameron was able to do with Aliens and T2. Temple of Doom, Last Crusade, Jurassic Park II, and Krystal Skull are all run of the mill sequels that use the same formula to entertain, nothing more nothing less. Lucas & Spielberg should put Indy & SW to rest, they had a great run, but don't milk them too much.
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Anchorhead said:

Mielr said:


I nearly collapsed the other day when I bought my ticket and it was $10.00!


$9.00, $7.00, & $7.00 for the times I've seen it. All in the same theater, a big Regal with the stadium seating and super comfortable high-back chairs. Brought my own candy with me though - Indiana Jones Mint M&Ms. <--- No, I'm not kidding.
I'm not paying $5.00 for a bag of candy. That's too close to the cost of my ticket and more than I paid to park. Have one more bag in case I go again.



You guys have it cheap. I had to pay £8.50 for a ticket, which I guess is about $16.00. That and my popcorn and drink cost me around £14.00 in total. That's why I don't go to the cinema that often, only on "Special occasions".

This bloody country is ripping people off everywhere at the moment.......

http://www.facebook.com/DirtyWookie

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Yeah man, I know. My car got wrecked last week and I decided not to get a new one - driving is too expensive. Public transport is shit though and also too expensive :(

War does not make one great.

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DGC wrote:
Lucas brought up some really clever ideas and turned it into a movie.
-Mayan hieroglyphics that look like flying airplanes
-The landscape pictures in peru that can only be seen from the sky
-Legend of the crystal skulls
-UFO crash in Roswell
-The fact that ancient civs were highly advanced

Whoa.. seriously, you thought this was clever?
This is a grab bag of cheesey UFO cliches from the last 30 years. Now granted, the cheesey familiarity is part of the fun, but it's very very far from clever.
Darth Lucas: I am altering the trilogy. Pray I don't alter it further.
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I'm new here, (I came basically because I wanted to comment on Adywan's awesome revisited project) and I have to say that some of you guys are just afraid of change. How the effects are done in a film doesn't matter, it's the final result that matters. CG artists do a a lot more work than any matte painter or model builder and it is the way of the future. True, computers can never perfectly capture the expressions and demeanors of a living being, but that's what mo-cap is for:

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i128/octolink_64/im03.jpg

I always thought that the CG in pirates is some of the best I've ever seen. It's true that CG can look very bad but so can models and matte paintings. I'll take a complex rendered CG environment over a matte painting any day. I think some of the CG in Indy 4 is poorly done (why get CG prairie dogs when you can get real prairie dogs?) but they took a lot of time in making the movie nostalgic and old looking, and fans shouldn't bash the movie for being radically different because, if anything, it is TOO much like the old movies. I'm glad Lucas didn't go that route with the Star Wars prequels. What people don't realize is that these movies are just as much for you as they are for new generation of kids.

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Octorox said:

I'm glad Lucas didn't go that route with the Star Wars prequels. What people don't realize is that these movies are just as much for you as they are for new generation of kids (And, as I'm still in High School, I can call meyself one of them) and about half of the perceived "betterness" of the old movies and old effects are just because they are nostalgic (not to everybody but a lot of prequel bashers who grew up wih the originals).


You're showing a bias yourself by suggesting that even half of the members here who prefer organic special effects to CG effects do so because of nostalgia.

Since you're new here, I encourage you to look through the many years worth of threads that discuss the various viewpoints about FX techniques- you will find that there are MANY legitimate reasons that some fans prefer non-CG effects (though I have a feeling you're about to get an ear-full in this thread as well). ;-)


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If your still in High School what do you know about the original trilogy from 1977-1983

You probably were not even born yet, so how can you possibly know what it was like when star wars actually meant something to a generation of people, the story and the deep roots in mythmaking had very little to do with special effects.

"Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People have a tendency to think of them as an end in themselves, a special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing" George Lucas from star wars to jedi.

This line by Lucas is pure genious and shows just where hollywood has gone wrong in the modern movie making era, of course this was said by the George Lucas who i had immense respect for before he went off the rails and destroyed the original trilogy with cgi.

This was before he made 4 films that were a special effect without a story, and before he had greedo shoot first.

Then again you probably also believe the lie that star wars has always centered around the story of darth vader, when in fact it was the adventures of Luke Skywalker.

Lucas the self named film preservationist chose to bury the originals instead of restore them for future generations, thereby giving the finger to us true fans who were there since the beginning and made him rich in the first place. Only later would we realize we had created a monster the first inkling was the 1997 special editions, to the first moment Jar Jar pops up on screen in the phantom menace.

Star Wars Trilogy 1977-1983 R.I.P.

The true trilogy lives on in our hearts and minds.

Luca$ will not get another dime from me until he restores the originals i am boycotting the Clone Wars movie, as i should have KOTCS but i gave Spielberg the benefit of the doubt. Which i now take back since i want my money back for both War of the Worlds and the hack cash in crystal skull.

“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, I hate to comment on this, but have you ever heard of a paragraph? It would make your arguments more convincing to other readers (although you are dead on with your opinions)
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Easy.

Pay it no attention, I suspect frustrations with Lucas and his prefered techniques (overuse of cgi) are being taken out on the newbie.

Besides I like his/her av, though it is contradictory to their arguement.

skyjedi2005 said:

You probably were not even born yet....


I'd hope so, I wouldn't know what a 25+ year old would be doing in High School ;)

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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Nostalgia has nothing to do with somebody liking Luke and Han's character/story better than Anakin's.
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I'm not debating the quality of the films or of the story. I'm talking simply about special effects and how some people seem to criticize movies just because they use cg heavily. CG and models/matte paintings have their own strengths and weaknesses. Models tend to look stiff and are harder to animate high intensity sequences. matte paintings are just lifeless, they show no movement whatsoever. CG can, in contrast look almost too animated and colorful and just look very out of place if not done correctly, and there are many instances of that in the PT. I'm sorry if my original post came across as harsh, I realize that one of the main points of this board is to talk about preservation of the OT. I also understand that it is very shady for Lucas to go in and "improve" classics without preserving the original film as it was seen in theaters (As far as I understand, the 2006 DVDs do include the originals, but the are not cleaned up or remastered, nor are they presented in anamorphic or surround) and I hope the eventual Blu-Ray set contains both versions. I also understand that the PT, as much is I like them, are unfocused, often too childish and have some awkward acting and writing as well as bad pacing, of course, you could say the same thing about ROTJ which is also more about redeeming Anakin than it is about Luke. Oh, and lastly, I agree that models can look better, in 2001 they certainly look pretty realistic, and don't pop out at you like CG does, but then again that movies has very little action...
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Personally, I enjoyed KotCS quite a bit, and didn't find it too jarringly different from the earlier movies (it's certainly better than ToD, which I re-watched a few days before seeing KotCS in the theater - that movie is just an abomination). While there is some CG in KotCS, I didn't find it too distracting. The only real disappointment for me is that we only saw a few cracks in Harrison's "made of stone" persona that's developed over the last 15 years, rather than a return to the lightness and humor he had when he was younger.

Also, I'd like to commend Octorox on his maturity, especially for his age - we could all learn a lot from his conciliatory, diplomatic, and well-reasoned reply to the rebuttals that followed his initial post in this thread. So, welcome to the board, Octorox - I look forward to seeing more posts from you.
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Somebody ought to start a thread welcoming all the tfn gushers with open arms.

Seems like only five or six people on these boards actually care and hope for restored versions of the oot, since the gout came out this site has become lets edit the special edition fan edit site. As Neil S Bulk claimed in a thread a while back and i have to agree with him.

“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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You shouldn't judge people based on age, since I was not born until after 1983.

The problem with Crystal Skull is not that it uses CG, its that it uses too much. In 1981 they wouldn't use old-school methods of special effects for the jungle chase because that would look like shit, they would instead have to actually go and film it for real and do stunts. Now with CG they just rely on a computer instead of doing it for real--thats the flaw. The limitations of the older methods forced filmmakers to have to actually do things practically, whereas now there is a perception that you can do "anything" because of CGI--but CGI doesn't always look real, so you can't actually do "anything," especially when most of the CG sequences in Crystal Skull could have been done practically. Its an unnecessary use of special effects, I think that is the distinction people have been sensing but unable to realise--special effects are indeed better today, but we use them so much that the older films nonetheless look and feel more real (because they are).

That said, the CGI in Crystal Skull is very tastefully done, except for the jungle chase--thats the most "unreal" part of the film, and its especially frustrating because theres absolutely no reason why it should be the most unreal, they could have easily done it better without using CG and if this movie was filmed in 1981 it would look every bit as realistic as the truck chase in Raiders.
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You are forgetting one very important thing Raiders was made when GL was still considered sane.

“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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Octorox said:



I always thought that the CG in pirates is some of the best I've ever seen. It's true that CG can look very bad but so can models and matte paintings. I'll take a complex rendered CG environment over a matte painting any day. I think some of the CG in Indy 4 is poorly done (why get CG prairie dogs when you can get real prairie dogs?) but they took a lot of time in making the movie nostalgic and old looking, and fans shouldn't bash the movie for being radically different because, if anything, it is TOO much like the old movies. I'm glad Lucas didn't go that route with the Star Wars prequels. What people don't realize is that these movies are just as much for you as they are for new generation of kids (And, as I'm still in High School, I can call meyself one of them) and about half of the perceived "betterness" of the old movies and old effects are just because they are nostalgic (not to everybody but a lot of prequel bashers who grew up wih the originals).


Octorox, I can only speak for myself, but I have said in many posts, I liked CG, as long as it enhances the movies, not overwhelms it, and I think most feel that way. T2 is a perfect example of CGI making the movie better, as the Robert Patrick T-1000 really comes off as a much cooler character with all his CG moments after he gets shot, and reforms into his original self. The same goes for Jurassic Park, as the addition of some CGI dinosaurs really gives the movie that epic sense that models may not have done.

For me, the negatives of CGI is when the whole screen IS CGI! It just comes off as a cartoon, and for me, it is when guys like Lucas and many other directors these days, use these fake CGI environments that look like something different then we have every seen: Kamino, Utapau, Geonosis, but just don't hold up well, because....they aren't real environments.

I don't really think that age or nostalgia has anything to do with preference, as I grew up with the OOT movies, and I love T2 and Jurassic Park, and even The Abyss as they were the first CGI movies. It is when the movies rely on CGI to tell the story, that is when it gets a bit much for me, and the PT movies, especially AOTC & ROTS feel like I am watching a cartoon.
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skyjedi2005 said:

Somebody ought to start a thread welcoming all the tfn gushers with open arms.

Seems like only five or six people on these boards actually care and hope for restored versions of the oot, since the gout came out this site has become lets edit the special edition fan edit site. As Neil S Bulk claimed in a thread a while back and i have to agree with him.


Couldn't agree with ya more, sky.

I came here because there were too many gushers at TFN.

As for the lack of conversation about the oot, well.....

Despite what people keep saying about how the gout utterly buried the originals forever and how there's not a snowball's chance in hell of us ever seeing the oot half-decently remastered, I think the reason none of us really bring it up AT ALL is we just can't shake the feeling that Lucasfilm has something up its sleeve.

I'm annoyed as anyone about the lack of conversation, but the truth is that we haven't had so much as a rumor for MONTHS now.

More to the topic, I think the home video release plan for Indy IV - and the rest of the movies - will give us some clue of where things are headed. LFL announced at least three years ago that it's supporting blu-ray, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw all of the Indy movies (which would only be the second blu-ray release of any of Spielberg's films) and the new Clone Wars movie hit the format this fall.
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Fang Zei said:

LFL announced at least three years ago that it's supporting blu-ray, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw all of the Indy movies (which would only be the second blu-ray release of any of Spielberg's films) and the new Clone Wars movie hit the format this fall.


Actually, if I'm not mistaken, what they said was that the format war needed to end soon and if it didn't they were going to seriously consider hi-def downloads. That was actually sometime last year if memory serves and it was said by McCallum. They were asked again after Warner went Blu-ray exclusive and the industry suddenly swung completely to Blu-ray in one month. They still haven't provided a direct answer other than that nothing was being planned at the moment.

You're right that we don't talk about it much because there hasn't been much news. I still stand by my opinion that if they do release Star Wars on Blu-ray, it's going to be the SEs or an even more tweaked version. I am holding no hope for a hi-def version of the OOT ever being released by LFL.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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zombie84 said:

That said, the CGI in Crystal Skull is very tastefully done, except for the jungle chase--thats the most "unreal" part of the film, and its especially frustrating because theres absolutely no reason why it should be the most unreal, they could have easily done it better without using CG and if this movie was filmed in 1981 it would look every bit as realistic as the truck chase in Raiders.


According to that interview with Spielberg that was posted, they couldn't do the jungle chase practically because it simply wasn't safe. They couldn't find a jungle dense enough that allowed them to safely drive through at the speeds they wanted. So instead, they chose a less dense jungle and then added extra foliage. I guess I just didn't notice it nearly as much as everyone else.

CO said:

For me, the negatives of CGI is when the whole screen IS CGI! It just comes off as a cartoon, and for me, it is when guys like Lucas and many other directors these days, use these fake CGI environments that look like something different then we have every seen: Kamino, Utapau, Geonosis, but just don't hold up well, because....they aren't real environments.


So what you're saying is that if a director is envisioning a certain environment that simply doesn't exist, rather than do it with CGI the director should just throw their vision out the window and compromise everything in order to do it "realistically"? The problem I had with the prequels wasn't the "unreal" looking environments, it was the non story. Lucas could've shown us the most amazing, can't find this anywhere on Earth environments and if the story had been good, I wouldn't have given a shit if the environments were 100% CG. My biggest beef is simply the fact that most of the story elements in the PT didn't match up with the OT, which shouldn't have been that hard to do.

If there's a good story to the movie, it shouldn't matter if the environment is 100% CG or not. Sky Captain was heavily CG, but it had a great story too so that didn't matter.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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lordjedi said:

So what you're saying is that if a director is envisioning a certain environment that simply doesn't exist, rather than do it with CGI the director should just throw their vision out the window and compromise everything in order to do it "realistically"? The problem I had with the prequels wasn't the "unreal" looking environments, it was the non story. Lucas could've shown us the most amazing, can't find this anywhere on Earth environments and if the story had been good, I wouldn't have given a shit if the environments were 100% CG. My biggest beef is simply the fact that most of the story elements in the PT didn't match up with the OT, which shouldn't have been that hard to do.

If there's a good story to the movie, it shouldn't matter if the environment is 100% CG or not. Sky Captain was heavily CG, but it had a great story too so that didn't matter.


Well, they are not throwing out their vision, they just have to be creative, like they did for the first 75 years of making movies. Did Spielberg have to compromise his vision of Jaws cause they didn't have a CG shark back in 1975? The shark didn't work sometimes, so he made it more suspensful by having the shark not show up on screen for the first hour, but the movie is still a classic.

I agree with you the story rules over everything, but there is reason that they make animated movies for kids, they don't look real! I go to the movies for a great story first, but the CGI greenscreen environments honestly take me out of the movie sometimes.

I look at movie like Bladerunner, and then a movie like AOTC, and you tell me which one is more realistic? The CGI Coruscant Greenscreen Environment or the urban gritty look of the city in Bladerunner? The reason movies like Star Wars, Raiders and Bladerunner have held up so well after all these years is they don't look like outdated CG like most movies today that you can tell which year they were made, as they keep remaking CG like Jabba the Hutt ANH SE 1997, and then Jabba the Hut ANH SE 2004.

As I have said earlier, I am not anti CG when it comes to enhancing the movie like T2 with the Robert Patrick character, as that cannot be done without CG, I just don't like it when it overwhelms the movie.

And I don't buy into Lucas's argument of 'not getting his vision' on screen without CGI, cause he has said in many of the SW DVD commentaries, that they could have accomplished many of the environments, but they would have had to build a minature for the city, or shot on real location, and the reason Lucas didn't was simple: $$$$$$$.
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CO said:

I look at movie like Bladerunner, and then a movie like AOTC, and you tell me which one is more realistic? The CGI Coruscant Greenscreen Environment or the urban gritty look of the city in Bladerunner?


I think that would depend on what someone is looking for. If I'm looking for a gleaming city with tall spires and rounded buildings, Coruscant is the epitome of that. If I'm looking for a gritty, metropolitan area, with a bunch of downtrodden people, then downtown LA is the perfect location for that. Sure, you could build Coruscant as a model, but I'm sure it would take much longer to do with very little reward.

But what if I'm looking for a water planet where it's always raining as in the case of Kamino? Aside from building a huge tank, it just can't be done in a controlled environment. That's the key in some of these cases. Sure, you could do something like it 75 years ago, but you wouldn't get nearly the same effect. It would cost millions to either 1) build a tank and then build set pieces on the water or 2) build sets out on the open ocean and then deal with the environment as things change. Look at what happened with WaterWorld. They had to rebuild the set several times because they were filming out in the open water. Would it have looked any different with CG? I don't know. Would it have been possible with a tank? Not likely since the area they needed was so huge. Even The Abyss had to use a huge tank so they could control what was going on and so the people would look like they were under water.

The point is that sometimes it's more practical and safe to use CG then it is to try to use a real environment where you end up putting peoples lives in danger. But I guess from your perspective they should either 1) simply not use that environment or 2) keep it real anyway.

I get the feeling that if Jaws were made today, Spielberg would use a CG shark. The movie probably wouldn't do as well, but I attribute that to today's viewers rather than whether the shark is CG or a model. The story wouldn't change, so it really wouldn't matter if the shark was CG or not. And he could get a feel for whether or not what he was attempting would look better with a model right on the spot. A reversed situation would be that if Jurassic Park had been done with models, it probably would've looked lame. Since they were able to put a bunch of Dinosaurs on screen at once with CG, it actually made the movie far better.
F Scale score - 3.3333333333333335

You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American.

Pissing off Rob since August 2007.
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lordjedi said:


I think that would depend on what someone is looking for. If I'm looking for a gleaming city with tall spires and rounded buildings, Coruscant is the epitome of that. If I'm looking for a gritty, metropolitan area, with a bunch of downtrodden people, then downtown LA is the perfect location for that. Sure, you could build Coruscant as a model, but I'm sure it would take much longer to do with very little reward.


It would not be a "little reward" to make Coruscant with physical models or to have an actual set for characters to walk within for the Jedi Temple (as apposed to a green screen). It may have cost more, sure, but the end result would have benefited more than a little.

I was blown away the other day watching Bladerunner on Blu-ray. The beautiful sets used in those movies with their brilliant use of lighting and texture were astonishingly superior to any of the cg environments we've been offered in movies lately. Even more mundane use of lighting will still have a depth and weight to it with real world objects (say in BttF's suburban environments or the "palace" of Queen Amidala in Phantom Menace). I have yet to see any cg replicate that weight or depth to the same degree.

However, your point about Kamino is well taken. It was a lot of fun to see that water world realized in a movie and that might have been my favorite set of scenes in AotC. I know a real ocean with violent storms would have been superior, but that would have obviously been out of the question. Though, I do wonder what kind of a superior visual could have been achieved with a composite of techniques (both real and cgi).

Essentially, as I said earlier in this thread, cgi is amazing in what it does best, but other effects, of similar or less expense, do a better job (particularly with cg enhancement) and movies shouldn't be limited to one technique or another. The best techniques for each part of a visual are what should always be used (within limits of time and money of course). Intentionally using cgi for everything because it's "high-tech" is a poor excuse and only speaks of an inferior vision on the part of a director.

"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