The Puppets or cgi?

Cgi is not the problem it is the fact that they are covering up their being no story by having the films full of action and cgi and pacing.  The speed and movement through the frame.

The prequels could have been good films if half the effort spent on the cgi was used in hiring writers to craft better scripts and hire competent directors who understand how to get a performance out of actors.  Someone that understands more "than faster and more intense".

If Lucas made the originals almost all on his own like he did the new trilogy it would have been just as crappy and full of garbage.  Visually stunning and action packed.  But he cannot write characters or do human stories at all those are his chief weaknesses.  And the main reason why he was drawn to tone poems, cinema verite and film juxtaposed of images that can tell a story without a wriiten narrative.

His friends and employees helped bring the human element into the equation on the original trilogy.  Why they were not included in the making of the second trilogy and the yes men were is anybodies guess.

If you want to compare two cgi creations with 2 entirely different results look at Jar Jar binks from the phantom menace vs gollum from the two towers and return of the king by peter jackson. 

In the later case Jackson's animators went for the humanity of the character as delivered by Andy Serkis and understood the nuance of a cgi character and to make him seemless with the live action actors. 

Instead in star wars jar jar was over the top slapstick and drew annoying attention to the fact that he was an out of place cgi character.

There are more examples too.  Look at the way the character of yoda is handled in the original empire strikes back and return of the jedi.  He is dignified and wise.  His lines of dialogue are short and to the point and not wasted.  The character is invested with a believable amount of humanity.  Then in Episodes II and III he is a green jumping bean.  With a lightsaber.  Becomes a comicly farciful and unbelievable character.  Not only that his character is ruined he is extremely unlikable in the prequels the exact opposite of the original films.

Also look at Jabba the Hutt the original puppet in Return of the Jedi.  There he was a slimy gangster.  Very much a cross between a don corleon character and a middle eastern sultan right out of the thosuand and one nights.    He serves as a menace and a danger to our heroes. 

And his place in the film is a minor one.  Even though he is a memorable screen villian or monster.  Then he is inserted into the special edition of star wars and is just added uncessarily and adds nothing to the story.  And don't even get me started on the way he was abused as a character in the clone wars movie.  That was ugly.

You do have a point. Lord of the rings is a good example and was done very well, especially with making you feel for the cgi and other non human characters.

This would also explain why you have perhaps as hands worth of fan edits for the original trilogy and about 4 million for the last 3

Well using real muppets might have helped a little in making them (the films) more tolerable

so really my complaint boils down to Lucas not knowing what the hell he was doing or just exposing what a crap director he turned into

Enough said.

Now THAT is a classic picture.  Awesome.

I swear to you all that when I get into film making I am going to use models. CGI is just needed to patch up some things. I never want CGI to be a big part of what I am doing.

CG has its place. It is a great innovation in film making. Things can now be done that were only ever dreamed about. It really is a wonderful breakthrough. But it is way over used. An example I like to use of a film completely destroyed by CG is I am Legend, I am a huge fan of the book, and enjoyed the previous two film adaptions of that novel. I was really excited when I am Legend was announced, it is one of those films I really, really wanted to be great and was willing to over look all sorts of flaws. But the CG just took it way too far. All the infected were 100% CG and it showed. There was nothing that said the infected needed to be CG, there was no reason they even should have been. We are talking about people infected with a virus, not aliens. People in makeup would have made all the difference in the world with that film. Perfect example of CG working against a film. 

In the exact same film, the over grown and abandoned city was also CG, and it looked absolutely breathtaking in my opinion. CG is a wonderful thing, but it can be used poorly and excessively.

300 is an example of a film where CG was well used. It really fit the atmosphere of the film and completely worked. The film wasn't meant to be realistic, it was meant to be stylized. To me it really feels like the Frank Miller graphic novel come to life (with the exception of all the silly additions, which are fixed in my unreleased fan edit). You are completely immersed in CG and unrealistic looking things, but the style of everything matches so it doesn't come off looking out of place.

If you want to compare two cgi creations with 2 entirely different results look at Jar Jar binks from the phantom menace vs gollum from the two towers and return of the king by peter jackson. 

In the later case Jackson's animators went for the humanity of the character as delivered by Andy Serkis and understood the nuance of a cgi character and to make him seemless with the live action actors. 

Instead in star wars jar jar was over the top slapstick and drew annoying attention to the fact that he was an out of place cgi character.

Excellent point. Seems to me that Jackson's approach to CG characters was to make them as lifelike and believable as humanly possible, while Lucas' approach was to make them look as unreal and absurd as possible. Gollum looks pretty incredibly realistic. Cave trolls, orc hordes, the balrog...though obviously fantasy creations, they look like they really could exist, in a more mythical world.

SW creatures, on the other hand, just look like cartoon characters. Jar-Jar's bug-out eyes swivel around like a cartoon frog. Everything about him - his appearance, his movements, his voice, his dialogue - would be more at home in a road runner cartoon than in an epic Space saga. Dex's four arms and airbag chin, the willowy and lighter-than-air kaminoans, that stupidly over-the-top lizard thing on Utapau, that Jedi council member with the giraffe neck (that couldn't possibly support the weight of his head), the Fraggle-Rock reminiscent podracers...everything about these characters seems designed to terminate suspension of disbelief and pull you out of the illusion. "Look! Look! We're CG!! How silly and crazy our anatomical dimensions are! Ha, ha! Look, now I'm defying gravity and doing a quadruple-backflip in midair, just like Bugs Bunny might do! Isn't this great?!"

CG can be done right, but it must be approached with the aim in mind that it look real. The PT went instead for whacky cartoonisms, so its brand of CGI utterly fails to effectively "sell" itself to the viewer.

Jackson also only used CG when necessary. He could have made all the Orcs CG, but instead he used real actors in real masks and makeup, and it looks great. Imagine if each and everyone of those Orcs were completely CG? I have a hard time believeing the film would have been as successful as it was had that been the case.

Agreed. Some of the horde shots were CG, but usually real stuntmen were used.

Moreover, Jackson's "CG only when necessary" philosophy extended even to locations-shots, buildings, etc. As much as possible, he used models and location shooting rather than just using a quick-fix CGI "band-aid." He also used animatronics for as many creatures as he could (Treebeard, "giants" from the Hobbits' perspective in the Prancing Pony, etc.) In addition to adding a sense of weight and realism to the final film, this approach also gave the actors something to interact with, rather than just putting them in front of a greenscreen with a suspended golf-ball, and shouting, "Faster, more intense!"

ChainsawAsh said:

I know someone brought up I Am Legend as a negative example, but look at the opening scenes of a devastated New York City.  Except for the CG animals roaming around, which look awful, showing New York City like that would have been impossible without the use of CGI - and it looks pretty damn good to me.  That's something that was necessary for the story that couldn't have been done any other way. 

Yeah, that was me who used I Am Legend as a negative example, but I also said in the same post,

"In the exact same film, the over grown and abandoned city was also CG, and it looked absolutely breathtaking in my opinion. CG is a wonderful thing, but it can be used poorly and excessively."

To me that movie had a lot going for it, but they really killed it with lazy film making.