Info & Ideas: ESB and ROTJ Wishlist — Page 120

Okay here's a nearer-to-complete matte for the Death Star hangar bay. I've replaced the shuttle with a model shot and layered back some of the finer detail from the original painting. I'm pretty happy with it.

Vaderios:

Good job!

I was wondering if its a good idea adding background elements that indicate that the death star is still a work in progress station. Id rather see all the droids gone ;)

Well, I removed all the background "construction" elements because I never believed that they wouldn't have had even one completed landing bay ready for the Emperor's arrival. I will add more realistic construction elements to other mattes for other areas.

Love your idea for the more dynamic battle, by the way.

 Added the planet that endor orbits.

The planet Endor orbits is actually called Endor. Originally it was called Elnar, then changed to Endor before Jedi was released. The reason the moon ended up being called Endor was pretty much because so many people confused the words "the forest moon of Endor" to mean it was called Endor, when it originally meant Endor's forest moon. So, they're now both called Endor.

The planet is a bit too close to the forest moon for my taste.

At that proximety it would literally fill the sky in every direction which would be a bugger to work into the live action and the battle scenes (the lovely pan down mockup you did Angel http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/ESB-and-ROTJ-Wishlist/topic/8826/page/30/would look very different in the set you have here).

Push it further away and it could still be a major fixture in the sky and battle but not so prominent that it becomes a major headache.

Darth Venal said:

Okay here's a nearer-to-complete matte for the Death Star hangar bay. I've replaced the shuttle with a model shot and layered back some of the finer detail from the original painting. I'm pretty happy with it.

Oh, I like the shuttle and Endor in the background!

Something that I still think stand out like a sore thumb are the soldiers in the back. They look like ghosts. Can they be made to look like the other soldiers?

Could the hole in the floor be lit more? Perhaps add some glow?

I think that the color of the walls could still be tweaked just a little bit. The walls are still a little bit purple and some highlights in the floor are still a bit more blue than the walls. Perhaps add just a little bit blue to the walls. Just a small step - not even halfway to how it is on the DVD. The walls are grey, but they are lit by a cold light.

Don't forget moving landing lights in the floor and patrolling TIE fighters outside.

vaderios said:

I agree with that we should see the "sanctuary moon"'s planet somewhere, and a shot with an angle that is not seen much again would be a good opportunity. It could also be seen in the background Tantive IV's approach.

But I think that the planet should look smaller than Endor. Compare with how the Earth looks from the Moon. Also, the shot must not be too cluttered if the audience is going to be able to spot the Death Star and if the feeling is going to be retained that the Rebels are racing for a lone, unprotected Death Star and not arriving in the thick of something.

I am not sure if you intended to make the interior darker.. but it gave me an idea for another subtle change: How about making the part of the Home One outside the window in a slightly more grey hue than the interior window frame? The interior is white in other pics and the ship looks gray on the outside.

Darth Lars:

Something that I still think stand out like a sore thumb are the soldiers in the back. They look like ghosts. Can they be made to look like the other soldiers?

Could the hole in the floor be lit more? Perhaps add some glow?

I think that the color of the walls could still be tweaked just a little bit. The walls are still a little bit purple and some highlights in the floor are still a bit more blue than the walls. Perhaps add just a little bit blue to the walls. Just a small step - not even halfway to how it is on the DVD. The walls are grey, but they are lit by a cold light.

Don't forget moving landing lights in the floor and patrolling TIE fighters outside.

Well, I don't want to change everything. I don't mind the officers at the back as they're varied from the mass of troops and I might add troops behind them.

The walls are not purple, they've been desaturated. And they're lit with white light, so they wouldn't tint. The floor isn't finished yet, so any blue will be removed and I'll probably add some glow from the forcefield.

I don't know if I'll be adding back in TIEs outside, we'll see.

But I think that the planet should look smaller than Endor. Compare with how the Earth looks from the Moon.

The planet Endor is a gas giant and would look much bigger than Earth from the Moon if they were at the same distance. However, it's unlikely a gentle, habitable moon would exist at that distance because of tidal forces, so it probably should be place further away. It's all about perspective as to "how big" it looks, so a person's perception of what looks right or wrong sort of depends on whether they understand what is being shown.

If you think back to Yavin (another gas giant) it was further away than the one seen in this mockup and filled a large section of both the sky on Yavin IV and the space battle in ANH (even more so with ANH:R).

If the planet were to be that close in ROTJ it would take up most of the sky on the forest moon (not so much a problem as most of the time the trees block the skyline but it would mean night would be almost as bright as day bathed in reflected light from the planet and the new metal moon). And it would be a very dominant feature of the space battle (which already has a lot going on).

If it was moved back a bit so it seemed relatively smaller it could still be in the sky and in the space battle but not so much so that you can see very little else.

Some of our local gas giants have rocky moons that aren't right on top of their parent planets.

Well, it would only mean night would be bright when the moon was between the Endor planet and the star, otherwise it would have night time when it's on the other side of the planet.

Then you wouldn't even get starlight but you would probably get ringlight as there would always be some of the particles forming the rings pointing at the sun.

Either way it makes better sense just to move the planet away so it doesn't fill the the whole sky.

It certainly would make it easier, that's for sure.

Although I don't know why people think the planet would "have to" appear in the sky all the time during the battle. After all, if the camera POV isn't pointing in the direction of the Endor moon, then it's quite feasible that it won't be pointing in the direction of the planet, either.

What would be quite beautiful, although it's only really feasible if you redo the entire sequence, would be to have the battle take place between the moon and the planet. But that's pretty complex given the material we have to work with.

One aspect of the Endor ground battle that hasn't been explored in Imperial terms is the air.

I suggested having TIE Bombers thin out the forest (Apocalypse Now style) but after seeing AOTC style gunships weaving through forests in the Avatar trailer perhaps something similar would add more complexity to those scenes.

If the Tydirium was a transport ship instead of a shuttle the Rebels could have a few speeders and heavier guns which could be used to shoot them down (with the aid of some Ewok gliders and other improvised weapons).

I wonder what the Imperial version of the Republic Gunships would look like, would they be that different?

I was thinking something like this (perhaps the camo is out of character for an Empire that puts shiny white troopers on the ground maybe jet black like sinister helicopters):

Vaderios:

Im confused...

what is the name of the ewok planet?

what is the name of the other planet?

which of them is bigger?

The Ewok planet is a moon, and it's commonly referred to as Endor.

The planet it orbits is actually Endor, but confusion meant people called the moon Endor.

It is simple now, both the gas giant planet and the forest moon are called Endor.

The planet is MUCH bigger than the forest moon.

How you doing today anyway? :-)

Yes that's very good indeed. I used the Mustafar matte as well. I'll post later. I do think it should be further away from the planet though, as that is the reason Mustafar is so volcanic, because the tidal forces of the planet are so strong. To develop into a stable, habitable world, the Endor moon would most likely be quite a bit further away. And most gas giants have rings. I found it odd that Geonosis, which clearly isn't a gas giant, would have a ring, as it certainly doesn't have the tidal pull necessary to hold rings.

I prefer to keep the science as real world as possible, so I'll be adding rings to mine.

fishmanlee said:

oh wait earth had the rebel base

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikal