The Unofficial Complete REVISITED SAGA Ideas and Random Discussion Thread — Page 9

I'm hoping Ady has big plans for the whole first act......its just goofy really

Bingowings said:

...That's where jets make sense (conceptually, not in the Super Mario sense they are used in the PT in it's current form).

And to me using jets to push someone to safety is no more different than using a stormtrooper grapple hook, a loose bit of rigging or driving a car up a slope to leap from one surface to another.

It's not flying if used in that way.

But this is as usual a pointless conversation because the jets aren't even going to be in PT:R.

         R2 in ROTS detatches his jets and fires them at the battledroids they explode taking a couple out?  

What I want to see removed is the first shot of ROTS, the one continous really long camera angle.  It's not that I don't like it, it's just we never see anything like that in any of the other movies.

emanswfan said:

What I want to see removed is the first shot of ROTS, the one continous really long camera angle.  It's not that I don't like it, it's just we never see anything like that in any of the other movies.

I have no problem with the length of the shot (though I agree that it IS different from anything else in SW).....but more how its badly tricked.....you're looking down at the planet, and see nothing, then we get real close to the star destroyer and when we come out from behind it we're looking down at the planet again except this time theres a battle going on.....its just bad film-making. The same way in alot of bad movies where the characters don't see/hear the helicopter/car/monster chasing them until it enters frame.

Personally I think it would have been more interesting to pan down, past some wreckage, then directly into the battle......from a distance...perhaps having the battle resemble (only a little) some of the more distant shots from the ROTJ:R space battle....and then cut to the closer shots.

(all this of course is assuming ROTS:R still begins with the space battle)

I wouldn't agree that it's bad film-making.

It's just not literal - or realistic film-making. It's just much more fantastic film-making, which isn't necessarily out-of-place in Star Wars.

The only reason I would say I don't care for it is because it takes almost a minute (an eternity in screen time) to get to any actual story material. It doesn't take an entire minute to establish that there's a battle going on, which is ALL that the shot communicates, besides simply being cool.

aalenfae said:

I wouldn't agree that it's bad film-making.

It's just not literal - or realistic film-making. It's just much more fantastic film-making, which isn't necessarily out-of-place in Star Wars.

The only reason I would say I don't care for it is because it takes almost a minute (an eternity in screen time) to get to any actual story material. It doesn't take an entire minute to establish that there's a battle going on, which is ALL that the shot communicates, besides simply being cool.

So maybe a better way of putting it is bad screenwriting. However, in my opinion pretty much the entirety of ROTS is bad film-making.

When my only true enjoyment of the film rests in a Plinkett review tearing it apart, then to me that's bad film-making.

And on that note; I'm ready for you to fix the bad film, Aalenfae. ;)

Yes, RotS suffers from clumsy writing and bad editing.
The film itself isn't so bad overall, I suppose. But above all, the story is HEAVILY flawed, which is the movie's main problem.

(I'm ready for it too, haha! I might be able to resume after Christmas)

Its a clumsy device for less than intelligent audiences......and SW has never made a habit of hiding huge obvious things just out of frame....so when one movie has a shot like that in it when the other 5 do not, I call that bad film-making. If the point was to give each film its own style in the way the characters or audience perceive things not on camera then it wouldn't be a problem....but the 6 films are stylistically similar for the most part...treating things offscreen as if they continued to exist (ie: characters can hear things coming before they arrive, sensors detect approaching ships)

Well, yeah, true - in the context of the whole Saga, RotS definitely stands out as having a... much clumsier feel to it.
Though, I think there's more discrepancy in style for the Saga than most.

I break it down like this:
IV-V have their "true" Star Wars feel
VI-I  have the kiddy, plot-hole style

II     has its own "Episode II" feel

III    feels like a computer generated cartoon

aalenfae said:

Well, yeah, true - in the context of the whole Saga, RotS definitely stands out as having a... much clumsier feel to it.
Though, I think there's more discrepancy in style for the Saga than most.

I break it down like this:
IV-V have their "true" Star Wars feel
VI-I  have the kiddy, plot-hole style

II     has its own "Episode II" feel

III    feels like a computer generated cartoon

Or as I would break it down:

II: has it's own "Damn it" feel

III: feels like a day old turd molded in the form of George Lucas' face.

Hang on a mo'

ROTS has many faults but one thing it does have going for it is a more general feel of solidity in it's effects than AOTC did.

Anakin on that sodding cow/giant tick or on the bull thing for one example.

Compare that to Obi-Wan on his lizard parrot and silly as both propositions are ROTS looks more tangible.

And for cartoonishness the Pod racers can't be beat, even the Gungans look real compared to Mr Munchbunch Sweetcorn in his malfunctioning Pod or that twerp with two heads.

I'm not saying theres anything wrong with the CGI (apart from there being way too damn much of it in the film)....just that the specific visual gag they used to reveal the battle is not consistant with a SW film.

I'd agree with Bingo that the effects in ROTS were alot more even....AOTC had ups and downs that made things stick out more. Though theres things I still notice.......Commander Cody for instance....the scene where Obi rides up and Cody gives him back his lightsaber....Temura's head just never seems right on that CGI clone trooper's body. Though ROTS was just so completely CGI filled that it really comes off as more of a video game than a film.....with AOTC as a close second.

I would agree that the CGI is WORSE in AotC, but it's shot more realistically.
The GCI in AotC doesn't really look real, but it's generally "filmed" in the space as though it is, which makes it feel - on average - more real than the CGI in RotS, which is really "filmed" as though it's in virtual space - with the camera flying around in crazy, physically impossible ways.

The eye can detect even something like a camera move as unconvincing. The CGI, no matter how real it looks, will look fake if it's presented in a fake way - like with a magically hovering camera.

Oh, certainly. Actually, much of TPM was models (besides anything to do with gungans). Most people don't realize that.
Much of the podrace was CGI, but then again, much of it was models as well.

And almost every spaceship was a model, too. That's one reason I love many of the effects shots in TPM. They're the perfection of the Original Star Wars model shots. As real as they get, really. Then AotC came in, which ditched the models.

If somebody (cough, cough) Adywan (cough), could replace the obviously-CGI space ships and such in AotC and RotS with models, I think a great service would be done.

aalenfae said:

Oh, certainly. Actually, much of TPM was models (besides anything to do with gungans). Most people don't realize that.
Much of the podrace was CGI, but then again, much of it was models as well.

And almost every spaceship was a model, too. That's one reason I love many of the effects shots in TPM. They're the perfection of the Original Star Wars model shots. As real as they get, really. Then AotC came in, which ditched the models.

If somebody (cough, cough) Adywan (cough), could replace the obviously-CGI space ships and such in AotC and RotS with models, I think a great service would be done.

I've always said that Phantom Menace was always the best looking Star Wars film as far as effects go. Which is why I don't get the hate it gets for it's CGI. 

This is another bag I have about some people who lambast the PT (not saying it doesn't deserve it mind).

Lots of the shots that people pick out as fake look CGI are largely physical models with some CGI elements in them.

Some of that goes down to the extreme cartoonish nature of some of those CGI elements that make the whole show look like a Playstation cut scene.

That's more a design thing than a technical thing.

Even when you have an interesting design (like the basic battledroids) they look delicate, diminutive and plastic which is where Lucas seems to want to go with them story wise but them renders them not menacing (ironically seeing as they debut in TPM) and reduces the emotional impact they can leave.

Early drawings had the same design scaled up so they were 8ft tall with a brushed steel look.

They were based on Jacob Epstein's Rock Drill which looks much more menacing and solid :

To some extent the PT needs it's ethos rejigged much more than it needs it's CGI replaced.

SW has never made a habit of hiding huge obvious things just out of frame

What was that one seen in that one movie where there was nothing at all and then there was this big ship and behind that there was nothing for a second and then there was this REALLY BIG ship.

My point was that they're not hiding....we hear them coming. We hear them before we see them.......and after the Tantive IV goes by, we see the shots coming from the SD...so we hear it AND have a visual clue that its coming. They don't just suddenly appear at the same time as the audio does.

I get it. Just an odd thing to say considering its one the most iconic moments in the whole saga. If you don't like the opening shot of Sith, thats fine, don't like it. But I think the mistake people make is to try to find too much reasoning behind not liking it. Too much beyond their own taste or opinions about cinema. The idea that its too unlike anything weve seen before in Star Wars is a bit of a stretch to me. Even if I agree its unlike anything whether thats an issue or not is still pretty subjective. Its a showy piece. Its works very similarly to the opening shot or 3 shots of A New Hope but is done purposefully very differently. I think it works well.

And keep in mind, sound in space at all is non-existent, so any sound design is done with cinema effect in mind whether it be psuedo-realism or style.

SW has never shied away from sound in space....thats a moot argument. The battle at the begining of ANH is heard as it approaches the frame edge.....and the battle at the begining of ROTS is sprung as a surprise both audibly AND visually.....2 very different styles.