msycamore said:
Ryan McAvoy said:
^ ESB. Matte painting done later of the same base (The 80s equivalant of CGI). Looks 1000 times less convincing, which is why Adywan has reshot this one.
It did however look much more convincing in the original ESB. The reason why it look so fake in the SE is because the shot contains a wipe that was redone in order to avoid the generation loss and grain build up seen in the original film - stuff that did make wonders for matte paintings such as this.
In addition the shot was brightened, making it even less convincing. And lastly in 2004 it was further degrained. You were never supposed to see it that clear. Many other shots have this same problem in the SE. It's what happens when you're dickin' around with classics.
You are of course right, the old-FX shots in the OT often look poor in the SE (Due to hamfisted re-compositing work) and even GOUT (Due to the variable fading of the different composited film layers). A paranoid person would believe they'd been made to look bad, so the new SE CGI shots would look preferable. But a viewing of Harmy's 'restoration' has all the FX shots looking better than in the 'mucked about' SE and the sometimes flawed (IMO) GOUT DVD.
For clarity, here is a screencap of the same frame from Harmy's edition where it looks much better...
...but still it look less convincing than the 'real life' shot I posted earlier.
Personally I adore the old Matte Painting aesthetic but that's more of an opinion, rather than an objective argument of what looks more realistic. For example, I'd take this beautiful Matte painting from 1959's 'Ben-Hur'...
...over this impressive CGI shot from 2000's 'Gladiator'...
Neither look 100% realistic, it's more a question of taste.