Dennis Muren?

Okay, if Dennis Muren could make full motion dinosaurs for Jurassic Park in 1993 that looked awesome, why did the CGI in the 1997 Special Edition films have to SUCK Bantha oysters?

:)

Jetrell Fo said:

Okay, if Dennis Muren could make full motion dinosaurs for Jurassic Park in 1993 that looked awesome, why did the CGI in the 1997 Special Edition films have to SUCK Bantha oysters?

:)

I've long since come to the conclusion that the quality of ILM special effects is directly related to how demanding the customer is. Considering George Lucas' impressive mastery at making real sets and models look like terrible CG, it wouldn't surprise me if George Lucas was approving preview renders of shots as final footage. 

SilverWook said:

Were the SE's rushed a bit to make the release date? Restoration aside, there were enough new shots across the OT to be equivalent to doing a entire new movie.

There must have been some pre-production work ongoing for TPM at the same time.

I believe the Jabba sequence took them about a year to do.  I wouldn't think that be considered rushed considering how short the scene is, but maybe in 94 or 95 it was.  I'm not sure about the other updated effects shots.  They had to restore and "improve" three feature films for release in early 1997, so I wouldn't be surprised if some aspects were rushed, which they seemingly were since some of the original updated effects were redone for the 2004 DVDs.  Or that could be a simple case of tinkering. :-)

Yeah its like two different companies,.....I work in a video production house, when we do work for customers, we constantly try and evolve  & improve the quality of our work, so that the customers reinvest in us,....when we do work for ourselves like promos & things like that, we rush it and dont spend too much time on it, so that we can get back to the paid work

J

I know that Phil Tippet also worked with the dinosaurs in JP, I believe the animatronic ones.  JP is, as a whole visually, far more effective and natural looking (to most average film-goers) than the SE was.  

The reason I even mentioned this is because I just watched my Superbit version of JP and noticed that Dennis Muren did his work in JP leading up to it's 1993 release.  The full motion creatures, at their basic final design, looked FAR better than Jabba or any other CGI editions from George for the SE.  I mean, it WAS supposed to be an anniversary celebration of a timeless set of classic films. 

It depends also on the artist who is in charge of the animation.  Jabba was done by Mark Dippe (who was later Banned from the Ranch).  His work on the SE was pretty much redone in the later versions on DVD. 

As for the Dewbacks, they are walking slowly across the screen in bright daylight and its a completely fictional creature  The level of realism that is required for such a shot just wasn't possible in 97.  If you compare that to CG shots in Jurassic Park, you have either running shots (the gallamimus) where your looking at a blur basically and a Brontosaurus who is just standing there and eating.  So the shots in SE were more difficult creature wise.

IMO, Jurassic had the perfect mix of CGI dinosaurs and animatronic/practical effects and still holds up even to this day.  It also helped that Spielberg, for the most part, used animatronics when the actors were directly interacting the dinosaurs and keep CGI dinosaurs at a reasonable distance from the camera.  The issue with the dinosaurs in the SE is that some of them were far too close the camera, making the CGI very apparent.  I thought the CGI in the distance (such as dewbacks), looked fine.  Although, wasn't the revealing shot of Mos Eisely actually a miniature?  I thought that was CGI for the longest time.

The raptors were awesomely done.  The money shot of the T-Rex at the end was a daylight shot and it looked awesome.  Dippe did a crappy job period.  I'm sorry, I don't buy that it couldn't be done as Muren proved with JP.

Why can't people make thread titles that describe the thread?  It's really not that hard.

TV's Frink said:

Why can't people make thread titles that describe the thread?  It's really not that hard.

Let it go mang, let it go.

:)

SilverWook said:

Were the SE's rushed a bit to make the release date? Restoration aside, there were enough new shots across the OT to be equivalent to doing a entire new movie.

There must have been some pre-production work ongoing for TPM at the same time.

The Star Wars SE was not rushed. It was in the can by late '95-early '96. They worked on it for nearly two years plus. The other SEs were ordered once the SW SE trailer drew such a positive reaction.

Dennis Muren wasn't as heavily involved with the vfx regarding the SEs. He wasn't involved at all on the ESB and ROTJ ones(being involved instead with The Lost World) and he was a creative advisor on the SW one for the restoration and original fx elements. John Knoll, Joe Letteri, and Steve Williams were the main supervisors over the Yavin battle, Mos Eisley and Jabba scenes respectively.

Joe and Steve teamed up on the Mos Eisley and Jabba scenes, with Steve Willaims animating Jabba himself.

In fact, Steve Williams finished animating Jabba in late '95. After ILM developed better mouth syncing software for the film Dragonheart(came out in summer '96) Williams begged Lucas to allow him to go back and use that new software to improve the Jabba shots, but Lucas said it was "good enough".

Main problem with that scene is not its execution. It's that its wholly unnecessary. Greedo gives us the same amount of information as Jabba. Lucas cut it originally for good reason. That editing won an Oscar.

The SE was really Lucas' excuse to experiment with some of the new digital technology as he prepared for the prequels.

Jetrell Fo said:

Okay, if Dennis Muren could make full motion dinosaurs for Jurassic Park in 1993 that looked awesome, why did the CGI in the 1997 Special Edition films have to SUCK Bantha oysters?

:)

 ...Bantha oysters? :P

Ryan McAvoy said:

My curiosity got the better of me.

 You're not a cat, Ryan.

...

Wait, are you a cat?