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If George had only changed Special effects for the SE and DVD, would people have complained as much? — Page 2

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i dont want them to fix errors, the films are what they are, leave them alone! damn i hate digital technology just for this reason
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Originally posted by: Mr Bungle
I dont see the problem with Directors Cut and Special Editions as long as the original movie is available on decent format which sadly is become less common, I just do not see why(this isnt just applying just the O.O.T ) the FANS cant be allowed to have the choice on the same disc especially with the format available and the formats available in the future, It seems rather selfish and disregarding a sizeable amount of FANS wishes(who in the end are most important people who the films success was dependent on) by the Director and the Companies distributing it (I am not just applying this to George)



^^Yay i totally agree hopefull on the Achrival(hoepfull final edition) Edition of The Star Wars Saga they'll put the original and Director cuts in like tha alein Quadrilogy and stuff like that.
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Actually one of the reasons I've loved the films is for their original effects. Growing up I used to watch Movie Magic, and model and stop motion effects were always more interesting to hear about then CGI. I found it overall more impressive. I also built models as a hobby with my dad and had a sordid history with digital growing up. I got to see many of these pieces in San Francisco as well. So for me, Star Wars is also a celebration of classic special effects techniques and how they can look just as good if not better than their digital counterparts. Sure the SE BoY is a tad more fluid, but the X-wings look digital. I value realism over anything else. If it looks fake, I don't care what it's doing, it's failed as a special effect.

The SE effects look less convincing than the old ones, and are beneith ILMs standards of quality.

I was kind of like Gaffer Tape. While I didn't really care for any of the changes, it didn't matter as long as they were merely an alternative view on the trilogy. It's when I found out that I'm supposed to view them as The One True Star Wars that it elevated to the next level. I personally don't need a DVD release, but it peeves me that the version that stared this whole thing, with ground breaking effects that changed the way thing are done replaced with run-of-the-mill digital ones because "they're prettier/cooler"are the only way that they're being released as.

Then there's the True Fan debate, but you're all aware of that, I'm sure.


Made for IE Forum's Episode III theme month - May 2005.

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Maybe it's because I grew up with them, but I still like a lot of the movies from the 70's and 80's that use more "realistic" effects. Close Encounters, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future-- much of the fantasy/sci-fi stuff really holds up pretty well. I can watch movies now like Explorers (which isn't the *best* movie itself, but still a cool family flick), Last Starfighter, Tron (which was actually groundbreaking for some of its digital work) and still marvel at the neat effects. They used a combination of real life items and smoother-looking film effects that create a nice, lasting final image. Sure, some things here and there look dated (and matte lines stick out like a sore thumb), but overall, it was a great period for those genres.
We don't have enough road to get up to 88.
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Wow, I haven't seen Explorers in ages. That's another film I used to love as a kid, along with Krull, The Goonies, Bill and Ted, etc.


Made for IE Forum's Episode III theme month - May 2005.

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nobody would have a problem with him (lucas) doing further versions special editions et al., if he would only release the original theatrical versions from 1977-1983 to dvd, and stop pretending they never existed, since they are the reason he became a household name in the first place.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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To me, the whole irony is that for all these years, George whined that the sets, creatures, effects, etc didn't live up to his standards/vision, yet even with all the money and technology in the world, the stuff they did in the prequels was actually inferior.

IMO, the entire cast of creatures and droids created for the prequels were completely forgetable. The battle droids were a complete and utter joke. They looked like crap. They honestly looked like mechanical stick figures. And the creatures? Nute Gunray, Watto and Jar Jar all looked like crap. Even General Grievous was not that impressive. When you compare this stuff to R2D2, C3PO, OT Yoda, Chewie, the Tauntauns, Tuskin Raiders, Jawas, all the funky creatures at the cantina, the Wampa, the bounty hunters, Jabba the Puppet, the Gamorian guards, heck even that silly creature in the garbage chute, the prequel stuff just looks inferior.

On top of that, is the cgi podrace any more impressive than the Battle of Hoth, asteroid field and speeder bike chace sequence. Would the AT-AT's have been better as cgi creations? No way! The only real limits George had in the OT was the small budget for the first film, but after that he had a ton of money and almost no limitations for the other films.

I think one of the reasons people bought into Star Wars was that everything had a lived in, grimey, dirty look. Tatooine, Hoth, Daghobah, etc were simple, yet much more effective than the overblown Coruscant and Naboo. To this day, none of the CGI can top the imagination of the Carbon Freezing Chamber and all the other Cloud City sets. How cool was that place?!!!
George Lucas was seduced by the dark side. The OOT ceased to exist in his mind and became the Special Editions...." "They're more maching now than movies. Twisted and evil."
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Yeah, he admits it himself that the concept of a 'used future' was part of SW's success. He said that the ships and settings looked more believeable because they didn't look like they had that 'new car smell', and I agree. BUT WHY DID HE SAY THIS ON THE 2004 DVD BONUS DISC AFTER HAVING COMPLETELY IGNORED THESE IDEAS IN THE LAST 20 YEARS?!

Hell, I'm surprised he was still able to recall what made the OT such a success...everything he mentioned was another reason why the PT sucked.
MTFBWY. Always.

http://www.myspace.com/red_ajax
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I don't hear many people complain about the many small FX changes that were actually made for the SE and the DVD (which could be seen as a new edition altogether). For instance, the moving Dewbacks and the corrected animation of the death star doors.
I am still amazed that a whole lot of things are left in. Most notably Vader's flipped chestbox in a shot during the duel with Obi-Wan in ANH.

IMO, the entire cast of creatures and droids created for the prequels were completely forgetable. The battle droids were a complete and utter joke. They looked like crap. They honestly looked like mechanical stick figures. And the creatures? Nute Gunray, Watto and Jar Jar all looked like crap.

Nute Gunray and half of the battle droids were puppets. As were most of the sets in the PT. I agree with you though. Too much CGI can easily be spotted as being CGI.
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I noticed that in the Luke vs. Vader fight in ROTJ, there are some mistakes with the lightsaber shadows. Sometimes they had no shadows at all, and sometimes the shadows looked suspiciously like metal pipes. Why didn't Lucas's effects wizards bother to fix THIS?

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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Originally posted by: Darth Lars
I don't hear many people complain about the many small FX changes that were actually made for the SE and the DVD (which could be seen as a new edition altogether). For instance, the moving Dewbacks and the corrected animation of the death star doors.


Actually, people have complained about the Dewbacks, particularly their introduction. They claim it ruins the pacing and is totally expendable. In my opinion, it's messed up because they draw too much attention to themselves. It was one of his many, "Look at the awesome special effects!" special effect shots where the camera stays on this Dewback clomping around the desert. It's very similar to Boba Fett mugging the camera at the end of the Jabba scene. "Look! It's Fett! You all know you love Fett! And he loves you too! He's looking right at you! Haven't I done great?"

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: JennyS1138
To me, the whole irony is that for all these years, George whined that the sets, creatures, effects, etc didn't live up to his standards/vision, yet even with all the money and technology in the world, the stuff they did in the prequels was actually inferior.

And, the recreated set from ANH at the end of Sith is ironically one of the coolest things in the PT.

Nute Gunray and half of the battle droids were puppets. As were most of the sets in the PT.


I'm not trying to be a smartass, but the sets were puppets? If you mean that they were organic, weren't most of the PT "sets" largely green screen?
We don't have enough road to get up to 88.
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Actually, no, most of the sets were a combination of green-screen backgrounds and regular constructed sets. Not much different from the OT, except now instead of painting a big sheet of glass, they matte stuff in using a computer. The methods were pretty close to the same.
The Best Show You've Never Heard
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Not much different? In all the making-of footage on the Clones DVD, almost all the shots are of actors walking down corridors with nothing but green around them, Natalie Portman running on blue gym mats, Ewan McGregor in like, half a cockpit of a ship, etc. Entire rooms, buildings, vehicles, characters, all digitally faked. I would say that's very different from the tangible elements of the OT, and the movies of yore. Aside from bits and pieces, what sets were actually constructed?
We don't have enough road to get up to 88.
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well, behind the scenes footage isnt' all inclusive.

going from memory JUST on AOTC:

Jedi Council
Palpatine's Office
Padme's Bedroom
Padme's Antechamber
Padme's Fireplace
Kamino landing platform
Coruscant Landing platform
Dex's Diner
Coruscant Nightclub
Wedding Veranda (not a set but a location shot)
Naboo meadow (Location shot)
Naboo Royal Palace (Location Shot, Caserta Palace)
Yoda's meditation chamber
Lars Homestead

I'm sure there's a couple more, but that's a HIGH number of locations. For Episode III, this goes up even more. Not counting miniatures used as background plates, like parts of the Arena Battle.

The Best Show You've Never Heard
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Originally posted by: The Bizzle
well, behind the scenes footage isnt' all inclusive.

going from memory JUST on AOTC:

Jedi Council
Palpatine's Office
Padme's Bedroom
Padme's Antechamber
Padme's Fireplace
Kamino landing platform
Coruscant Landing platform
Dex's Diner
Coruscant Nightclub
Wedding Veranda (not a set but a location shot)
Naboo meadow (Location shot)
Naboo Royal Palace (Location Shot, Caserta Palace)
Yoda's meditation chamber
Lars Homestead

I'm sure there's a couple more, but that's a HIGH number of locations. For Episode III, this goes up even more. Not counting miniatures used as background plates, like parts of the Arena Battle




but NOTHING was untouched by digital effects. by the way the arena model was SCANNED into the computer and filmed that way. lucas does that alot with models which is why they look so fake in the end
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And, the recreated set from ANH at the end of Sith is ironically one of the coolest things in the PT.

I like the prequal but that was by far the best part of the whole prequel trilogy was to see that agian
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i know that ANH set was the only thing that looked like star wars in all the prequels
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Originally posted by: TR47
It's very simple-if GL/LFL had only done what Paramount/Spielberg did with the Indy series (only fixing errors and cleaning up the prints), this site would not be here and we would not be forced into alternate methods of saving the films. People would have no reason to complain. The problem with this is that LFL wouldn't be able to milk its main cash cow endlessly, so economically it is not viable for them.


Same with E.T. Spielberg released the CGI version of E.T. into theatres, I couldn't even tell they had changed anything till I bought the DVD. He didn't make outlandish changes either, their goal was to keep it as close as possible to the original. Also, when E.T. was release to DVD, Spielberg had enough sense to realize the original was a classic and some people would prefer it. The DVD release has both versions.

To me, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy proved that not everything needs to be CGI. I really loved the look of those ugly looking fellas with the snouts. Jim Henson's crew still has it.

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Originally posted by: Seiji
To me, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy proved that not everything needs to be CGI. I really loved the look of those ugly looking fellas with the snouts. Jim Henson's crew still has it.


Yeah, I loved the look of that whole flick. Really nice images, and the creatures were cool. I hope the team that made it continues to make sci-fi type stuff.
We don't have enough road to get up to 88.
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I wacthed the theatrical ESB last night. It's been a while since I saw it. I have to say, there was absolutely NO NEED for any changes. The 1980 effects still hold up today. I will never ever ever ever watch the Special editions again. Never. And the prequels, well, I've tried to give them a chance, but they just don't fit into the Star Wars universe created by the original 3 films. I'll take the general story arc as a kind of history overview, but I never want to watch them again. 3D Yoda had nothing on puppet Yoda, NOTHING!! I'm not just being an anti-lucas anti-CGI snob, you just have to look at the puppet Yoda and see that he bears no relation to the CGI Yoda. It's like a whole different character. That's it, I'm never going to talk about this again. The O-OT ROCKS, AND THAT IS THE FINAL WORD.

War does not make one great.

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Tell me about it. I watched it recently too, and there's absolutely no reason to think that anything in that movie ever needs changing. And please tell me that puppet Yoda is different from CG Yoda in part because of the eyes. I've always felt that Yoda's soul was in his eyes, and the original Yoda just had those eyes that made his character, while the CG Yoda just could never, ever duplicate it.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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i agree the prequels suck, pretty pointless exercises except to help make george richer
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quote "i agree the prequels suck, pretty pointless exercises except to help make george richer "

I can't completely agree with this statement. I think the prequels were good as an idea, but were they executed effectively?

The myth, the grandeur, just was'nt there at least for me.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.