Info & Ideas: ESB and ROTJ Wishlist — Page 174

Looking at that Rancor pic reminds me of how much an incredible piece of design that was, given what we've had ever scince. Im thinking of Mimic, the Host, arguably even the Predator and beforehand Gigers Alien model (as they were designed to fit a man in suit).

Yes it looked clunkey and crap when it moved but the model still stands up beyond any creature design too date(or did they just model it on someones mother-in-law at the time? In that case they need much more slobber).

Giving it the green eyes would be a freash improvment (aswell as smoother movement that is).

And if hes been eatin too much Gammon Guard, that could explain the green eyes. <= thats crap.

Angel Blue01 said:

Yeah, I never had much of a problem with the design of the rancor as much of the model, well, puppet that they used. Its plenty scary if the lighting is right, as Angel's mockups showed!

And of course more ILM lying about the mattelines: they said they'd removed them in the SEs but they weren't removed until the 2004 DVD. One less thing that need fixing by Adywan I suppose.

First, ILM doesn't dictate what is done and not done. That's the director's or filmmaker's prerogative. Second, ILM never said they'd fix matte lines on everything. Basically, if Lucas didn't budget for it, it didn't get done.

There's this idea out there that fx companies can almost do what they want with a film. They're service companies under contract by studios or production companies to do specific things.

Unless it's an ILM production(coming soon with Gore Verbinski's Rango) or co-production(there were some of those in the mid-'80's), they don't have the kind of control you're speaking of.

Crap.

(EDIT)Not debating the statement, just the process. And all the BS that comes with it ;-P

George famously wanted it to be a guy in a suit but the tests looked pretty awful :

Bingowings said:

George famously wanted it to be a guy in a suit but the tests looked pretty awful :

I first read this as "George famously wanted to be the guy in the suit."  LOL.

Darth Solo:

"Looking at that Rancor pic reminds me of how much an incredible piece of design that was, given what we've had ever scince. Im thinking of Mimic, the Host, arguably even the Predator and beforehand Gigers Alien model (as they were designed to fit a man in suit).

Yes it looked clunkey and crap when it moved but the model still stands up beyond any creature design too date"

Got to disagree with you there. I like the Rancor, for sure, but it wasn't executed too well, whereas something like Alien, save for a couple of guy-in-suit moments, is really quite an exceptional bit of design and execution. And you're kind of dismissing one hell of a lot of design work before and since. What about Aliens, for one thing. The Fly remake. There are the other famous creatures, like Gremlins - clearly puppeted but very effective - and the more obscure ones, like the "underwater" demon in Poltergeist or even the dragon in Dragonslayer. Hell, I even prefer the terror dogs from Ghostbusters, which were only spoiled by some dreadful matting. 

Haha how could I forget The Thing? I managed to forget Rob Bottin and his crew! That just opens up a whole other can... he designed what is one of my favourite movie creatures of all time, the Gremlin on the wing in Twilight Zone: The Movie. I absolutely love that thing, and it was acted with real character. Bottin also did amazing work on Legend, both Tim Curry's Darkness make-up and especially Robert Picardo as Meg Mucklebones. He also did great make-up for Picardo on Explorers, Total Recall (the Johnny Cab!) and the pioneering stuff on The Howling (predating American Werewolf). I also like a lot of the work that KNB have done; despite the bad movie, their head and body make-up on Jason in Friday the 13th Part VII is fantastic. Even the awful Planet of the Apes remake had incredible make-up, as did the originals for their time.

Hauling this back on topic, all that amazing stuff really makes me care less for some of the stuff in Star Wars. It's funny, when I was a kid, I thought Star Wars was as good as it gets, and I never understood why my Dad wasn't that impressed. Now, I can see just how bland so much of it is.

That's very very nice, although I think you should be opening up the Pit of Carkoon, not making it even more obscure.

There were some comments earlier about Angel's Rancor redux looking like The Force Unleashed's, I did a quick scribble to see what that would really look like :

A bit OTT and possibly impossible without doing the model from scratch but interesting (rather like that bull thing in AOTC).

Love the extended views of the barge, it sells the scene better placing it in a less restrictive environment.

SSWR:

And Adywan is gonna be using the HD version right? So he won't be able to crop any of the images...is that correct?

What do you mean? I thought using the HD version was the only feasible way of zooming and cropping without losing too much image quality.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:
And Adywan is gonna be using the HD version right? So he won't be able to crop any of the images...is that correct?

DarthBo:

the source material is 1080p

Is it? I wasn't aware there had been any broadcasts of the SW movies above 1080i.

And I know for a fact Sky HD have never shown any movies in 1080p.

I agree, SSWR (sorry, your name is so long!). Introducing Luke in such a mundane way is going to undermine the pacing and structure of the movie, and totally ruin what is a pretty decent entrance at Jabba's Palace.

And usually when movie is edited about, you can see it a mile away. Anyone seen Hannibal recently? It's horrendously re-edited and totally destroys the original structure and introduction of Gary Oldman's character. He has several scenes where his face is hidden before he's finally revealed when Clarice visits him, but they ruined it by editing a later scene to be a prologue and you just see him full on. Not one of Ridley Scott's finest moments.

Legend is another one where the US version destroys the "big reveal". In the European and Directors versions Tim Curry is not actually revealed until 3/4 of the way into the movie, the rest of the time he's hidden, and his reveal coming out of the mirror is GIANT. But the US version just shows him in the first scene. Ridley Scott again.

Darth Venal said:

I agree, SSWR (sorry, your name is so long!). Introducing Luke in such a mundane way is going to undermine the pacing and structure of the movie, and totally ruin what is a pretty decent entrance at Jabba's Palace.

And usually when movie is edited about, you can see it a mile away. Anyone seen Hannibal recently? It's horrendously re-edited and totally destroys the original structure and introduction of Gary Oldman's character. He has several scenes where his face is hidden before he's finally revealed when Clarice visits him, but they ruined it by editing a later scene to be a prologue and you just see him full on. Not one of Ridley Scott's finest moments.

Legend is another one where the US version destroys the "big reveal". In the European and Directors versions Tim Curry is not actually revealed until 3/4 of the way into the movie, the rest of the time he's hidden, and his reveal coming out of the mirror is GIANT. But the US version just shows him in the first scene. Ridley Scott again.

Ridley Scott seems to have almost all his movies re-edited against his will, like a running gag. Blade Runner, the studio added that voiceover that both Scott and Harrison Ford hated (and it shows, Ford deliberately did it as badly as he could, hoping to get it cut), and Scott's intended cut didn't get to happen until the Final Cut a couple of years ago.

Same with Kingdom of Heaven, Scott's director's cut version is something like 45 minutes longer than the threatrical one that the studio had him release, and apparently (I've seen neither) the threatrical version is a very poor film, and Scott's version was either very good or downright excellent, depending on the person asked.

Yes, it's true, he's just not had the best of luck. At least more recent times have seen him have greater control.

When was the last time we saw a movie that was taken off the director and re-edited by the producers/studio and was a good movie? Sheesh.

But in some cases, Ridley Scott himself is the one causing the issues, as with Hannibal. Legend, however, was classic studio hacking. What frustrates me about Legend is how a film that is so stunningly beautiful for a great deal of the time can also be so flat. Oh wait, that brings me back on topic.

Davnes007 said:

Re-Issued Special Edition:

 

Sorry Ric...I'm evil sometimes.

>:D

Wow...the entire area is one big set.