Unofficial Revisited Retro-redux Ideas Thread

Ok may aswell start this thread with something exciting...

Been off work today heard a song by a band called Lazerhawk and I was inspired...

So I have re-cut the Pod Race to this music and removed a lot of the stop start moments and hopefully it does what I intended it to do.

Which is not only be a lot better in terms of watching a race but the music also plays a huge part in the whole race also.

I realize that this is not a visual retro more audio retro (actual modern music in retro style) but it has a retro feel and the cut's are more in line with a typical retro sequence of events in Cartoons and older films.

Not sure how this will go down but I am at least quite pleased with the result I like the sound of the words Retro Remix so thanks for helping me name this small edit done for fun.

Pod Race Retro Remix and I hope you enjoy it

https://vimeo.com/64241281

Password: trilogy

Hopefully it won't get deleted too before some people have a chance to see it but anyway I put a clear disclaimer up on it so fingers crossed it will not.

And please let us know what you think even if you hate it,

Well - it's been blocked.

Rule for the future: Youtube sucks. Never, ever use it.
Share private videos on Vimeo.  

Fixed the link above Ready now.. 

Also thinking of the Pod Race it would be better for any slave that wins the Pod Race get's freedom as a reward or dies trying... It makes the stakes higher meaning subulbar and no other one of the racers ever won it before.

And perhaps also the ones who get freedom by winning are not seen again... Wink Wink

Masters Of The Universe is a rubbish film but it had some nice colours and geometric backgrounds.

These guys look great :

All the clones could be played by people wearing bald wigs and contact lenses (that shouldn't cost much).

It would also give that interesting lady slaphead some reason for being next to Palpatine.

I like the idea for the clones classic 70's like flash gordon the dudes with the glasses with lights in them

I keep thinking about making more of the Anakin being a slave story and I will revert back to quoting starchaser the legend of orin.

Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB3cVB87_oc

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV0qKU-Mzrc

This is the start of the film that focuses on the slave story...

Aside from drawing inspiration from this plot with filming other characters and cruelty being shown to other slaves aside from Anakin... I was also thinking about the removal of the emperor sending darth maul and darth maul being the head slave master on tattooine.

Zigar in starchaser could potentially be swapped for Maul... Maul wears a mask until an escape attempt is made....

He pursues qui-gon and and anakin to the ship but why is he on Naboo also

Darth Maul is working for the emperor and the slave operation on tattooine which is rich in minerals and ore from before it was a desert planet used to power ships.

Anyway that is my attempt to link the story to the war effort gearing up from Palps and the sith

The Pod Racing is the fruit of the slaves labour and provides entertainment for the hutt as well as gambling revenues without this appeasement the slave operation would not be allowed

Starchaser the legend of orin does the opening extremely well of setting up mine world and uses an disabled old man and a young blind kid to show how cruel the slave masters are. I reccomend this cartoon for developing any slave story for the PT

2 deleted scenes from TPM could be used in this Slave scenario

Anakin fights greedo = this would be better used to show anakin fighting the leg of a bigger slave master after they have done something very cruel to an old man say and he dies. A Break call can be used to save anakin from getting seveirly punished himself by a whip

Qui-hon destroys droid = A Slave master (not Maul) is shouting and following "where do you think you are taking him, he is ours!"Qui-gon kills the slave master and cuts to crouching down with Anakin come on let's go.

This would really improve the drama and if those shots can be modified you can tell this story with this footage and other characters and qui gon really breaks him out like a bit more prison break hero to the rescue. Even if he is freed by gambling or winning the race they obviously don't want to honor the bet or the reward of freedom.

AntcuFaalb said:

Bingowings said:

I'm getting an idea for an image thread where people can post their visual mashups of good looking aspects of these sort of films and shows (the Masters Of The Universe film also has some lovely looking sets and costumes) with the PT and come up with some nice new imagery which may be an inspiration.

Go!

Antcufaalb can I ask a favour for this thread please....

Primarily I think Retro Visuals Is key but I would also like you to update the first post with anything else that could be retro.

Which the only other 2 things I can think of is Retro Sound and music and retro plot ideas...

I don't know if anyone liked what I did with the Pod Race as it was only meant for a demonstration purposes.... Yeah the music sounding like something out of an old 80's transformers cartoon... it was between this or fleetwood mac

Like the Ewoks, with stuff that you find a bit iffy sometimes it is better to embrace it and try to make the most of it that was what I was trying to show.

The Pod Race looks like a cartoon put to film so I thought of rolling with that  Similar to Flash Gordon in Mings throne room that becomes an american football brawl and the music used here.

It does not feel like star wars though... Yep the PT did not feel like star wars originally did... In one hand it was trying to be serious and in the other had stupid cartoon antics that really did not work. It was like Star wars meets who framed roger rabbit

Retro Sci-fi and Fantasy never took itself too seriously it was campy and had real world stuff that you could understand and associate with at it's core in the fictional universe presented. The PT does not follow this method and this is what needs injecting in to it somehow to bring it back to it's roots but in some cases you have to roll roll with it.

The prequel trilogy was more like a serious film with a cartoon going on inside of it

But as a rule stop it from feeling too much like a cartoon and more comic book and when you cannot do that embrace it like an old anime cartoon from the 80's and go in balls out.

So in essence the John willams score which works brilliantly in some parts of the film does the Pod Race no justice at all... And I hope people agree with that 

The next step would be to remove the cgi drivers and put proper creature fx (people in costume with make up and Latex masks)

Also I wanted to cite Super 8 as an example of how a film with modern special effects can be done in a retro style... even without making the tech or droids look like something from the 70's or 80's there are many methods of making something feel retro and super 8 is a prime example of successfully achieving this even though the special effects are modern.

AntcuFaalb said:

Ronster said:

Antcufaalb can I ask a favour for this thread please....

Primarily I think Retro Visuals Is key but I would also like you to update the first post with anything else that could be retro.

Which the only other 2 things I can think of is Retro Sound and music and retro plot ideas...

I changed the title and added a note to the OP.

Fixed?

I don't want to sound rude but as it atands at the moment it's not got the punch or the attraction needed to get people posting in here and fleshing out ideas.

Now I will write something and I don't want you to copy and paste what I say but I want you to say what you think and interpret what I write and put it in your own words and how you feel then I will change this post for an idea that I have had. I don't want to sound intimidating either but you started the thread so it should be in your own words and how ever you want it to come over.

Unofficial Revisited Retro Redux thread

The Star Wars Trilogy's first episode appeared on the silver screen in 1977 with the final installment released of the original star wars trilogy in 1983.

There was a gap of around 16 years before we were to see another new episode of star wars hit the cinemas.

In 1999 The Phantom menace was released with 2 more films released to complete a prequel trilogy in 2002 and the final part in 2005.

Now weather you like the prequel trilogy, hate the prequel trilogy are indifferent one fact about the prequel trilogy films vs the original films is...

They look like they were made afterwards.

George Lucas did try to seamlessly bridge the end of the third installment of the prequel trilogy somewhat with the first of the original trilogy but

They felt completely different and had very few similarities  to a movie made in 1977

We did however have some constants across the whole six film saga such as John Williams reprised his role as musical composer and obviously George Lucas had a hand in writing and directing but there are also a number of crucial differences here amongst the constants.

1. It was mostly filmed on blue or green screens which did not help the acting as there were very few physical sets

2. different techniques were used to create the sound digitally and not in analogue

3.Filming was done with many different crews across many locations apart from the phantom menace that was filmed mostly at leavesden studios and location shoots. The Original star wars trilogy was for the most part filmed and done by much of the same crew at pinewood studios UK

4. Really bad stupid stuff found it's way into the films that you look at and say "that's stupid" and you know you are meant to laugh but it is not funny the original trilogy used characters relationships for comedic moments not slapstick that is really poorly done slapstick

5. CGI was employed on a large scale to promote George lucas's company ILM over the traditional techniques used for filmaking in 1977 - 1983 for the most part because the technology was not available in this time period but more could have been done with miniatures and models and make up and creature fx to help bridge the gap between the two trilogies

The aim of this thread is to perceive and try to imagine a prequel trilogy that feels like it was filmed before the original trilogy keeps a continuous style drawing upon the era from the 60's to the 80's and lowering the budget of the prequel trilogy to bring it back down to earth and stop it feeling like a cartoon film and become more of a movie like the original star wars trilogy.

anything goes but It can be anything from techniques used in this era of the original trilogy from retro plot styles retro sounds and retro visual influence or even modern but done in a retro style.

Please draw upon movies, art. culture and ideas and ideals from the 60's 70's and 80's and try to incorporate them into what we know of the prequel trilogy to at least bridge that gap and try to make them feel a bit similar in fasion and like they were filmed before or around the same time as the original trilogy

Post art mock ups, small film edits, sound files or any concepts you feel would bring the prequel trilogy into a more retro style similar to the original trilogy

Ronster said:

AntcuFaalb said:

Ronster said:

Antcufaalb can I ask a favour for this thread please....

Primarily I think Retro Visuals Is key but I would also like you to update the first post with anything else that could be retro.

Which the only other 2 things I can think of is Retro Sound and music and retro plot ideas...

I changed the title and added a note to the OP.

Fixed?

I don't want to sound rude but as it atands at the moment it's not got the punch or the attraction needed to get people posting in here and fleshing out ideas.

Agreed.  The title needs more sex.

This might not be the thread, nor forum, for it, but I wanted to address these two points, Ronster:

1. It was mostly filmed on blue or green screens which did not help the acting as there were very few physical sets

2. different techniques were used to create the sound digitally and not in analogue

Point one is a common misconception. Yes, a lot of blue screen was involved in the making of the prequels, but there were way more sets than people would like to think. In AOTC and ROTS, Padme's apartment, Padme's veranda, Palpatine's office, Padme's different places on Naboo, Jango's apartment, the Geonosian hangar, the Invisible Hand's bridge and observation room and the Mustafar control room were all fully built sets.

Partial sets include the Senate, several landing platforms, and the Geonosian arena. And let's not forget most ships that were built: Anakin's speeder, air taxis, different Jedi fighters and Dooku's solar sailer.

There was a lot of location shooting in AOTC as well. Naboo was shot in Spain and Italy, while Tatooine was shot in Tunesia. ROTS was the first Star Wars movie that did not shoot on location, it was only shot on sound stages. For all prequels, blue and green screen was mostly used during pick ups and reshoots, though I'd concede that a large part of Kamino was realized digitally.

The point I'm making is that blue and green screen alone is not to blame for the PT's visual esthetic. I'd say the digital filming is a large part of it. TPM looks like a Star Wars for the most part, because it was shot on film. AOTC was the first movie to be shot digitally, and I think it shows. It looks plasticy, and that makes some effects stand out in a bad way. They had it under control with ROTS, which is a nice looking film.

It's also the design choices that were made during pre-production. I don't mind parts of them, because the PT is set in a more prosperous time. We also spend time with the elite of the Star Wars galaxy, instead of with a bunch of rebels fighting the man. That said, some corrections could be made, such as color correction to take of some of the shine, and displays.

As for the second point: yes, sounds were altered digitally, but were still captured manually. There is a pretty cool doc on the AOTC DVD on the sound design which shows they recorded rare planes for speeders and made recordings at an assembly line for the droid factory. They even went through the archives to look for sound effects that were recorded, but never used, for the OT.

Anyway, good idea for a thread! :D

Here's a retro-redux idea. 

Making Grievous (and perhaps many CGI droids) look like stop-motion puppets!
http://vimeo.com/64913920

aalenfae said:

Here's a retro-redux idea. 

Making Grievous (and perhaps many CGI droids) look like stop-motion puppets!
http://vimeo.com/64913920

Now we are cooking!! that's what I am talking about...good...good

I don't mind grievous design but I hate his voice if he had more a deep vocoder voice it would be better rather than the husky crap.

but that is the way to go for sure...

going to load a vid in a sec

When I was trying to rough cut the PT into one film I nailed down what was important from TPM in to about 8 minutes. Based on making a movie that was anakins story I have changed my mind on this now as I feel that creating a Slave story will make TPM more so Anakin's Story and about him and what he wen't through.

The video here was the structure I ended up with.... The last clip after Obi-wan and yoda talk is not included in this structure.(qui-gon and shimi)

Forgive me but you have to imagine sfx shots and background continuity fixes.

It is very rough ideas I used the sam jackson pilot edit against the trade federation in it would be straight after the crawl but the most important thing to watch in this is the Darth Maul Duel.

I have done my best to retrofy it although the grapple hook up to the platform could do with tightening and changing with the editing and footage the rest of the shots are more or less in place. To use qui-gons funeral although it makes his death inevitable I think it works in a strange way but well to tell what happened in the 3 way duel.

https://vimeo.com/64920195

password = trilogy

timdiggerm said:

That is one of the stranger ideas I've seen on here.

It's genius but It would be a lot of work to do it I guess any shots would need to have have 2 layers one for the actors to appear normal and one for the CGI stop motion puppets effect the same shot twice with as simple a mask as possible.

Is that effect created by dropping a few frames out of the video then?

for grievous voice best to go the cylon sounding route I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H4fYtDkTxk

not sure if this phone app saves the sounds you record and then you can export them but the extra deep fat cylon voice would suit grievous much better.

The effect was made by exporting the footage at 15 fps, then reimporting it into a 24 fps composition, then just cutting out the parts I didn't want to be jerky. 

(Where on earth are the mace windu shots from in the space battle?!)


Cylon voices might be a little too much, but I definitely think his voice needs to sound more robot-like. He just sounds like a guy talking through a tin can or something and making a bad Russian accent.  He needs more phasing like the TPM battle droids, maybe.

aalenfae said:

The effect was made by exporting the footage at 15 fps, then reimporting it into a 24 fps composition, then just cutting out the parts I didn't want to be jerky. 

(Where on earth are the mace windu shots from in the space battle?!)


Cylon voices might be a little too much, but I definitely think his voice needs to sound more robot-like. He just sounds like a guy talking through a tin can or something and making a bad Russian accent.  He needs more phasing like the TPM battle droids, maybe.

 

 

 

Interesting good technique I would say add motion blur to it for the go-motion feel

er the Mace Windu space battle shots came from errr you tube...

Someone else did this but I thought it was a lot better than Anakin in space which is stupid and too far fetched in my opinion so I put it in as a place holder. you would never have a kid pilot in a spaceship in the 70's this was a lot more late 80's like flight of the navigator or explorers and too much of a family film when star wars was more for everyone. Adults / Parents and kids not just Parents and their kids

Grievous should not sound exactly like a cylon but he should have the deep vocoder qualities of a cylon which were developed around the 70's it would give him a much better feel not the same but similar essentially or along those lines if you catch my drift

I suggested before maximillion would be a great replacement battledroid. Battledroids don't need to talk or say "roger, roger" they need to be intimidating killing machines that make intimidating sounds that scare you.

That is a battledroid in the picture below by it's design

Theres a good model kit perhaps worth modifying check it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi_ZA1JHGNE

Battle Droids need to..

1. Look Intimidating

2. Sound Intimidating

3. Be intimidating

It would be better to have one or two battle droids similar to maximillion than 6 or 7 of the current canon fodder these things actually are war machines? 

Destroyers do their job ok and are fairly well designed but the battledroids need to go IMO if at all possible

Who said there had to be battledroids at all?

aalenfae said:

Here's a retro-redux idea. 

Making Grievous (and perhaps many CGI droids) look like stop-motion puppets!
http://vimeo.com/64913920

That's a really cool idea!  I wouldn't mind if it were implemented throughout the whole trilogy, though giving it a slight motion blur would help it to look like the high quality go motion of the OT.  But seriously, that's really fun and could visually better tie the two trilogies together.

Mithrandir said:

Who said there had to be battledroids at all?

George did...

unfortunate as it is. I'll maintain the best one I have seen is the one in the Jawas Sandcrawler in ANH:R

SilverKey said:

This might not be the thread, nor forum, for it, but I wanted to address these two points, Ronster:

 

1. It was mostly filmed on blue or green screens which did not help the acting as there were very few physical sets

2. different techniques were used to create the sound digitally and not in analogue

Point one is a common misconception. Yes, a lot of blue screen was involved in the making of the prequels, but there were way more sets than people would like to think. In AOTC and ROTS, Padme's apartment, Padme's veranda, Palpatine's office, Padme's different places on Naboo, Jango's apartment, the Geonosian hangar, the Invisible Hand's bridge and observation room and the Mustafar control room were all fully built sets.

Partial sets include the Senate, several landing platforms, and the Geonosian arena. And let's not forget most ships that were built: Anakin's speeder, air taxis, different Jedi fighters and Dooku's solar sailer.

There was a lot of location shooting in AOTC as well. Naboo was shot in Spain and Italy, while Tatooine was shot in Tunesia. ROTS was the first Star Wars movie that did not shoot on location, it was only shot on sound stages. For all prequels, blue and green screen was mostly used during pick ups and reshoots, though I'd concede that a large part of Kamino was realized digitally.

The point I'm making is that blue and green screen alone is not to blame for the PT's visual esthetic. I'd say the digital filming is a large part of it. TPM looks like a Star Wars for the most part, because it was shot on film. AOTC was the first movie to be shot digitally, and I think it shows. It looks plasticy, and that makes some effects stand out in a bad way. They had it under control with ROTS, which is a nice looking film.

It's also the design choices that were made during pre-production. I don't mind parts of them, because the PT is set in a more prosperous time. We also spend time with the elite of the Star Wars galaxy, instead of with a bunch of rebels fighting the man. That said, some corrections could be made, such as color correction to take of some of the shine, and displays.

As for the second point: yes, sounds were altered digitally, but were still captured manually. There is a pretty cool doc on the AOTC DVD on the sound design which shows they recorded rare planes for speeders and made recordings at an assembly line for the droid factory. They even went through the archives to look for sound effects that were recorded, but never used, for the OT.

Anyway, good idea for a thread! :D

 

The point I was trying to make about blue and green screen is that the OT was fully realized.

The PT was mostly done in post production your right about there are location shoots funnily enough one of the locations was a few miles away from where I am living which surprised me.

But where the main differences are is that there were multiple different crew in different studios across the 3 film PT saga

The OT for the most part had much of the same crew and skills and talent that helped to mold the films into something very special.

You basically had the cream of the crop in Creature FX, Animation, Special FX and set building and some strong performances to boot. But these Heads of Departments would have had more say than the PT Saga where George had completely creative control.

as for the sound if you capture something digitally it will sound crisp If you capture something in analogue it will sound warm. I am not disputing that the sound was not good enough but It is not the same as the OT warmer sounding audio track.

It might be worth experimenting around with a EQ setting with dynamics to apply to the whole sound mix but I am sure this can be made better with a remaster to remove or lower the higher pitch frequencies in the mix and slight increase to the overall volume might be worth a try if not lower the high pitch frequencies and put a compressor on it.