Bingowings

Oh...so the pattern margin is the text :

BRITISH

BOARD

OF FILM

CENSORS

I will have to really scrutinise that pattern margin to identify that typeface through all that gravel.

As for the title type I'm told Georgia wasn't around in 1981 (it was designed in 1993 and released for general use in 1996), it looks likes an Ionic display version of Clarendon family, I'll let you know more when I've had a better chance to look at it (might be Century Schoolbook, Belizio Regular is quite close too).

Thanks for posting that, I one step closer to my goal of replicating what I saw in 1977.

Really nice stab Jonno it's closest thing yet but of all my crimes of pedantry type is one of my worse vices.

It would be interesting to see if ANH got a a new card for for the re-release when it first got it's episode number and subtitle, I can't remember if ESB got the episode number mentioned on it's card.

I thought there was a model of the hanger made for that shot???

I know all the rest was CGI, it's likely I'm wrong though.

It was one of the better SE additions but yeah big cock-up on the caption in any case.

Bingowings said:

oh_riginal said:

Bingowings said:

oh_riginal said:

Bingowings said:

Personally I never liked the way the weapon fired in the first place.

There is a big dish with a nipple in the middle so it just makes more sense to me that the smaller beams focused on the nipple thing (technincal term) and the large ray fired out of it and was focused by the dish.

Having everything fire out into space and meet there looks suitably science fantasy but doesn't really make much sense visually.

 

If you're talking about the appearance of the laser firing in ANH and ROTJ and how different they look, I 100% agree, and this has always bothered me.

If I had been on the forums before ANH:R, I might have requested to make the laser firing of the ANH Death Star to be more like the ROTJ Death Star. It probably would even be one of the easier effects to create! Just add an extra laser beam coming out of the center of the dish upon firing.

In my opinion, it just "looks right" to have it that way in ROTJ.

No and yes.

I was saying that I don't really like the way the Death Star fires in either film, I'd have the beams meet right above the surface of the dish and have the central beam come out of the hole in the middle, I'll see if I can do a mockup later.

 

 

 

Ohhh... I think I see what you're saying. Looking forward to the mock-up!

Forgive as always the crudity of this mockup:

Here's the classic Death Star firing method:

As you can see the minor lasers fire into the space above the dish and combine to form a single beam.

Here the minor lasers fire towards the central hole in the dish and which focus together with the central beam :

Maybe someone else can do a better render of the same idea?

 

vaderios said: If i wasn't witness this with my eyes i could say that you hacked my pc because i was making what you made ( with some enhancements) 2 days ago.

:D

Now we both know that is an awesome idea hehe

EDIT:

 

-Angel

This sort of thing could be done in a future reworking of ANH too.

For people who really need a happy ending the cockpit could jettison and turn into the Landopod (the superdooper high speed escape pod...if the Bat can do it why not the Billy Dee?) which can still outrun the explosion but now with the added tension of fire and the loss of the Falcon.

I still like my idea of when the Falcon bumps the walls it gets really badly damaged and loses not just the dish but the top quad laser and much of the upper hull too.

By the time they destroy the reactor the fire is near the cockpit door.

Groovy!

oh_riginal said:

Bingowings said:

oh_riginal said:

Bingowings said:

Personally I never liked the way the weapon fired in the first place.

There is a big dish with a nipple in the middle so it just makes more sense to me that the smaller beams focused on the nipple thing (technincal term) and the large ray fired out of it and was focused by the dish.

Having everything fire out into space and meet there looks suitably science fantasy but doesn't really make much sense visually.

 

If you're talking about the appearance of the laser firing in ANH and ROTJ and how different they look, I 100% agree, and this has always bothered me.

If I had been on the forums before ANH:R, I might have requested to make the laser firing of the ANH Death Star to be more like the ROTJ Death Star. It probably would even be one of the easier effects to create! Just add an extra laser beam coming out of the center of the dish upon firing.

In my opinion, it just "looks right" to have it that way in ROTJ.

No and yes.

I was saying that I don't really like the way the Death Star fires in either film, I'd have the beams meet right above the surface of the dish and have the central beam come out of the hole in the middle, I'll see if I can do a mockup later.

 

 

 

Ohhh... I think I see what you're saying. Looking forward to the mock-up!

Forgive as always the crudity of this mockup:

Here's the classic Death Star firing method:

As you can see the minor lasers fire into the space above the dish and combine to form a single beam.

Here the minor lasers fire towards the central hole in the dish and which focus together with the central beam :

Maybe someone else can do a better render of the same idea?

oh_riginal said:

Bingowings said:

Personally I never liked the way the weapon fired in the first place.

There is a big dish with a nipple in the middle so it just makes more sense to me that the smaller beams focused on the nipple thing (technincal term) and the large ray fired out of it and was focused by the dish.

Having everything fire out into space and meet there looks suitably science fantasy but doesn't really make much sense visually.

 

If you're talking about the appearance of the laser firing in ANH and ROTJ and how different they look, I 100% agree, and this has always bothered me.

If I had been on the forums before ANH:R, I might have requested to make the laser firing of the ANH Death Star to be more like the ROTJ Death Star. It probably would even be one of the easier effects to create! Just add an extra laser beam coming out of the center of the dish upon firing.

In my opinion, it just "looks right" to have it that way in ROTJ.

No and yes.

I was saying that I don't really like the way the Death Star fires in either film, I'd have the beams meet right above the surface of the dish and have the central beam come out of the hole in the middle, I'll see if I can do a mockup later.

I do wish we could see their armour actually deflect some shots.

Otherwise it does seem a bit silly them bothering to put it on.

Surely the only main cast member who is even remotely white is R2 and he has a lot of silver and blue ;-p

I was under the impression that the reactor explosion wasn't the enough on it's own to destroy the Death Star but it was the big bang in a chain reaction of explosions which blow the thing to bits.

There is a world of difference between Geena Davis and Sam Jackson running away from an explosion in a building in the very silly The Long Kiss Goodnight and high speed ships racing away from a series of large explosions ending in the explosive destruction of a metal moon.

That said I really would like to see the Falcon not make it, go out in style but still go down.

I meant to say that as long as the story is the same it doesn't matter what you do to present that story as long as it works in a satisfying way.

In ROTJ the Emperor lures the Rebels to attack a new Death Star which they think isn't yet functional but actually is.

That gives anyone reworking that aspect of the story a free range to present that in whatever way they want to, as long as it works.

These are the important questions to ask in regard to any change that's made.

Does it work? Did it work better before it was changed? Could it work better if it was done in a different way?

The dreaded C word isn't the same thing as telling the story, all canon does is tell us what the officially sanctioned chain of events are.

With fan edits and special editions those events change even if the story stays pretty much the same.

BTW as a Doctor Who fan for most of my life I hate the dreaded C word and If I type it again anyone reading this has my permission to fire Jar-Jar action figures up my nose or worse still force me to explain the UNIT dating problem until my nerd cortex explodes.

I didn't say it was all lazy some of the work in ROTJ is still gobsmackingly good  to this day, especially considering the limitations of the time but compared to the work done on the first two (and there were a few hiccups there) ROTJ has so much that doesn't hold up to repeat viewing (and this was a film made just at the point when repeat viewing was more a done thing with VCR's becoming commonplace).

It seems to be the moment when George started saying "It'll do" instead of "How the hell are we going to get that to work?".

When it comes to doing special editions surely the canon goes out of the window.

You could if you wanted to make the top of the Death Star spin around and the dish tilt (and you can make it look satisfying) go ahead, it's the story that counts.

Perhaps that was down to the usual lazy effects work in much of the film.

As I said before they had a really nice model and hardly filmed it so maybe when the came to compose that shot they changed the way it fired to make it work with the few painting and model elements they bothered to put out.

We may never know because asking for a straight answer (even if we could) from the guys at the ranch is a hit and miss affair.

I don't envy the work of anyone who wants to rework the sequence so it matches the firing in ANH as it would mean either lots of new paintings or a scratch model build.

So it's a matter of take your pick.

That is either a really bad kludge of a shot or that IS the way the weapon works (which allows anyone reworking ANH to make it fire anyway they want).

Personally I never liked the way the weapon fired in the first place.

There is a big dish with a nipple in the middle so it just makes more sense to me that the smaller beams focused on the nipple thing (technincal term) and the large ray fired out of it and was focused by the dish.

Having everything fire out into space and meet there looks suitably science fantasy but doesn't really make much sense visually.

I'm sure someone has written a umpty thrumpty paged manual which explains how the superlaser works but I don't buy it myself.

That's my soapbox moment over ;-)

EyeShotFirst said:

vaderios said:

Cheers :)

Now ontopic.

I started a new superlaser interior that looks incomplete and more "organic"

Its still wip and the gunners section is temp. I was wondering if someone with better English than me can tell me when i can find panels with lights like we see it in ANH and nuclear factories

 

-Angel

Wow angel. It is all cyberpunky.

 

It might be nice to carry some of that iron red girder motif down from the surface so it looks like they are firing the thing without all the nice glossy panels installed yet.

I'd love to see you have a go at the lift shaft thing Palpatine takes a tumble down.

It doesn't match the dizzy depths of the first Death Star or Bespin.

Gasping at the gun barrel (though I'd still like to see it fire from above).

It's the same thing only better which is inkeeping with the idea of the second Death Star being an improved version of the first.

As for panels the original location of the firing sequence was identified sometime ago and it's almost as was:

http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2009/06/08/los-angeles-steam-plant-responsible-for-obliterating-alderaan/

It annoys me that they built this huge beautiful model with lights and everything and barely filmed it, often just using the same shots over and over again or using matte paintings which didn't always match up.

It might be possible to use the light mattes/shots from Death Star 1 but it is actually a very different model (the dish is in a different ratio to the globe from what I can make out).

This is a bit closer :

I've tried to get the idea nailed down but no success as yet,

I got this far but it's not really what I mean:

though my efforts did throw out this little accident which looks more like Bespin to me.

It would be nice if the Death Star was in partial eclipse of the sun and Forest Moon so the gold bit was the diamond ring and we could see the Death Star lights (most of the time in ROTJ Death Star II is just a broken grey ball always pointing the same way).

It reminds me of some of the original design paintings which had lots more vehicles including two sail barges going to the party.

I wish someone could post those, it really did look more like those old pirate movies but with a Star Wars twist.

That particular mockup is a bit too busy but in a sequence with models you can compose a scene with almost the same number of elements without crowding the screen.

Though Jabba himself (and the higher members of his court) would eat well, it might be nice to add a vaporator farm to supply water and small crops for the underlings in the palace (a bit like a medieval castle vegetable garden).

Loving the garage too:

I would love to see your take on adding some more variety to the barge party, swoops, more skiffs and scooners (for that pirates of the sand look).

rcb said:

Bingowings said:

I had Artoo use the bunker computer to program the Imperial gun turrets to shoot down their own ships (so no new footage other than models necessary) but I'm sure there are ways around it.

Clearing all that forest would allow for AT-AT stomping throught the stumps and ash footage without the perceived getting stuck between trees problem too, also perhaps some real Ewok carnage along the lines of the Lars Homestead massacre:

that is the freakest thing ever

 

It looks a bit rubbish but get's the idea across.

If someone were to do this properly they would have to make a couple of Ewok skeletons and film them in smoldering ash (this mockup is the skeleton of a suitably small person with the nose shortened and moved up to match the rough position of that on an Ewok mask).

Angel Blue01 said:

Here's a few ideas for small ideas for ROTJ:

-Have some body parts fly off when Luke's lightsabre hits people on Jabba's sail barge

-Maybe some stragglers jump off before it explodes

-Jawas with the Banthas in the SE shot shot...

-...who come and watch the explosion from a distance.

-the briefing scene should be prequel-ized: darkened, some lights moving etc.

-the Home One hanger looks a little cramped

I agree with the idea of the space battle being closer to the throne room, after all Palpatine tells Luke to watch but he's too far to see anything!

Please don't touch the Tyderium shuttle, its my favorite craft in the movie!

I would imagine Tuskens would be more inkeeping with Banthas than Jawas (perhaps shooting at the barge).

I like the idea of stragglers trying to jump from the barge before it blows but I have no problem with changing the Tydirium with an Imperial transporter.

There are already shuttles aplenty in the film (dropping off Vader and Palpatine) and the Tydirium's cover is delivering parts something more inkeeping with the larger transporter than a shuttle.

Changing it will allow the Rebels to carry more people and equipment.

It would also free up the existing model shots to be reworked into the other shuttle arrival sequences.

I think the majority of the audience will be scratching their heads trying to figure out who Starkiller is, (yes I know it's in the crawl but only nerds like us follow these things closely) a few people will think the guy from the video game has come back from the dead and it doesn't add anything to the story.

The easiest and obvious remedy for this 2004 problem is to return the hologram conversation to it's 1980 text but with Ian's voice (like what Ady has already done).