Bingowings

V'Gin!

ChainsawAsh said:

The "Jedi" logo was the only one that I created from scratch (using the Astro font, based on the logo on the SE poster).  Empire is an EPS file I downloaded a while ago that's 100% identical to the vintage poster (I perspective-corrected it and removed the "Star Wars" and surrounding circle-thing).  "Star Wars" is another EPS I downloaded, but haven't checked to see if there's anything specifically wrong with it.

What do you mean by "slug tummies" exactly?

The reason I'm asking is that I don't want someone to download this, watch the beginning, and then notice something wrong about the opening logo.  To me, something like that can ruin the viewing experience of any fanedit.  I don't want to have an "Eh, it's good enough" attitude for this project - I want it to be as perfect as I can make it.

If you (or anyone else) have any suggestions for how to improve the logos, please let me know!

Oh, and I did notice a problem with the first "S" in Star Wars that will be fixed.

By slug tummies I direct you compare the upper curve of the small Ss with the lower curve. The upper curves are perfectly rounded but the lower curves have more of a point to them (all be it smoothed but still more angular than rounded). The P in Empire has a very strange droop to the curve to (compare it to the R and you will see what I mean).

I haven't access to the typeset but if you have access to Fontlab, Fontographer or better still Fontforge (because it free) you can adjust these curves. Or if you have the designs as an EPS you could load it into Adobe Illustrator.

Kerning adjustments will help tweak the spacing between some of the letter forms too and help you avoid the crunching together thats very obvious in the ESB title it will also help prevent the clashing of close fitting uprights (like the vertical lines where the T in Strikes almost collide into the S and the R creating the illusion of a double width). Close crunching also makes a slightly off form look even more off.  Look at the curve of the C in Back, can you see how the diagonal of the A makes the already off curve seem to bend up?

Be warned it's really labour intensive work which is why some of the faults do (as you point out) turn up on official materials like posters because designers often can not arsed to do it right or don't think their audience will notice. Part of the problem is that the SE title designs were created to be seen with outlines filled in so the spaces between the letters were given more definition. Bear that in mind when you making outline only versions. In effect you are creating a totally new design because removing the coloured in sections you can no longer rely on them to iron out any clashes in the positoning of the letters.

Best of luck because this sort of work looks so easy until you actually try doing it and you have already done a much better job than many I've seen.

There are a few points of strangeness with the letter forms, the curve in the hook of the J in Jedi is the worst offender, some of the S's seem to have little slug tummies and the word "Back" seems to be rather crammed in there.

But the important question to ask is are you happy with them?

If the answer is yes leave them as they are, if the answer is no leave no pixel untwiddled.

Remember a dentine massacring dedication to detail isn't just for Christmas.

The cheese will not protect you, he wears the cheese, the cheese doesn't wear him.

I can't forgive the piece for promising with it's title what it failed to deliver, finally the film of one of the most filmable books in history.

It still shocks me that nobody has ever got it right when the book screams, "Film Me!" whenever I pick it up (well, whenever I forget to take the special tablets).

The cast are mostly awful in it too (Vinola and Keanu at their vorst), only really Richard E Grant and Tom Vaits come out of it with most of their dignity intact.

Lovely costumes though and the colour is lush but all the best bits of the book are missing or screwed up something I could almost forgive if Bram's good name wasn't on the piece.

I love the Vierd idea of British geography in the film.

Whitby, London, Englandshire.

If it was just some vacky Dracula film made by Ken Russell in his autumn years it would have been better obviously and a fun addition to the huge body of Dracula In Name Only films but as someone who first read the book when he was 8 and have read it more times than I can count (geddit?) I must say it pissed me off more than TPM.

BTW I would really love to see someone do a good job of Kim Newman's Anno Dracula books but it would probably get as mangled as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film.

Eternal Darkness : Sanity's Requiem is much closer to the feel of Lovecraft than any of the films directly inspired by them.

I haven't played the game but what I've seen of the new Arkham Asylum game it looks like it would make one hell of a Batman movie.

The Silent Hill games (though the film is better than most) still trump a lot of films for wierd atmosphere, the fourth one (though not really a Silent Hill game) would make a great Lynchian wierd out film. Sort of like a cross between Rear Window, Repulsion and Hellraiser.

oh_riginal said:

I don't think "balance" is meant to be taken literally, in regards to Jedi/Sith population. It's not nearly "philosophical" enough for either faction. I think what is meant by "balance" would be something like "all is well in the universe" or something along those lines. The dark side throws off the balance.

But I'm not the one with the final word, as none of this was really explained in any of the prequels clearly. That's just my interpretation.

We can all agree on "Blessed are the cheesemakers" though can't we?

Crikey Avid!

That's one expensive piece of software. I'd have to sell all my platinum diamond tipped teeth to buy that baby.

 Double post, Sorry.

oh_riginal said:

fishmanlee said:

but luke took off vaders suit

 

I don't think that would make any difference at all. Obi Wan's robes were left on the Death Star, and likely was destroyed in the explosion. So by this logic, should Obi Wan not have access to his robes as a ghost?

This is sounding sillier and sillier to me suddenly... the whole debate on what a ghost gets to wear or not wear I mean! Or how old they appear, or how much hair they have... it gets to be a bit much.

But I have a question anyway: If Qui Gon is the original Jedi Force Ghost (OG: Original Ghost!), and thus taught Yoda and Obi Wan how to also become force ghosts, then why is Vader able to do the same, since he never learned this technique?

Related question: Why isn't Qui Gon not there with Anakin/Yoda/Obi Wan? Yeah, he doesn't know Luke, and Luke would only be confused if he saw a strange Jedi standing there, but he is still the only other Jedi (non-EU) to be able to do this.

 

Reminds me of this old mock up that has been on youtube for quite some time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aIZZyIgpco

(I did not make it)

Looking at this mock up, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch, since in the edit, Luke looks away before Qui Gon appears... perhaps it could be interpreted that he appeared to observe what he so strongly believed in: Seeing Anakin's success in balancing the force.

Ah, early morning ramblings... I get carried away, sorry folks!

Maybe the boy got it right in the first place:

Anakin : "No one can kill a Jedi."

Qui-Gon : "I wish that were so".

Perhaps in his raw untrained state he was more atuned to the true nature of the Force than he ever was as a Jedi or a Sith.

He is described in the prequels a some sort of mechansism for resetting the balance of the Force (thousands of Jedi and two Sith, two Sith and two Jedi, when one takes on an apprentice another Jedi is killed to correct the balance, when another dies he kills a Sith his roles seem to match even the rank of the Jedi/Sith involved Master for Master, Apprentice for Apprentice).

Where that leaves his children is wide open question but with his job done he can now take his place in Jedi Valhalla and turn up now and then for social calls.

I know this belongs more on the Radical Redux thread but with Qui-Gon being a bit of a herald of the chosen one in the linear TPM plan I dropped in over there it might make sense to have Qui-Gon gain the knowledge of Force Haunting from the same source of inspiration as where he got his intuitions about Anakin from.

To be more honest I'm more upset about the death of Mollie Sugden, she was more of a major player in my childhood and I suppose that's the only way we can respond to celebrity deaths. We never meet these talented people but their work and their media profile creates an illusion of familiarity that can place them almost within our familes, especially now that extended families living in the same area for a lifetime is becoming a vanishingly rare phenomena.

Finding out what Gary Glitter was up to felt like finding out that a percieved eccentric uncle had committed a terrible crime, compounding the horror of what he did with a deep seated personal feeling of disappointment.

If all the Jedi were cloned it could explain the confusion and keep the surprises about Vader and Anakin and also explain away some of the continuity errors in the PT as we saw it.

Maybe in the future when the technology picks up we could have multiple versions of the Jedi leading the clone troopers.

You can see why the EU obsessed about clone technology in the early days because like superweapons they are an unavoidable consequence of being introduced as a technology of that universe.

Unfortunately unavoidable consequence often leads to very boring stories.

adywan said:

Bingowings said:

Here is a mini preview of the scope of the thing, I still have to find and map in a lot of details and correct wonkyness but you get the general idea all of this made possible by Ady's HD version of ANH, still can't find any quality info for the near end of the arch as it never appeared on screen anyway:

don't know if this pic would be any help to you or not

 

Actually that helps a great deal (not so much for the detail as it is understandably blurry) but for the angle and alignment the arch curve and the placement of some of the furniture.

Thanks again Ady.

I may even be able to add a ceiling and more of a floor to the thing if I can replicate the texture.

The final image will not be true HD because to merge the seperate elements together will create a real patchwork but I will make the final mosiac available for anyone who wants to further adjust it to there own ends, (further decay, lightsabre building materials different light conditions and the like).

I've kept R2 in the shot for scale but I will produce a version with him removed too for people who want to have a real blank slate to work from.

Remember all those rumors that Obi-Wan was going to be a clone (original batch one) and that Ben was just a name to tell him from all the others?

It sounds daft now but with all those phonetically spelt droid names it kind of makes sense, even the clones in the animated series have personal names on top of their serial numbers.

Lando was going to be a clone at one point, I wonder if they kept shunting the idea along until they found a place that fitted better.

Darth Chronus said:

DuTwan said:

right guys, ive darkened the hair on my mock up off sebastian. Will give you the images from original seb, first edit and new seb.

Excellent job. Could you do a version where you crinkle his hair a little bit to match Christensen's? :)

 

Looking at this I couldn't help but think of:

 My higher rez panorama of Ben's hut is coming on a pace (for bringing Ben's ghost home post sabre hiding/message recording)

Here is a mini preview of the scope of the thing, I still have to find and map in a lot of details and correct wonkyness but you get the general idea all of this made possible by Ady's HD version of ANH, still can't find any quality info for the near end of the arch as it never appeared on screen anyway:

vaderios said:

Bingowings said:

I can't stand that Mekon chair thing that Yoda floats around in.

I prefer to see him floating with a flying chair rather to see him flying around with a lightsaber :)

-Angel

 

The two make a nonsense of each other.

Either he is a Jedi Master with super human acrobatic skill or he is a feeble old wise man who needs to be carried around in a floating chair.

If Yoda can lift an X-wing out of a swamp with the Force why would he need that chair anyway? If floating was so important to the wee green guy he'd just do it without a floating chair.

Why couldn't they just have him walking and have Windu and Kenobi look down when they talk to him.

The deleted scene is so much better, shame that the effects are half done.

Ripplin said:

In a way, it would be viewed as an extreme test of patience if people had to walk with him in such massive buildings. I figure the chair was made because A) laziness, B) so people could walk along with him at a reasonable speed. Heh.

 

I thought the Jedi were meant to be patient, they seem to make a big deal of Luke and Anakin's lack of it and the Dark Side is meant to be the quick and easy path.

Shame you put in all that effort for a floor Yoda can't be bothered to walk on.

I can't stand that Mekon chair thing that Yoda floats around in.

As for the Piett turning against the Emperor (I think he would never turn against the Empire, just the crazy wizards who keep killing his men) I thought of having him seal the bridge by bringing the blast shields down on the corridor sections.

To do this I thought it might be fun to pinch one line of dialogue from ST:TMP,  "Seal off the bridge" (make it sound like it's some unseen officer) so the Shat himself will actually be in a Star Wars movie (the legend didn't get to be in the latest Star Trek movie so why not go one further).

You could have a shot of Stormies on the other side trying to break through to retake the ship bookending the scene in TPM where Qui-Gon tries the same thing.

We can but dare to dream.

Maybe it was to prepare us for Ziro the Hutt (it's hard to believe that George could come up with a character even more camp than Threepio).

vaderios said:

YES YES!

fuck mind blowing :P

 

-Angel

Go on then, show us how it's done.

It might be even better if we got a similar reveal to the battle of Coruscant in ROTS.

A few TIE fighters, down to a Star Destroyer which moves to one side revealing the even bigger Executor, which moves to one side to reveal the top of the Death Star 2 which fills most of the screen.

A series of reveals by unblocking.

The opening of ROTJ sums up everything that's wrong about the film, it's a pointless rehash of the opening of ANH (pointless because without the battle the scale of the ship no longer demonstrates the strength of the Empire) and they cut away before the sweep is finished.

The object that should represent the might of the Empire (the Death Star) looks so tiny and fragile.

A better opening would be to trump the Executor reveal in ESB.

Show the Executor arriving to drop off Vader with support ships and then have it suddenly dwarfed by the huge scale of a gigantic Death Star (with lots of building activity) popping into view as the camera pans down.

That way you get a sense of progression.

ANH shows how big a Star Destroyer is.

ESB shows how big the Executor is in scale with the Star Destroyer.

ROTJ shows how big the Death Star is in scale with the Executor.

Something like (only better and possibly from the other side which would mean a new model would have to be built or matte painted) :

Slightly off topic but for those that are interested and within reception range BBC iplayer is playing Leigh Brackett's Last Days Of Shandakor the first episode is up:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007k2tj/Last_Days_of_Shandakor_Episode_1/

EyeShotFirst said:

why dont they use debris to their advantage in this movie. All these ships exploding should send shrapnel (please tell me thats how you spell it) to other ships causing problems. I hope adywan makes the Rebel and Imperial fleets more epic in size too.

That is how we spell it :-D

That reminds me of the sort of chaos that the ships in nuGalactica cause when they let rip.

My only problem with that is could the Rebel fleet survive "Firepower of that magnitude"?

I'm still Jonesing for my Piett has enough scenerio.

Imagine him pointing that sort of firepower at the Death Star as he bravely rams the station to defend his fleet.

That's the sort of change this film needs, correcting the colour is one thing (important as it is) but giving the story a fitting conclusion with surprises is the only way to lift this movie into the epic scale to match the two films that preceded it.

Remember when George dissed Godzilla by saying "Story Matters" ?

Big words from the PT guy, that's something that needs to come through in a major re-working, especially in ROTJ as it is more easy to salvage than the PT.