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Seeing as Lucas gave the Sarlacc Pit a sex change, I think I'm going to apply that across the board. Every shaft in that movie is getting a gender makeover.
Wanna know how the Emperor dies? That's right, a giant fucking beak is waiting down that shaft. Let me throw something together...
mrbenja0618:Sky Captain while not perfect, still had great acting despite the fact that it was almost entirely CGI... So, what was his problem here?
I think a lot of people will strongly disagree with you, for exactly the same reasons the actors were wooden in the PT. While Neeson can hold his own, you can't be comparing anyone else in the PT with Paltrow, Jolie and even Law? Ewan McGregor, again, a top notch guy, but he is really, really not that great an actor. And Natalie Portman is only good when she has a strong director. So yes, the complaint about green screens and Lucas being a lousy actor's director are perfectly valid.
Bingowings:Christopher Lee appeared to give an uncharacteristically flat performance and he is theatrically trained, worked a lot on radio and has worked well on other green screen heavy films.
Maybe he gave a good performance that was massaged to death in the editing or not very well photographed (we don't have all the footage so it's impossible to tell).
Well, he only really has one scene where he's talking with another actor at length, when Obi Wan is strung up. The rest of his scenes are either against CG characters or just odd lines with no real structure in the middle of action scenes. I think his class still shows out in the scene with McGregor. Other than that, he doesn't really register much because his character is totally undeveloped. In the Lord of the Rings movies, he does at least act with real actors in all his scenes, and pretty good ones at that.
Oh I'm not really looking for them, I was wondering where Ady got the info that they were 1080p. Premiere HD in Germany is owned by Sky, too, and as far as I'm aware they only ever broadcast 1080i max. In fact, I'm assured by Anthony in HD (hehe, he'll kill me) that the HD boxes can't even handle 1080p, across the board with Sky, so...
LOL. You might as well have done, seeing as you didn't post anything about Star Wars. PM me and tell me what you think. :-)
SSWR:
I love the sand being disturbed underneath the sail barge!
What do you guys think about having the sand being disturbed the whole time...to kind of achieve a hovering effect? or is that too much?
I also think it looks terrific. Well done, Angel. But apart from it being difficult to achieve through the entire sequence, I also would argue that there is no reason the barge would disturb the sand. There are no apparent "thrusters" which would create such a disturbance. The Tatooine transports all seem to hover through some anti-gravity technology, repulsor technology, rather than actually physical thrust engines.
But it looks excellent!
And as much as the sand is a bit on the lemon side for me, I do think it looks fresh and unusual.
adywan said:
Darth Venal said:
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.
The German PremierHD Star Wars saga were all transmitted in 1080p
Can you provide me a source to confirm that? Because I know for a fact that no Sky channels have ever broadcast 1080p. 1080i, yes, not 1080p. Premiere HD is one of our channels under Sky DE and I have never heard of it broadcasting in 1080p.
EyeShotFirst:
The biggest problem with making a prequel is when the casting director goes for who looks the most like the character in the original.
Then you have a movie like Star Trek with that horrible Chris Pine. He didn't even bother to try to be William Shatner. He had the look fairly close but really didn't capture the essence of William Shatner's performance (it isn't that hard LOL).
Sorry, ESF, but that is absolute nonsense. First of all, I have met several massive casting directors in my time, I even worked for Mary Selway (god rest her mighty soul) and I don't know any casting director that would ever consider an actor on looks first. Never.
And as for Chris Pine, you're absolutely right, he didn't even bother trying to be Shatner. He was trying to be Kirk. Sorry for sounding angry, but you're entirely missing the point if you think he should be trying to be Shatner. That's something a C-grade actor might try to do, an impersonation. That's like saying all the five Bonds since Connery have failed because they didn't impersonate him. While some are better than others, and all very distinct, they are all still James Bond.
Octorox, I agree with you. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Shatner. But I think people remember all the wrong aspects of his performances, when he's actually given some very, very good ones. Look at him in Star Trek II, his lighter touch in Star Trek IV, his anger in Star Trek VI. And then look at his performance as Denny Crane in Boston Legal. He deserved both Emmys he got for that character, and who would have thought he'd be in his mid-70s and giving the best performance of his entire career.
The problem is, without convincing characters/performances, nothing else works.
Sounds like a good idea, although would we put ALL matte painting stuff in there, or still post SW matte stuff on the other threads?
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.
The irony there is that Ewan McGregor said he was trying not to really impersonate Guinness too much "as it interferes with the acting process". Well, that may be, but whatever he was trying to do, he gave two dreadful performances and one okay performance in those three movies. And I really like Ewan McGregor, so don't take that as me having a go. He's a genuinely decent bloke and he's done some decent movies, but action hero he is not.
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.
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.
Ziz:
Yeah, it wouldn't be that shiny unless it was just installed yesterday.
It wouldn't be that shiny if it weren't CG ;-)
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.
That's very very nice, although I think you should be opening up the Pit of Carkoon, not making it even more obscure.
Hehe, it was considered.
EyeShotFirst:
It was nice but they should never add a character when the actor who played them died. IN ANY FILM. At least Alec Guiness was still alive when Ewan McGregor took over the role.
What does that even mean? Was it a joke?
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.
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.
...
Sheesh, if there's one thing I've learned from George Lucas, it's this: if you want a job done right, you've got to do it yourself.
I know some of you won't like me tampering with my original vision, but I was never happy with it. A great photographer once said "A satellite image is never finished, only abandoned" so I wanted to use this, the two-hour anniversary of the original picture, to re-release it with better labelling to make it more consistent. We've also spent minutes completing a pixel-by-pixel colour restoration to bring what, we're sure you'll agree, is the most vivid, realistic image possible. It's how the original looked.
I like to think the key word here is consistency.
Shanerjedi:
That's cool. Angel can do the mock up/concept work and Venal can realize it. I'm sure we're in for some really cool stuff.
Oh great, don't put any pressure on us or anything.
;-)
Cahoots? That's a shocking accusation. What's next, collusion? Conspiracy?!
Anyone got a thesaurus?
Hahaha, Bingo that's brilliant.