Darth Venal

Bingowings:

Darth Venal said:

Bingowings:

 it's a NASA painting of what an accretion disk might look like and not CGI at all

That doesn't necessarily make sense.

:-)

What doesn't make sense? The background is a physical painting commissioned by NASA to illustrate what an accretion disk might look like which I put into the space to replace the original spiral and not CGI. 

As I said the colours may give it the impression of being CGI because early CG depictions of space (like B5) were very colourful.

I meant saying it's a painting and not CGI could be contradictory, as so much 'painting' nowadays is done on a computer. Painting isn't an exclusive term for canvas, a brush and paints is what I meant.

Another problem with all this discussion about what the phenomena at the end of Empire is, is that we're evaluating it based on astronomical photography, which isn't really that reliable as it is rarely standard optical photography. However, that is the common conception of what interstellar phenomena look like, and perhaps the wisest choice artistically.

One of the physicists talking about it over on theforce.net says it can't be a galaxy because galaxies don't really look like that to the naked eye, which is what we're seeing in that scene. But he completely overlooks the fact that 99.9% of people sitting in a movie theatre won't have any idea that a spiral galaxy is substantially dimmer and actually pretty hard to see with the naked eye. Most of us think they're bright white (sometimes yellowish) with spiral arms around a bright bulbous centre, but that's not true.

Not that any of this matters a jot, as long as the image looks good on screen while not negatively impacting on the narrative.

Can you elaborate on what you loved about the prequels, and what you hated about THX 1138?

Bingowings:

 it's a NASA painting of what an accretion disk might look like and not CGI at all

That doesn't necessarily make sense.

:-)

EyeShotFirst:

If something gets under your skin you become very familiar with it. I will be honest. The Phantom Menace was a good movie to me (jar jar and midichlorians aside) it was worthy of the OT. But ATOC and ROTS just really kicked me in the death stars. I felt as if the films weren't made for the fans anymore. It is like when you find this new un-famous band and you love them for years and then they get a big fat check and an MTV deal and decide to do something completely contrary to what you loved them for. I don't think an artist should go with the mainstream flow, instead an artist should carve their own path and stay on it. I don't mean they can't explore, but they should at least leave some bread crumbs. I would have loved the PT as much as the OT if they helped each other. Instead the PT is some parasite that has attached itself to the Star Wars name. I don't like bashing GL because hell, he is a genius in my eyes. I just think he went with the flow and forgot to leave bread crumbs. It actually seems more like he deliberately didn't leave bread crumbs.

 

sorry for the usage of the word bread crumb LOL

What in God's name are you talking about?

Oh_riginal:

Well, it is a trilogy! Sure, Lucas didn't direct ESB, but he still had a heavy hand in making the movie. I'd say ANH and ESB back-to-back doesn't necessarily make him a one-trick pony.

And ROTJ has its moments, as does the PT. I completely understand why people bash the PT, but it DOES have its moments... otherwise why would a lot of us own them or at least know them so well?

American Graffiti and THX 1138 weren't exactly custard pies in the face of cinema, either. Both fine films (of course, the original version of THX 1138, not the CG 'enhanced' version).

As for the PT, I would venture that hope is why some of us know them so well despite not liking them. After Episodes I and II, I was certain that I wouldn't enjoy Episode III either, but I went along out of hope that it might be, and wanting completion either way. And, personally speaking, I don't know that the PT does have that many 'moments'.

Couldn't agree more, people too often strip Lucas of ANY credit for these movies, which is plainly absurd.

That window space is so asking for an aquarium.

I wouldn't bother changing it at all, I think it looks perfectly fine. Maybe he's just of the mind that whether it's a galaxy or a forming star, we wouldn't see it rotating either way. But it is rather strange to see a star forming alone in space without some form of molecular cloud around it. Whether you subscribe to accretion models or otherwise, there needs to be some sort of material being drawn upon, far more massive than the accretion disk this star seems to have. Maybe it is just a galaxy?

Meh.

:-)

He's not getting rid of the FX shot, just using a non-rotating version of it.

I'm wondering why anyone would want it, that set of artwork wasn't a patch on most of the stuff that came before it. Never liked it in the '90s, don't like it now. What's the point in having a circle motif when only two of the three have a relevant image?

I looked, it is very nice. But no, you would never be able to see a single star from that galaxy. All those stars that you can see in the image of the galaxy are from our galaxy, as is the case for any galaxy image you will find.

Put it this way, if you have an image of a galaxy that  is about 1000 pixels across, a star the size of our Sun would occupy about 1/587,000,000 of a pixel. I'd hate to see the size of a jpeg that could show that! ;-)

EDIT: I just tried working that out, and at 600 dpi, an image showing the sun at just one pixel wide would be just over 25,000 km wide. Fucking hell.

That's almost as scary as how long it would take to get to the next star under our current propulsion maximums (approx. 115,000 years).

I can't be sure from that small mock-up, but you seem to have mistaken the stars within the galaxy source image as being part of that galaxy, which they're not. You'd need to remove them or make the rest of the starfield match.

But it looks very nice indeed.

What's wrong with the original galaxy anyway?

Shanerjedi:

3PO states in the opening that "Lando Calrissian and poor Chewbacca never returned from this awful place".

Wait a second. Chewie shows up with Leia. So what is 3PO talking about?

You know, I remember thinking that about 25 years ago, and had since completely forgotten it! You're absolutely right. Chewie and Lando are clearly part of the plan, so it's not as if they've had no contact!

Actually, Palpatine explodes around the bottom of the lift shaft. That is, after all, what the long tube running down is, the lift up to the throne room. So let's all amuse ourselves with the thought that Palpatine comes crashing down into the foyer and goes boom in front of the lifts. Just by the water cooler.

And Ghost, I don't think keeping Jabba's Palace secret would really achieve anything, seeing as we all know that's where he was taking him. I'd just keep it out of Empire all together; the Palace and everything there belongs in Jedi. I hate mixing up the movies, it ruins their individual aesthetics.

That would be great. But maybe his death should be somewhat more elegant, as was his way.

Funny.

Seriously, he only falls as far as the Death Star surface before he's obliterated.

I'm wondering why so many people keep referring to the shaft in Palpatine's throne room as the reactor core. That's not what it is at all, unless you're suggesting we can see 450km down that thing. Let's remember that the throne room is atop a very tall tower, and I reckon that shaft only reaches to the actual surface of the Death Star. At a standard Earth gravity, which is clearly how all the ships in Star Wars seem to work, it would take Palpatine three hours to hit the reactor core.

Yeah, that was a crock, but the guy sitting on the left was kinda cute.

Ah, it's the small pleasures...

"as Luke says, his overconfidence is his weakness, and it ends up being his undoing."

Convenient, that. Yet another problem with the writing on Jedi.

Vaderios:

If the tower supposed to be on top of the ball aka DS then the lines that describe th surface are all wrong.

how about the lines gathering into one point and show the indication of DS's axis and center?

Lovely work as usual, Angel. However, I have to disagree with your suggestion about the lines being wrong. The Death Star II is 900km in diameter. There is absolutely no need for spherical contour lines in the manner you suggest, as the surface area is incredibly vast and relatively small buildings would not converge in such a manner. A much wider view might show converging lines, but not on the scale of the tower as you are suggesting.

I'm glad you said that. There seems to be a tendency at times to want to explain everything, including things that really don't need it.

Not a bad idea, and the Falcon would be a significant casualty for a lot of us. There needed to be something. I remember back then, Richard Marquand wanted to kill one of the leads, but Lucas flat out refused. Pity.