ImperialFighter

There's always one...

I hope you've enjoyed the thread.  ;)

Er....I had a new thread topic in mind and posted by accident just as I started it!  Anybody reading this please DON'T comment yet.  Even though I know you'll be tempted to TV's Frink...  ;)  Thanks.

I will get back to this!!!

EDIT: On the other hand, it seems this may end up being 'The permanently mucked-up thread...'

VettaDen said:

After reading over 504 pages of nonsense that wont happen in the finished product, it was time for another idea, some lolz

Welcome aboard VettaDen.  I certainly lol'd at your first post here.

I'm not sure if you're meaning over 504 pages of 'off-topic' stuff or not, but there's been plenty of interesting notions along the way on this thread, whether they get used or not.  A lot of ideas have ended up getting a yes, no, or maybe out of adywan, and have helped to see what's ahead in that respect.  Not sure he'll be adding too many lolz to this edit though.

Monroville said:

Is there the possibility of just replacing the shot with Vader on a viewscreen?  When you think about it, it is rather silly to have a smurf-sized Vader (or anyone) on what looks like a cigarette plug-in hologram add-on...

not to mention, is that holo (8-track) deck located near the right arm of the left AT-AT driver (as in, shouldn't there be a joystick in that area)?  The area on the right side looks like the center of the console (the white bar above and behind Vader is the same as the glowing blue bar at the driver's shoulder level below):



Now I know someone is going to say that the mini-holodeck could be located in the center, between the joysticks (by the green dot).... the problem is that you should see the other joystick on the left side on the 1st image above, not to mention Veers looks off to his left (or right side of the screen), as opposed to straight below him, which would also be underneath his periscope.

I wanted to see a clearer look at this since Monroville used a recoloured mockup in his example which proved a little misleading.  So here's a comparison using the actual current AT-AT interior details -

On close inspection, the detailing/lights seen around the 'hologram' don't seem to match anywhere on the AT-AT's console.  But as Monroville alluded to at the bottom of his post, General Veers looks to his left when speaking down at the 'hologram'....and I've always looked on that 'hologram section' as definately being located somewhere 'offscreen' to the left of the AT-AT driver on the left of the frame....even in these 2 shots below from early in the battle -

(note the differing 'shadow' on the left of the windsceen, by the way.  Is that supposed to be an 'outer' section of the AT-AT head?  It should be solid in both shots, if so)

I'll use the 'targeting section' that Veers pulls down in front of his face as a reference, and assume it's located directly 'face on' behind the middle of the 2 drivers (as glimpsed at the top of the shot below)....

....but judging from the camera angle of the interior set in the shot below, we can see that Veers does seem to be looking over to the far left of the interior when he's initially leaning forward to speak downwards at Vader's tiny 'hologram'....and it's at this point I reckon that he's behind the AT-AT driver on the left hand side in front of him....

....he then moves backwards a little into a more central position

....and pulls down the 'targeting section'....

....and can see from the camera angle that the shot is filmed from the left of the interior....where Veers was initially looking towards....

Anyway, I personally hope that adywan doesn't alter the existing tiny Vader 'hologram' too dramatically from it's present look.

One of the things I really like about the various 'holograms' throughout the saga, are their varying sizes....with this one being the smallest one....with the details/lights around it seen in 'extreme close-up' in the 'corner' of the AT-AT cockpit somewhere, and that's why Veers has to lean forward to see it properly.

And anyway, isn't this something that adywan said he'd maybe end up having to actually re-film using his own Darth Vader suit?!!  While I'd be more than happy to see the 'Dave Prowse' pose touched up a little if possible, it would certainly be a neat 'cameo' for adywan if he can match the angle and pose of the original 'hologram' here....

I'm not too sure where the right-hand AT-AT driver seems to have disappeared to in this shot though, but I guess he's just 'offscreen' at this point....

....unless he's nipped out to the same unknown place that the snowtrooper on the far right of the shot below is heading!  I thought the only way out from the cockpit would be through the round 'neck' doorway immediately behind Veers....

Guess I'll just imagine he's just gone 'offscreen' slightly and is about to 'press a button' there to open the 'round' doorway though!  :)

Lucky you, getting a preview of the 'workprint' doubleofive!

Very nice little write-up about it there.

Sorry, double post.  I'll try to make up for that with some additional points very soon.

Moth3r said:

No-one is totally innocent. Even Ady uses this thread to describe the renovation of his kitchen - which I can let slide

I'd have to contend that was very relevant, as it definately related to the progress of his edit at the time.  He'd no electricity for a while!  ;)

adywan is innocent!

Monroville said:

Well, ALIEN 3 and 4 don't exist in this dojo, so when ALIENS ends, that's it for me.

That's certainly how I feel about those too, Monroville...but I have a plan which would make it easier to tolerate those 2 sequels a little better eventually...  More on that at a future date.

Hopefully the next instalment(s) can redeem the franchise's good name, now that Ridley's back on board.  I'm a little dubious about his intended 'the Space Jockey is part-space suit' idea though, and just hope it's not his latest female lead that ends up inside it...!  If the mystery of that original scene is now to be explained away, then I'd like to think that we at least get someone from a tall, enigmatic alien race inside it...  Then again, I'm not entirely sure that this is something that should even be revealed, but I'm keen to see how he makes it all pan out. 

I'm also hoping that Ridley can capture some of the inventively atmospheric production design that his original had, at least.  While I'm glad to hear that H. R. GIGER will be onboard again, RON COBB's great contributions made a great impact on the production overall.  This excellent 'TUG' artwork below was the first image I ever came across to do with the movie at the time (but sadly, *isn't* amongst the extensive 'Quadrilogy' artwork extras, unfortunately) -

...and I was very interested to see the various other designs he'd come up with for the project too, such as this -

I recently came across this link which features some of his other neat ALIEN stuff, amongst other things - http://johneaves.wordpress.com/category/ron-cobb/

I also came across these 3 interesting articles which reveal just how BRIAN JOHNSON (the model maker) ended up deciding the final shape that the 'Nostromo' Tug should be -

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/324661/alien_the_history_of_the_nostromo_by_ron_cobb.html

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/286810/chris_foss_on_the_nostromo.html

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/287134/top_75_spaceships_in_movies_and_tv_part_5.html#nostromo  (note: this article also happens to have some excellent links in it, such as the web-documentary 'Alien Makers')

In fact, it turns out that the Den OF Geek site has an extensive collection of neat movie-related articles in general in it's 'archive' section.

As TV's Frink notes, if you're interested in getting hold of the other excellent ALIEN APPENDIX releases, they are available at FE.org too.  Unlike Appendix #2 (Alien Redux:the virtual workprint) they are 'preservation' compilations filled with various goodies.  Just check out the 'artists index' section on the 'preserve.co.cc' page.

The latest ALIEN APPENDIX (#7) has recently been completed and I don't think its on there yet, but all the details about it can be seen here -  http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Alien-Appendix-7-The-ALIEN-SAGA-Archive/topic/11437/

Jonno said:

The Quadrilogy DVD was branched (for economy of disc space) so the two versions had to be matched in terms of colour manipulation... this might not necessarily be so with the Blu-ray.

Perhaps Jonno...but I'll be surprised if we see the original ALIEN colour again, now that Ridley has chosen to alter it in the first place.  Although some may like it, his new color-timing is too dramatic a change from the movie's original colour-palette for my taste.  While the 'Quadrilogy's improved print was great to see, the unnatural-looking colouration throughout ruined it for me.  Some aspects were darkened, while others had a 'washed-out' insipid look to them, and just didn't look as good on the eyes overall I thought.  Give me the vibrantly red blood and natural colours of the sets etc. from the original DVD, any day.

Just as a reminder of how things look now, here are a few comparison examples.  The original DVD's colour is shown at the top, while the 'Quadrilogy's revisionist colour is underneath -

As far as the forthcoming Bluray anthology goes, I just hope they don't DNR the hell out of ALIENS like they've ended up doing to the latest PREDATOR release!  But it's good to see that the 'Burke's cocoon' scene is included in the extras, and that they've gone to the effort of fixing the moments of poor audio on the extended ALIEN 3 cut.  And interesting to see that Fincher's comments are uncensored this time round too.  I'd just like to see ALIEN's original colour back, though.

And even though the mystery of the 'Space Jockey' is going to be diluted in future, at least we've got Ridley back for the Prequel(s).  Let's hope he's still got it in him!

These 'Alien Appendix' compilations have been really great.  Nice to see yet another one completed. :)

As far as the forthcoming Blu-ray compilation goes, it's looking like an even better package than the excellent 'Quadrilogy' compilation was, where extras are concerned!  However, as a fan of the 'Theatrical' cut of ALIEN, rather than the 'Director's Cut', I'm really hacked off that it's likely to be presented in the same 'stylised' re-colouration that was done for the 'Director's Cut'!

The original 'Theatrical' version had a vibrant, natural colouration that was already perfect where the look of Ridley's classic visuals are concerned.  Personally, I really dislike the murky, overly-dark 'grading' that Ridley did for his 'Director's Cut', when he messed about with things at that point.  But annoyingly, the original 'Theatrical' version ended up with the same overly-dark 'grading'-revision on the 'Quadrilogy' set too, totally changing how it had previously looked!

Unfortunately, I have no doubt this re-colouration is going to be the DE FACTO 'look' for the forthcoming Blu-ray release too...  Furthermore, Ridley also ended up doing the same thing to his BLADE RUNNER: FINAL CUT too...giving it a more 'stylised', overly-dark colour compared to it's original 'Theatrical' look.  This also turned out for the worse, as far as I'm concerned, since the original 'Theatrical' version had a perfect-looking, vibrant, naturalistic colouration to it, compared to the latest version's altered hues. 

I think the 're-mastered', darkened, 'stylised' colour given to these two movies have really spoiled the look of them now, when compared with how their originals looked.  This seems to be an unfortunate 'trend' in 're-mastering', as I recall a certain popular franchise also ended up with some dubious colour-meddling for the worse...  It's also happening with various other titles too, unfortunately...

Hope things will improve generally for you from hereonin InvisibleWolfMan.

This 'Gremlins' project is one that I'm most looking forward to seeing eventually, no matter how long it takes.  Good luck with everything.

vaderios said:

Im curious why Impfighter missed to mention the incocistences in the backgrounds while the speeders are flying and how some backdrops are repeateted after a while causing a mess..

Er, because they've never really stood out enough to me vaderios, lol.  But as adywan has answered you, there's just too many 'background' continuity differences to attempt to tie everything together perfectly anyway, I'd imagine.  Still, nice to see that there's the odd additional 'cloud' enhancement thrown in too, to improve things.

adywan, some interesting pointers there in your latest answers, and I hope you'll take things really easy for the foreseeable future as you've been advised.

Tremendous colouring on the Snowspeeder shots in your recent 'Luke's Escape' clip adywan, and it reminded me of something I've been meaning to bring up about that.

It's a very subtle thing, but maybe you can have a look at this to see what you think -  I recall that you might be adding moving 'braking flaps' to certain shots.  Well, I wonder if there could be one added briefly opening and closing on the left-hand side of the second one that enters the frame, which then veers off to it's left?

It's just that I always think that the movement of this particular Snowspeeder could lend itself to this particular small addition, and would add a little subtle extra to the shot.  See what you think anyway -

As the second Snowspeeder veers over to it's left, we can see that the third one already has it's right-hand 'brake flap' up when it enters the frame.  So this might make for a nice addition here, if you think it suits the second Snowspeeder's movement -

adywan said:

That shot has already been fixed

Ah, nice to know.  Thanks for confirming.

adywan, this behind-the-scenes miniature shot from 'Building Empire' made me wonder if a hint of the 'casing' debris will be added to the crater's rim in the big 'floating' shot below?  I know you've removed the SE 'flames', but I've always thought that we should still see a bit of the blackened debris sticking up in the 'floating' shot, to tie-in better with the 'emerging' shot before it -

And here are a couple of shots of the Probe Droid from the DVD menus too, as I thought it was nicely done -

yoda1138 - nice work on that BLUEISH laser version too, by the way.  :)

Lord Grievous said:

Maybe they too are some sort of plasma/ion projectile, which would explain the rainbow colours since it would change as the projectile heats up.

Though I personally wouldn't mind if they were made into regular red laserbolts :)

Perhaps, but I wouldn't mind seeing them made to look like a kind of mini ION-Cannon, discharging the same kind of 'electrical' effect that adywan made with the main ION Cannon.

If adywan made these lasers a REDDISH colour as you suggest, then I guess that the 'electrical' effect would help to differentuate them from all the other similarly-coloured lasers in the battle.  But I'd still rather a totally different colour for them I'd have to say.  I'll be interested to know what adywan intends to do here, if he's willing to reveal his decision at the moment.

ImperialFighter said:

It seems that you are now doing BLUEISH 'electrical' lasers for the ION Cannon adywan, which is great news as far as I'm concerned.  But how about changing the over-'painterly' looking multi-coloured lasers seen on the round Rebel gun emplacements too? -

Here's a reminder of how the current 'multi'-coloured lasers look -

....and here's a different 'multi'-coloured shot where we see a round gun emplacement with an ORANGEY 'power-up' initially (note: the previous example seemed to have a GREENISH 'power-up') - 

Instead of the unconvincing-looking 'rainbow'-coloured lasers seen here, would you consider making them the same overall colour as the initial 'power-ups'?  Either totally GREENISH or totally ORANGEY (or both, such as in both examples above)....or even totally YELLOWISH or BLUEISH, I guess.

As long as they were a contrasting colour to the samey PINKISH colour of all the other lasers in the battle, they'd still look visually interesting.

Some nice work there yoda1138, and I really liked seeing the GREENISH laser firing from the round Rebel gun emplacement in your clip.

I remember that adywan didn't give an answer to this one when it was brought up ages ago, but I'm still curious to know if he's wanting to keep the 'rainbow'-coloured lasers shown here, or not.  I was never keen on them myself, as I didn't think they looked as convincing as the other lasers throughout the movie.  I always think the example shown at the top looks especially false.

Whether totally GREENISH or ORANGEY (or some other colour), I'd just prefer to see a less 'multi'-coloured laser overall.  As long as they were a different colour to the PINKISH ones of the AT-AT/Snowpeeder lasers, then they'll still make for an interesting contrast.

Also, I always felt that there should have been a noticeable 'scorch mark' shown on the AT-AT leg after it was hit by the 'multi'-coloured laser.

Asteroid-Man said:

That's not the original. Someone else downloaded Boivin's and re-uploaded it. Support the artist who made it and link to HIS upload.

I did initially A-M.  And checked the link a couple of times.  Unfortunately it kept coming up as unavailable, so I went with a different link.

And that gif on the previous page was awesome Ripplin!  :)

Ah, welcome back!

Asteroid-Man said:

Ady, I think this will come in very handy as reference to animating models.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94KO4UHOyk4

Ah, sorry to add to the youtube madness, but I couldn't let this pass without showing it's full glory for anyone that missed this.  Gotta love the Jabba moment -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7a0ME-_wo

Not a bad idea there Jeyl, although I'm used to seeing that particular 'close-up' of the AT-AT firing before we cut to General Veers.  Like others, I'll miss the brief AT-ST shots, but am sure that adywan's other tweaks during the battle will more than make up for it.

Sure, that makes sense.

Looks like you'll have your work cut out for you on that one judging by the sheer amount of little trims he's done along the way.

By the way, I kinda miss Frink's knowledgable demenour around here these days.  Hope you'll bring back the little yellow guy sometime!

adywan said:

Nerfherder said:

When the walker first collapses and the head hits the snow hard (perhaps an extra sound effect to reinforce the damage thats been done?) can you not instead show some energy 'sparks' around the entire head area (similar to force lightning) and this energy rapidly spreads to the main body which goes up with the aid of the snowspeeders firing upon it?

You're sort of close to what i have done to that shot , but i won't be saying what i have done until the film is released

Sounds good.  I'm glad the exploding 'AT-AT' shot is being kept, despite what is mentioned about their armour being too strong for blasters.  It's a terrific visual.

Thought I'd chip in with how I usually choose to 'imagine' the flow of those particular shots whenever I watch the movie:

Even though the AT-AT has been felled, the approaching Snowspeeders just take a quick potshot at it anyway...and merely happen to have a lucky strike!  They just happened to hit a 'weakspot', it's neck area, without necessarily knowing that it was a 'weakspot'...  It wasn't necessarily a deliberate action that they knew would do so much damage...

Also, when that particular approaching AT-AT was initially 'felled'...the group of Rebels which were in it's path, now possibly see a quick chance to either reach a working 'gun emplacement in front of them, but which is 'offscreen' to us, to mount an attack on the other AT-ATs...or run forwards to rescue a casualty or two, also 'offscreen' to us...

I also choose to imagine that the Snowspeeders that rapidly pass by those 'running Rebels' probably end up a good distance ahead of them by the time we cut to the next shot of the AT-AT being blown up...so that the explosion doesn't actually affect those groundtroops.  And even if anyone feels that the footage does make it look like that AT-AT would have exploded too closely to them...then I guess the Snowspeeder pilots can possibly just be too caught up in the 'fog of war' at that point, and don't realise that those groundtroops are potentially going to be injured in any subsequent explosion they cause...

Something I am looking forward to seeing in those 'felled' AT-AT shots though, will be a hint of the 'entangling towcable' around the legs, if adywan can add that.

Excellent resource you've come up with here TV's Frink!  :)

Just thought I'd give you a heads-up about a new 'REVENGE OF THE SITH' edit that I've come across that seems very interesting.

It's by a guy called STANKPAC, and is currently still in the 'UNAPPROVED' section at the bottom of the 'Fanedit.Info' page over at FE.org

Going by the initial comments there, it seems it's a good 'un. 

Sure, although I like the idea of an all-black force, with perhaps a differently shaped 'Emperor'/leader version, I'd certainly be happy to just see the silver versions re-instated.

I guess those who decided on the new look let their judgement get a little skewed for the sake of change (and further merchandising possibilities).  But it's the 'hunched-back' aspect of these new primary-coloured dodgems for the sake of the operators inside that really jars for me.  Totally ruins the overall look of the things.

Whatever happened to suffering for the art anyway?  In the old days, it was a badge of honour to be inside one of them, regardless of the discomfort!