Mithrandir

ATMachine said:

And by the same argument, what’s stopping the people who can make such sophisticated masks from using them to promote the agenda of Nazi organizations? The same decency and good taste which arguably should’ve prevented such CGI zombification in the first place.

Arguably, using the likeness of a dead actor makes a movie much less real than simply using another living human being.

Within your argument: My argument is that ILM did not recreate Cushing’s persona, but Tarkin’s persona, which is fictional and happens to have Peter Cushing’s likeness.
I think it would be very bad, dishonest, and ultimately pointless to have someone dead say something he didn’t say when alive and even more if it counterdicts his own known beliefs.

But a character is a fictional persona. In this case, these are characters that are really attached to certain physical features, and the lack of those features would probably diminish the enjoyment of the spectacle.

If it makes it more real, or more unreal, well that’s another debate, and I might be with you on that one. RO’s Tarkin sometimes got me out of the movie, precisely because top-notch technology only proved that there are things in human behaviour that go far beyond the perfect likeness, and in every slight difference with Peter Cushing’s acting and physical language fake Tarkin rang a bell to me; but that’s not based on an ethical judgement of the VFX procedure.

Outside you argument: Decency and good taste are not to be regulated in a non authoritarian society. Only law should, and if there is (as it was) an agreement between parts representing the interested parts, who are we to judge?

ATMachine said:

Mithrandir said:

ATMachine said:

oojason said:

http://www.starwars.com/news/a-statement-regarding-new-rumors

"We don’t normally respond to fan or press speculation, but there is a rumor circulating that we would like to address. We want to assure our fans that Lucasfilm has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher’s performance as Princess or General Leia Organa.

Carrie Fisher was, is, and always will be a part of the Lucasfilm family. She was our princess, our general, and more importantly, our friend. We are still hurting from her loss. We cherish her memory and legacy as Princess Leia, and will always strive to honor everything she gave to Star Wars."

The fact that Disney had to issue such a press release at all is testimony to the public unease on this issue in the wake of Rogue One. If LFL’s digital wizardry has no qualms about zombifying an actor who’s been dead for 20 years, why should they show any (the thinking goes) about resurrecting a mainstay of the SW franchise who died unexpectedly young?

It’s just as unethical as acting impersonating someone who’s been dead for 20 years. Should we regard all the Frankensteins that borrowed from Boris Karloff the acting mannerisms and similar-inspired prosthetics as unethical?

No.

It’s one thing for an actor to take inspiration from another actor’s portrayal of a role. It’s another thing for CGI effects houses to use computers to recreate in minute detail the visage of a human being who is no longer with us.

One is a performance, the other a mask. Without Guy Henry having Tarkin in RO wouldn’t have been possible.

Gary Oldman recreating Churchill’s likeness by prosthetics isn’t just a performance, it is a mask.

If the recreated character existed in real life then it seems to be legitimate. If the character is fictional (which would mean his likeness is that of the actor who played it), within a well established continuity of screenplays that without a doubt constitute an organic unity, then magically it is not legitimate.

Peter Cushing is the only face of Tarkin we know. ROTS portrayed Tarkin with the very likeness of Cushing. TCW and Rebels styllistically recreated Cushing’s facial structure. It is only logical that in a movie set 2 days before SW77 Tarkin has to look as close as Cushing as possible. The state-of-the-art of that possibility is what we had.

Theatre is supposed to be as real as possible. That statement is the sole justification of prosthetics, voice impersonations, scenography, imitation performances, even method acting.

It is strange that no one scandalizes about ancient Rome’s recreation in Gladiator because that city no longer exists. You may argue that Cushing or Fisher are far different than things but within these movie Cushing or Fisher just are not there. It’s only their physical likeness what are there, and yes, their looks and mannerisms indeed are things, resources of the screenplay to accomplish the goal of preserving the illusion. That is even the actual justification for the likeness being a transable asset.

It’s just a guy wearing a sophisticated mask of Tarkin/Leia, no one is making a fake Peter Cushing affiliate to the Nazi Party or do something he wouldn’t have done in real, personal life.

ATMachine said:

oojason said:

http://www.starwars.com/news/a-statement-regarding-new-rumors

"We don’t normally respond to fan or press speculation, but there is a rumor circulating that we would like to address. We want to assure our fans that Lucasfilm has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher’s performance as Princess or General Leia Organa.

Carrie Fisher was, is, and always will be a part of the Lucasfilm family. She was our princess, our general, and more importantly, our friend. We are still hurting from her loss. We cherish her memory and legacy as Princess Leia, and will always strive to honor everything she gave to Star Wars."

The fact that Disney had to issue such a press release at all is testimony to the public unease on this issue in the wake of Rogue One. If LFL’s digital wizardry has no qualms about zombifying an actor who’s been dead for 20 years, why should they show any (the thinking goes) about resurrecting a mainstay of the SW franchise who died unexpectedly young?

It’s just as unethical as acting impersonating someone who’s been dead for 20 years. Should we regard all the Frankensteins that borrowed from Boris Karloff the acting mannerisms and similar-inspired prosthetics as unethical? The prosthetic job in ROTS with Tarkin recreating Cushing cheekbones as unethical?

In any case, who draws the line of ethical behaviour, and how is it done? CGI-make up is “zombifying” but having a daughter who is a capable actress on her own right be dressed as her recently passed mother because she is the most viable option to get some likeness would be somehow more respectful to the relatives?

I don’t understand a thing about law and rights (I don’t undertand in my country, figure out what I could know about law and rights in foreign ones), but I remember hearing that Disney already held the likeness of Carrie Fisher, Mark, and Harrison from back then, so how can it be that they are holding that conversation again?

If they held the likeness when she was alive, with her decease that “property” goes back to her family?

I honestly think this might be a disguised landscape evaluation from Disney.

Edit

TV’s Frink said:

Ah, so “Why Doesn’t the Resistance have Tie Fighters in The Fore Awakens” is meant to actually ask “Why is The Fore Awakens a shitty crap rehash of Store Wars”

Interesting theory.

Ad absurdum. Move along, move along.

Tyrphanax said:

Who cares if they did though? The movie was still good and the character is still interesting.

For you, sure, as someone said to me.

I find the movie just entertaining, but with a distinct no-risk-marketing-product flavour that makes it unwatchable next to the OT. The character, I didn’t find him particularly interesting in TFA. VIII can correct this, or can make it worse depending on how repetitive they will be of the scheme that rules the original trilogy.

TV’s Frink said:

And to embellish, because he idolizes Vader.

Not sure why that question is in this thread though.

It might make a point. We are to accept that Kylo is not a cheap recycling of elements of Anakin/Vader because he indeed does copy Vader but he does so in-universe, which is something no other character has done before.

So to have a character be a fan of other character would basically be a legitimate reason for it being a recycled element/rehash/heavily inspired element/whatever word you might call it, while it makes a somewhat logic argument for defending it if you liked the movie, because there is a diegetical statement that establishes this.

Forced as it might be, from an diegetical point of view there can’t be further development of the discussion. However, I honestly wonder if you really think that this was done inocently, or if it probably is the deliberate product of a reunion/meeting what went more or less like this:

-we need a vader like character to play the cool villain role you know, cool helmet, cool voice modulator, who doesn’t speak much and is a little unpredictable
-yeah, can’t we make Vader come back from death?
-nope, they’re gonna complain
-what if he torments the protagonist from beyond the grave?
-nope, he died being a good guy. Vader’s story is closed. We need another guy.
-what if he is a Vader impersonator because the Empire didn’t want his death to be known of?
-nope, that would be cheap
-what if it’s a guy that idolises him…and this way you would have a vader-like character yet with a good explanation?

Because if you agree that probably it indeed went that way then deep in your thoughts you know it is intended to be a repetion of elements shielded by a convincing argument, but a repetition nonetheless. And we are only having a semantic argument about what qualifies as rehash/recycling and what does not, because we would agree that the intention was for it to be as conservative and as market-safe as it could posibly be. Which does as well answer to the main question of this topic, why doesn’t the Resistance have Tie Fighters.

They took too literally the “take Star Wars back to its basics” claim on the internet.

Why does Kylo wear a helmet if he doesn’t need one and it is never established before in the saga that bad guys must be helmeted?

Lord Haseo said:

Rian Johnson has recent opened up a little about Luke and Rey in VIII:

“I don’t want to skip ahead two years,” Johnson says. “I want to see the very next moment of what happens.” How Rey and Luke relate to each other is the key relationship in Episode VIII, and Johnson says “a large part of the movie” will be spent addressing why Luke’s there and what he’ll do next. Like Luke, Rey has been pulled into a bigger world by connecting with the Force, “but part of what’s she’s dealing with is the realization that she has this power and this gift,” Johnson adds. “She’s taking her first step to coming to terms with this thing inside her that she never knew was there and is just starting to reveal its potential.” - Rian Johnson

I think it’s going to be very interesting seeing one of our deal with the weirdness and suddenness of having such powers. Luke and Anakin are just okay with being Force Sensitive whereas Rey being confused about The Force could make for a nice inner journey for Rey. Also I wonder what her opinion on things in the Galaxy will be once she fully comes to terms with her Force Sensitivity and get’s some training. Kylo feels as though Force Sensitives should rule over those who are deaf to The Force; perhaps Rey will come to the same conclusion.

I don’t think she will go that route if they are planning another trilogy after this one. At some point Rey has to have a child (seeing the direction Disney headad, probably she will somehow have an orphan child, as anakin, luke, an herself were). And probably she will make a couple with one of the three male characters of this trilogy. Provided one of them, the force user is probably her cousin, then nope, I don’t think there will be an anti-muggle Rey.

potential spoilers

Looks like Kilo is getting his own Tie-Advanced Fighter, and a cape inspired in Vader’s… I guess they’ll give him a Super Star First-Order-which-renders-this-totally-different Destroyer as well.

Even forgiving TFA for its recycled elements due to a clear insecurity on market potential, having this strategy still going in VIII feels like pure lazyness to me. I hope to be wrong.

And we’re still arguing on the visual lazyness of keeping the same designs with (symplifying) different colour schemes, while the justification for that, which is the deliberately conservative decission they took on the plot to make the FO have the upper hand in apparent funding and tech (the question that gives name to this thread) remains and will certainly remain unanswered because they simply applied a no-innovation policy.

imperialscum said:

I would disagree that Tarkin shows any anger in ANH. Unlike Vader, who is pretty much calm throughout OT, Tarkin does raise his vice here and there. However, I would not call it anger. He seems to be on top of things all the time. He does seem to be annoyed sometimes though, e.g. “she lied to us!”.

Yes, I agree, it’s more annoyment than anger; however, I find a big difference between the range of emotions his human self expresses in ANH and what they have him be in RO.

What I was trying to emphasize is that this being a problem that has to do with the way the lines sound/are delivered as well, it can’t be charged on the CGI but on the very way the character is written, or acted, or directed.

EDIT: There is only one moment I remember from RO when he does something more natural, which is a gesture with his face while saying “rebellion” (if I remember right), a sort of “that will do” assertion.

ray_afraid said:

I bought it! Not as Peter Cushing, but as the character of Tarkin.

I actually had the opposite impression; i think CGI was a very good technique applied to a somewhat rigidly written character that is not the Tarkin I remember from Star Wars but a cartoon full of prejudice, that carries himself around playing the cool and sophisticated “typical” british that never gets angry or shows emotion under any circumstance.

It felt like admiral Tarkin from the clone wars cartoon.

In SW 77:

Where is the rebel base? - Sounds and acts physically intimidating
Vader, release him! - Sounds and acts angry, commanding yet slightly frightened
Evacuate? Now, In a our moment of triumph? - Sounds and acts anxious, a little shouting and with a higher pitch
The Imperial Senate will no longer… - Sounds and acts bored and anxious, knowing that conversation wouldn’t get anywhere given the news he is carrying.

In RO, we got a guy with Cushing’s face that doesn’t cast much emotions other than staring at people with a cold gesture. In fact:

Speaks about the Death Star aboard the Star Destroyer - Stays cool staring at the void and speaks with a non-inflectioned voice
I owe you an apology director - Stays cool staring at the void, then turns around and evil face.

Is informed of the plans of the Death Star being in danger in Scarif - Stays cool staring at the void and utters some command as if everything were under control (the same high stakes that got Vader to a level of brutality that we haven’t ever seen)-

TV’s Frink said:

I love all the complaints about TFA that are followed up by “I don’t remember the movie very well.”

Then you might be in love with the fact that it isn’t quite a memorable movie! As far as I remember, they went down there to blow up the random generic part that always has to be blown. But I’m surely wrong!

dahmage said:

Mithrandir said:

NeverarGreat said:
had the effect of freezing innovations on the Starkiller project, which kept the planetary shield tested with the Second Death Star but didn’t boast any other defenses of note.

As the Empire lost more and more ground, their ability to complete the project was impaired, so it took 30 more years and a change of management to finally finish Starkiller Base.

But then how is it that a planet-size shield wasn’t made into a big feature 40 years before TFA in Eadu, but then the suspiciously well funded First Order (whatever a first order is or means) fails to put one around its most cherished weapon?

They did have a shield did they not? That is why the Millennium Falcon jumped out of hyperspace literally in the atmosphere.

I don’t remember the movie much, but after that, didn’t the xwings come into the atmosphere as if there was nothing?

NeverarGreat said:
had the effect of freezing innovations on the Starkiller project, which kept the planetary shield tested with the Second Death Star but didn’t boast any other defenses of note.

As the Empire lost more and more ground, their ability to complete the project was impaired, so it took 30 more years and a change of management to finally finish Starkiller Base.

But then how is it that a planet-size shield wasn’t made into a big feature 40 years before TFA in Eadu, but then the suspiciously well funded First Order (whatever a first order is or means) fails to put one around its most cherished weapon?

ferris209 said:

I think they could beautifully write in Leia’s death to serve as a tribute to Carrie Fisher and an emotional sendoff for the fans for both the character of Leia and Carrie Fisher.

Don’t know how much Star Wars could benefit of playing with the fourth wall that way. Kilo being a Darth Vader fan that is shown in his intimacy speaking to a mask almost tore it down.

I hope they let Leia be Leia, and give the character a logical conclussion to its arc, whatever they decided it to be; and let us grieve Carrie in the real world where she belongs.

Bingowings said:

I would remove all instances of Yavin V being named so should you watch ANH next you might think Leia cracked and gave the name of the base away when she gives Tarkin Dantooine as a vain attempt to spare Alderaan.

This is an excellent idea, and it can be pulled off with little effort

DominicCobb said:

I suppose if what you’re looking for in film is just the “what,” and the overarching plot, that’s fine. But to me that’s only a fraction of what’s there. You’re overlooking so much of importance when you say it’s only details. Think that way if you please, but I frankly feel that outlook is monumentally misguided.

It’s not the “what”. Given that the “what” is so similar from a role point of view, the “how” should have been by force more different than what it was in the end.

Why not have Kylo shoot Han down in a dogfight while speaking to him on the radio,
Or have him executed by a platoon, or… they had plenty of ground to be creative. Far more than there was with the PT, which had its outline already written.

But no, it had to have that samurai-esque thing of making speeches, standing tense, etc.
If you find the word rehash a little too strong, then take repetitive. Because that is what it is to have already three stories about orphans who go out for adventure and find a destiny bigger than life while destroying a superweapon and face the evil that kills their adopting fathers.

One of the things I like most of RO is how quotidian and disengaged (some would say anticlimatic) it feels at times.

*we’ll find him, and bring him back!..and then he will tell them himself"

Check how that line was delivered. It’s something we have never seen in Star Wars so far.

Your son is gone and speaking of one’s former self in third person while trying to affirmate a totally made up identity, we’ve already seen that.

This bullet is an old one.
In 1897, it was fired at the president of Uruguay by a young man from Montevideo, Arredondo, who had spent long weeks without seeing anyone so that the world might know that he acted alone. Thirty years earlier, Lincoln had been murdered by that same ball, by the criminal or magical hand of an actor transformed by the words of Shakespeare into Marcus Brutus, Caesar’s murderer. In the mid-seventeenth century, vengeance had employed it for the assassination of Sweden’s Gustavus Adolphus in the midst of the public hecatomb of battle.
In earlier times, the bullet had been other things, because Pythagorean metempsychosis is not reserved for humankind alone. It was the silken cord given to viziers in the East, the rifles and bayonets that cut down the defenders of the Alamo, the triangular blade that slit a queen’s throat, the wood of the Cross and the dark nails that pierced the flesh of the Redeemer, the poison kept by the Carthaginian chief in an iron ring on his finger, the serene goblet that Socarates drank down one evening.
In the dawn of time it was the stone that Cain hurled at Abel, and in the future it shall be many things that we cannot even imagine today, but that will be able to put an end to men and their wondrous, fragile life.
*J L Borges (1899-1986) In Memoriam J.F.K. *

Just found this eloquent.

Provided that what happens in both scenes is essentially the same plot device, and very similar in its features, all you can have to be different, in order not to upset most of people is location, illumination, characters… perhaps even motivations. Summing up details. Both scenes are different in only in details, at least to me.

What feels somewhat wrong is that having those characters and their motivations be different (these are details, because the main thing is that the character’s roles are exactly the same), the dialogue remains way too similar, and the thing that changes, which is the location, does so in an diametrically opposite way to what I would have expected. A patricide, if anything, is too much of an intimate crime, more akin to a small-scale set than to a monumental location (which would have fit better ObiWan vs Vader, had I to choose).

That’s where it began, before I just deviated from topic.

EDIT: The interrogation scene didn’t bother me much. While obviously these are personal impressions, had I to give one not-so-subjective justification, I’d say that Rey’s role in TFA is SW’s Luke, not Leia.

I disagree both particularly and generally with that statement.

Haarspalter said:

Mithrandir said:

Kellythatsit said:
To simply highlight one as a rehash or some kind of fan service seems wilfully dismissive.

I find the whole “anakin skywalker is dead” to be ridiculous. It is and has always been supposed to be a metaphora. Vader says I am your father. He has always recognized himself as Anakin Skywalker.

Hmmm … Return of the Jedi?

Luke: I have accepted that you were once a Jedi named Anakin Skywalker, my father.
Darth Vader: That name no longer has any meaning for me!

He calls Luke son countless times in ROTJ, too. He never denies being the same persona as Anakin Skywalker. He calls ObiWan, ObiWan, his son, son, his wife by his name; even the emperor refers to him as “my old friend”.

Anakin being dead is just a symbolic statement, not only in the movie, but within the character as well.

Basing the difference between the long anticipated duel between two known-to-each-other people in which the quiet helmeted bad guy kills the peaceful mentor who is willing to give his life after calling him by his name and stating to have been looking forward to that moment in details enables me to say that Elementary is not a rehash of BBC’s Sherlock, that Netflix’s House of Cards is a totally different and novel-approached series than old british HoC; even that essentially The Hunchback of Notre Dame would be a totally different movie than the hypothetical Hunchback of New York as much as Disney’s Lion King is nothing at all like Hamlet

Kellythatsit said:
To simply highlight one as a rehash or some kind of fan service seems wilfully dismissive.

Well, it absolutely is wilfully dismissive towards the movie. I don’t have anything at all with people who rightfully enjoy it though.

Take TPM, compare it to SW and you can see two totally different approaches of a mentor’s death. Old sworn-to-death enemies meet again for a last time, with one sacrificing himself and helmeted one not repenting at all vs random unrelated evil guys just beats the mentor due to better skills. Fact is, both mentors die, that’s what moves the plot forward from a certain point of view that thinks of joseph cambell as an ultimate guide and sole man on earth to have thought and synthetized myths

Yet, TFA’s confrontation…it is and feels like a rehash to me. I just don’t buy characters actually believing their own self-explanatory lies.

I find the whole “anakin skywalker is dead” to be ridiculous. It is and has always been supposed to be a metaphora. Vader says I am your father. He has always recognized himself as Anakin Skywalker. From there on, it’s easy to guess how that whole thing about Han “not being his father anymore” just sounds to me. He hates him/looks for him/wants/needs to kill him /because he is his father/. The rest is just shit the characters say, but not stuff we are supposed to believe as viewers.

In SW77 there were lots of implications that the duel was important. Vader anounces it to Tarkin. Leia implies Obi Wan as a great warrior. Vader himself states we meet again at last. But it just happens anywhere, wherever they just happen to meet.

ESB, Vader set up a trap and prepared the place.

In TFA, however, they apparently meet randomly in that casually particular location…What I tried to say is that there was a strange sense of matter-of-factness in Star Wars 77 that just got lost after ESB’s reveal, only to be recovered perhaps by Rogue One at some point: great feats just can happen anywhere to almost anyone. That’s some kind of a nice spirit for a fairy tale movie. The rest is just the desperate need of cool epic epicness milenials want over everything just because they more and more seem unable to process information that isn’t underlined by context.

Kellythatsit said:
I think you mean “I’ve been waiting for you Obi-Wan, we meet again at last.”

Similar but different enough. I wouldn’t consider it fan service though, maybe an echo or a soft reference to the earlier duel.

If everything, a strange echo. Who would greet his father that way?

The whole kill the mentor thing was was quite a rehash of ANH’s moment, with the major flaw of a more dramatic scenario for a far less important moment (Jedi Anakin Skywalker, known as Darth Vader, responsible for the destruction of the Jedi Order and the implementation of a galaxy-wide tyranny meets his former friend and master Jedi General and hero of the Clone Wars Obi Wan Kenobi in a random fluorescent-lighted corridor in the Death Star vs. unknown Ben Solo kills his famous yet-muggle father based on an unexplained resentment due to the orders of an unexplained supreme leader in an expressionist bridge in the middle of an unexplained abysss which has a single stream of light that baths the character that is supposed to be good while the rest is in darkness. As much as a videogame scenario as mustafar, actually.

DominicCobb said:

Well sure, and I’d say good. Using visuals to tell the story is far more important in my mind than in-universe logic. I’ll admit that the Resistance should have armor in the next film, but if they don’t, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.

Yes, what you say is true. It’s just I find it hard to fully accept how much they decided to neglect everything that was implied by the ending of ROTJ; the Empire visually surviving is one thing, the Rebels visually not having won is another.