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NeverarGreat

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Join date
11-Sep-2012
Last activity
28-Mar-2024
Posts
7,643

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Post
#686886
Topic
Episode III: Revenge of the Ridiculousness
Time

Getting a lot better! I'd vote for less Airplane! material, and it would be neat if you could find a way to sort out where Shatner's crew is as opposed to the Airplane control tower crew. Since it's night in the Airplane sequence, I'd vote for having Shatner be in the destroyed tower (cut the line about only having a bridge) and having the Airplane flight controllers be somewhere else (no guy jumping out of the window). Both crews are funny on their own, but it's like they're both hanging out in the same place, which is so confusing that it kills the humor for me in places.

Post
#686862
Topic
Star Wars: Episode VII to be directed by J.J. Abrams **NON SPOILER THREAD**
Time

Bingowings said:

Harmy said:

I don't know, I never expected the prequels to be about anything else but it didn't need to be the sole focus - it may have been better as Obi-Wan's story, with the fall of Anakin as just a smaller part of that story.

It seems daft to me to make any of the OT characters the main focus for the PT.

Not only do we already know their fate (thus making the story redundant) it also adds nothing new of real value.

It would have made more sense to invent brand new characters have them the main focus and have the known story happen in the background with a few twists.

 But that's the thing. With 20/20 hindsight we can say that focusing on known characters was a mistake, but as Harmy says, it was expected that the story was going to be about Obi-wan and Anakin. That's the risk that you take when building backstory for characters that have been ingrained in the public consciousness for twenty years. You're not going to please everyone.

Post
#686854
Topic
something I always wondered about the PT
Time

@Bingowings: I don't think Luke's "I'm never coming back" line should be twisted to be ironic. He's simply never intending to return as he has no reason to. If later he has a reason, he will come back. The problem with returning to Tatooine for me is that it limits creative decisions for ROTJ.

@darth_ender: I could buy the idea that Tatooine had some sort of business which was encouraged by the Republic, which was then forgotten by the Empire and led to the nothing planet of the OT. But if we're comparing PT to OT, perhaps we should actually look at Tatooine as it appears in the original 77 film instead of the "sunny blue sky Tatooine" blu-ray. Tatooine originally was intended to be unpleasant in every way, and not just to Luke. I don't think there was any intent to have Tatooine be anything other than a frontier town until George got rose colored glasses for his revisions. It's just that the movie is rather inconsistent in terms of its universe, leading for example to an Imperial officer telling Tarkin that a ship "blasted its way out of Mos Eisley", as if Tarkin would be familiar with a little nothing village on Tatooine of all places. If the movie were more consistent, the officer would probably say that the ship blasted its way off Tatooine.

Post
#686834
Topic
Star Wars: Episode VII to be directed by J.J. Abrams **NON SPOILER THREAD**
Time

I'm saying that if JJ fails to make a good Star Wars movie, and the next guy fails as well, people may come to see the property as "cursed" or simply think that the balance that was struck in the OT is trickier to get right than is assumed. None of us (as far as I am aware of) has ever made a Star Wars movie, so it seems kind of presumptuous to say "I could make a better movie than that!" Maybe, but then again perhaps the prequels could never have been great despite what we imagine, and people may simply accept that after every new movie is a letdown.

Of course Episode 7 will probably be a worthy contender with the OT and in that case I will happily stand corrected.

Post
#686814
Topic
Star Wars: Episode VII to be directed by J.J. Abrams **NON SPOILER THREAD**
Time

The most interesting thing about these sequels for me will probably be years after they are released, and people are evaluating the George Lucas Star Wars versus the Lucas-less Star Wars. It will be interesting to see whether people look at the prequels with a more forgiving eye based on what JJ did to the franchise, or if they will wish JJ had done the prequels. In short, how easy will it be to capture the fun adventure spirit of Star Wars? I have no idea, and that's pretty exciting in any case.

Post
#686800
Topic
something I always wondered about the PT
Time

As is usually the case with these things, Tatooine was going downhill when Lucas decided to put Jabba's palace there, instead of on an interesting or exotic planet like a rich gangster would want. That always bugged me. Why not have our heroes go to some surreal underwater fortress that was actually dangerous and difficult to escape from, instead of a place that Luke and the droids simply walk into without any trouble?

As for the idea that Tatooine was turned into a dump when the Empire took control, it doesn't square with what we know. I could buy that there used to be more going on there twenty or thirty years ago, as evidenced by all of the derelict equipment just sitting there in the desert waiting to be picked up by Jawas, but none of those trashed droids were in service in the prequels, so it's anyone's guess how they wound up in the desert.

Post
#686730
Topic
kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released)
Time

It's looking much better, but the green is still getting blown out leading to a loss of highlight detail.

I really can't tell which of the three is better, I think there's much greater difference in skin tones between the Tauntan Luke and the convalescing Luke than there is between the comparison images below.

The infirmary is looking very natural in either case, excellent balance I'd say.

JEDIT: It looks very much like the deleted scene:

Post
#686718
Topic
kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released)
Time

Be careful with clipping your colors kk, the blue levels are fine but the red and green are both too high. Here's a comparison based on one of your previous screenshots:

The top one is your screen, the middle is the DVD, lower is my guesstimate based on some production stills culled from the web (shown on right). But other than keeping an eye on the histogram levels, I'd say aim for keeping the whites (such as snow and highlights) at a neutral white.

Post
#686492
Topic
Star Wars Episode I: Cloak Of Deception (Released)
Time

The music really adds life to the beginning of the race, good work!

I've always wanted to see that race with just a single circuit. It would have music in the beginning, but actually disappearing towards the end, because in the final stretch the podracers increase in speed and everything gets faster and more intense (reference intended ;)) It tends to bother me that in movies when someone is driving a car they will turn their head for five seconds at a time to look at another person instead of concentrating on the road. There should be none of this in the race (such as when Anakin has engine trouble) as they're supposed to be going hundreds of miles an hour. Also, it would seem like Anakin's pod would be more fragile than the others, so it's totally unbelievable when the two are hooked together at the end. It could perhaps be recut to look like Anakin skillfully clipped Sebulba's pod with his own, neatly severing a coupling and paying back the Dug's sabotage.

Just some thoughts, probably useless as this is already a done deal. Eh.

Post
#685912
Topic
Last movie seen
Time

Bingowings said:

For me Star Trek (2009) is practically identical to Star Trek into Darkness and not that different from Star Trek : Nemesis or Enterprise.

For me Prometheus is almost exactly the same film as Alien Vs Predator (2004).

And yet critically and in terms of popular opinion the reaction is wildly different.

My only conclusion is that trends are not set by quality but by some market led opinion swing. I highly expect the Star Wars sequels will be as bad as ROTS but as popular as Skyfall, just because the markets have decided Star Wars is to rise again.

Watch this space.

While Star Trek '09 has a similar conflict to Into Darkness (stop the evil baddie who has it out for the Federation) you are right that the reaction is very different because of expectation. This is very important. If The Empire Strikes Back told the same story as Star Wars, I believe that Star Wars would never have become a multi-generational phenomenon. Empire needed a darker tone that took risks with the material and actually advanced the story of the original instead of repeating it. Because of this Empire earned its place alongside Star Wars. Into Darkness is very similar to Star Trek, except that it doesn't introduce the crew, establish the universe, or explain the backstory of any important character, things which the original was required to do. So Into Darkness is a movie without a Prime Directive, coasting along on name recognition while systematically making nonsense of things which held the franchise together for almost fifty years.

Post
#685903
Topic
kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released)
Time

kk650 said:

NeverarGreat said:

kk650 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I'm aware that is how light works.

Ouch.

haha it wasn't my intention to be catty there, I remember reading somewhere that the cinematographer is usually the best paid job on a set, even above the director, because it requires the most qualifications, painting with light and all that. I'm just an amateur, my profesion has nothing to do with grading or cinematography or filmmaking at all so there's a hell of a lot I don't know about light, that comment was simply acknowledging that, so any sarcastic tone was completely unintentional.

I got yer meaning, I should have put a ;) after the ouch.

:)

I'm an amateur also and I really doubt that anyone who knew what they were getting into would actually mess with this film. That's probably why poita is commenting on everyone else's stuff instead of doing his own correction. Too wise for that and so forth.

I think the more someone knows this film the more they see wrong with it. I thought the control room scene was going to be easy until I started working on it, then I realized that almost every shot needed some form of correction past the blanket scene correction.

Tantive scene looking good btw!

Post
#685853
Topic
kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released)
Time

kk650 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I'm aware that is how light works.

Ouch.

In my experience white light sources are a far more reliable way to get the correct white balance of a film than clothes.

 That may be true for most films, but as we know, Star Wars is special. For example, take a look at this shot:

It has white lights that are entirely white (255 across the board), and the clothes are quite different than your later shot, which also has completely white lights. In many cases, I expect that the brightest values have been clipped, so it's anyone's guess what color things should be. If you're going for a global fix there's only so much you can do to fix things, and you're practically guaranteed to make some other things worse in the process. Good luck to you, but I would warn against examining the movie too much if you're not planning a shot-by-shot correction, or it will suck you in as it did me. ;)

Post
#685808
Topic
kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released)
Time

R2 rarely looks as blue in reality as he is in the blu-ray, so I'd say reducing it is better.

On a different note, the thing about the blu-ray that most stands out for me is how everything which is supposed to be white has been pulled down into a greenish or bluish murk. See Luke and Leia on the Death Star shot you posted. Leia's dress is supposed to be a cream color, and Luke's shirt has very little green in it, however in most of the blu-ray their clothes look green. On the R2 shot you posted, I always check the white background at the edge of the frame, but here again it's green. This shift makes C-3PO look too green as well.

My method for correcting this persistent green shift in the mid-highlights has been to isolate four or five levels of luminance throughout the movie (deep shadows, shadows, midtones, mid-highlights, highlights) and add blue and red to the mid-highlights, and then adjust the brightest highlights to keep them neutral in terms of color cast.

Post
#685681
Topic
Last movie seen
Time

Now that I think about it, the only one that really dragged was the lightsaber fight at the end. I was expecting Yoda to be sped up like 500%. Sad that it was pretty much just video game music on top of it. Not a lot that can be done with that stuff, probably. On the other hand, Padme's "I'm a senator" had me rolling every time.

Post
#685114
Topic
General Star Wars <strong>Random Thoughts</strong> Thread
Time

SilverWook said:

You mean like these?

http://www.df.lth.se/~ola/Starwars/StarWars/index.html

http://www.df.lth.se/~ola/Starwars/Empire/index.html

http://www.df.lth.se/~ola/Starwars/Return/index.html

Not sure why the pages aren't linked anymore.

 

I always wondered what that structure was used for - apparently it's an aerostatic control vane which controls airflow. It would be super cool if Adywan were to show all three of these in the wide shot, then slowly zoom in on the tiny figure of Luke.

Post
#685107
Topic
General Star Wars <strong>Random Thoughts</strong> Thread
Time

Mark Hamill just finished an AMA on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1vvul8/mark_hamill_here_in_an_ama_far_far_away/

Interesting stuff, especially this:

I'm not really somehow who goes back and re-watches old stuff I've done. I haven't seen any of the films since they were in the theater - originals or prequels. I thought the prequels are amazing by the way. If we were a garage band, they were a philharmonic.

Post
#685091
Topic
Who should the villain(s) of the sequel trilogy be? (if the sequel trilogy has villains)
Time

I'd like for the trilogy to have a villain who has a compelling story arc that allows me to believe that their villainy is justified from their point of view. If they need three movies to do this villain justice, so be it. If they can make a new and compelling threat for each movie, so much the better. But don't make a new villain for each movie just to have a new baddie to fight, or make them all Force users. Bring back a Tarkin-esque character, or an entirely nonhuman threat for a change, such as an impending supernova or the death of a planet due to an asteroid collision. Yay variety!

Post
#685081
Topic
Project Index: Star Wars Preservations <em>(last update 29th Oct '17)</em>
Time

This is a project index for every Star Wars preservation and restoration, yet I see nothing about Harmy's Despecialized edition or Team Negative1's restoration anywhere in Moth3r's or _,,,^..^,,,_'s posts. This is probably confusing to more people than myself, and it would be very helpful if a running list of projects was kept active in the first post of this thread.

If Moth3r isn't interested in constantly updating a list of this sort I would volunteer to start a thread with links to the currently active and completed projects on this forum in the first post of that thread, if it would be stickied. I think it's very important to direct people, especially new members, to such a thread so that they can see what's been done before, and what's available from this community. Plus it's good to have easy access to projects that may not be updated frequently, so that we don't have to go digging through many pages of past threads to find the project we're looking for.