Tobar

I really think Brian Daley hit the nail on the head when it comes to the torture droid and how the process works.

Especially when you factor in things like this cut line from Mark Hamill's screen test.

The Furious Gods: Making of Prometheus (2013)

This was ridiculously long and I can't believe I watched the whole thing. At the very least I now know the majority of the film's failings don't all fall upon the shoulders of Damon Lindelof. Despite the length of this documentary they don't get very deep into the conception of the film. From what I can gather the studio had been bugging Scott to return to the franchise but were struggling with coming up with an idea on how to go about it.

Eventually they start talks with a wet behind the ears screenwriter who comes up with this idea to focus on the Space Jockey from the first film.

The studio loves this idea and decides to let him roll with it and present it to Scott. Scott loves the idea and starts to roll with it from there. So the whole worn out ancient alien, Chariots of the Gods bullcrap came from there.

It was kind of sad really, he wanted to do something new and exciting and to him that idea was. Not knowing what a tired and boring trope it's become these days. You know it's time to put a concept to bed when Michael Bay latches onto it.

They don't discuss it at all in the documentary but I recall hearing it was a mandate from the studio that they specifically didn't want to focus on the Aliens but for it be mainly on the Engineers. Which in my opinion was incredibly stupid. You sell everyone on the idea that this is a prequel to Alien and then give them something completely different. It felt incredibly dishonest.

What I will say about the film is I love the devotion to practical effects. Ridley's methodology was if it can be done practically do it that way. Only use digital effects as a last resort. It was also nice to find that they shot a majority of the film at Pinewood Studios. They did an excellent job. So I'll be very happy if a majority of the craftsman that worked on this end up working on the upcoming Star Wars projects.

My personal favorite:

Working my way through it again right now but I believe my Marvel canon ends just before the ROTJ adaptation. That last stretch before it finally ended was just a disaster.

Like I said, creating new models and increasing the texture quality is fine. But when you go around adding things and changing the atmosphere of a level that crosses a line.

Something like increasing foliage density is one thing but changing the lighting of a level is something else entirely.

I didn't think they were changing the ending. But they are changing things in the upgrade. You can see weird floating rocks and other things when they switch to the improved graphics. For Halo Anniversary they changed the color of the sky amongst other things.

You want to increase the poly count of a model or texture resolution? Fine but go adding things the original art director never intended.

You can listen to what happened behind that closed door here and here.

SW1980 said:

I think that the ewoks are just way too harmless to defeat a few squads of well trained military humans.

 Harmless? They successfully captured and were going to eat our heroes until they thought Threepio was a wrathful god.

Who knows how many scouts they devoured over the course of the construction of the Second Death Star.

Well they're doing a lot more than improving textures, that's a problem I have with most graphical upgrades to games. They always change things instead of just doing a 1:1 improvement.

I hadn't heard about them changing the ending.

doubleofive said:

I am a man of strong whims and little self-control.

http://twitter.com/doubleofive/status/478676743125889024

Johnny Ringo said:

Is is sad that I'm much more interested in playing a game Bungie put out 10 years ago [Halo 2] than the game they are about to release [destiny]?

 No I think that just makes you uninformed and or extremely nostalgic. =P

Which is why I'm SO looking forward to Alien: Isolation!

Episode 3 of Star Trek Continues is out!

doubleofive said:

As much as I liked the first one, I don't think we're ready for another one. Short of complaining about the Blu-ray changes, we don't have any evidence of "Disney-fication" of the franchise, beyond the announcements of spinoff movies.

 Yeah, I think it would have been best to wait until at least VII.

Depends on how long they plan to collect clips while assembling this.

I just fear it's going to be filled with the misinformed shouting about what they perceive Disney to be doing to the franchise. Lord knows we have enough of that around these parts let alone the rest of the internet.

So apparently this is a thing in the works.

They're looking for video submissions, wish I could contribute.

Just finished reading both parts of Blade Squadron.

It's a nice safe story that doesn't draw upon any of the expanded universe and tells the tale of a somewhat important B-Wing squadron during the attack on the second Death Star.

I liked it.

So it turns out that Josh Trank, the director of the second standalone film has actually dipped his toes in that far, far away galaxy before...

Back in 2007 he released this little ditty:

Stabbing at Leia's 22nd Birthday

It's certainly...something....

SilverWook said:

I wish there was some way we could all sign and send Mr. Ford a get well soon card.

 We could always send one to Pinewood Studios for them to pass on. The trick is somehow getting us all to sign it though. =P

This is neat!

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

This was one that I was really interested in because of Genndy Tartakovsky's involvement. Unfortunately I missed it in theaters and only now am getting to it. It's a solid film, I'd say the biggest weakness of it was Sandler's voice. He acted well enough but he just never actually sounded like Dracula. There's even a point in the movie where he speaks through another character and they sounded far more like Dracula than he ever did. But other than that, it's a good film. Well...seeing the concept art in the credits made me wish it had been hand drawn...but I feel that way about most animated films these days.

darklordoftech said:

Anyway, whether it's Disney or Lucasfilm deciding, I'm certain that the history of the Sith will be dictated by the spin-offs, not by the NeEU.

 No such thing, Star Wars now consists of a singular canon.

Though I do agree they'll probably avoid that kind of thing in other media to leave room for the films to define.

The Lucasfilm Story Group is involved with ALL aspects of the Star Wars universe. The books, the games AND the movies.

Kennedy is not the creative type. She started out as a producer and has remained one throughout her career. She's made it by finding the right people for the job and trusting them to do what they were hired for.

When George handed off the company he told her who at the company had the knowledge and experience to manage the brand and they've continued to do so under her management.

When it comes to decisions about where it should head she trusts them because George trusted them.

darklordoftech said:

Tobar said:

Talk to Pixar and they'll tell you Disney keeps their hands out of their creative decisions.

If that's true, why has Pixar become so sequel-happy?

 You'd have to ask John Lasseter. My guess would be because he's stretched himself between three separate studios and the creative team they have on hand is not the same when the company was founded.

What happened to Kathleen Kennedy?

She's taken George's position in the company. Do you believe he personally oversaw the development of the EU?

Well that's disappointing. The GOUT/SE mix is certainly still serviceable though!

Skyward Sword was not cell-shaded. It just had a highly stylized design aesthetic.

In general less realistic, more stylized designs hold up better over time. A game like Grim Fandago still holds up wonderfully compared to the other 3D games of its time.

But I would say cell-shading is a blight in most cases.

Cell-shading is a technique used most often to add black lines around models in an attempt to give them an almost hand drawn look. It's really ugly most of the time.

The only game I can think of that I really liked it in was Jet Set Radio.