Didn’t they recently confirm season 3 as well recently?
Also, are we going to have different Mando threads for each new season, or will we continue using this one?
EDIT: DELETED FROM YOUTUBE
Star Wars is Forever - Kenner Industry Commercial 1979
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwWrMMBytZ4 - from the Neil Bowyer YouTube channel (4 mins long)
Star Wars Truly is Forever - Kenner Industry Sales Promo 1980
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuOQQ0GvCNk - from the Neil Bowyer YouTube channel (3 mins long)
Lucasfilm Archive Tour 1993 - Original Star Wars Props
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Ulc5nENgY&t - from the Spaceballdeu YouTube channel (8:30 mins long)
“A tour of the Lucasfilm Archives taken from The Star Wars Trilogy Definitive Collection Laserdisc Boxset, released 1993.”
SomethingStarWarsRelated said:
ILM Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9d1bkRC0Hs&t=1s
“Take a look behind the scenes of ILM’s visual effects work on STAR WARS : THE RISE OF SKYWALKER in this all-new breakdown video. The featured work was created by our visual effects crews in San Francisco, Singapore, Vancouver, London, and Sydney.”
Really cool to see how they blended CG with a puppet Maz for TROS, and the forced perspective sandcrawler at the end was a really neat “old school” trick. As much as I enjoy these vfx breakdowns I wish these official YT channels would do more videos like this that’s more focused on the practical stuff, though I’m glad to see that they’re starting to mention it instead of brushing past it like they often do in videos like this.
PS. There was a book series called Coruscant Nights which is basically a noir private-eye type of series set in the lower levels of Coruscant during the early days of the Empire.
Is this any good? I remember really enjoying his Darth Maul book 20 years ago…
I started reading it last year but got distracted by other things and simply forgot about it until recently. I know that sounds a little weird, but I have a bad habit of trying reading multiple books at the same time (it kinda works), and especially when something suddenly swallows up much of my free time a few books tend to slip through the cracks. So I’m not saying it was boring, what I did read (first 1/4-ish) was actually quite interesting. It was very dark and gritty and managed to seem noir-ish while never dipping into clichés or obvious tropes while still managing to feel like a SW story. A “hardboiled SW story” is probably the best way to describe it. I do think Reaves can get a a bit wordy at times, but the characters were all new and pretty fitting for the setting. The only well known character is Vader who appeared very briefly in the part I read. I did really enjoy the descriptions of the lower levels, I’ve always felt that that particular part of Coruscant lore is a perfect blend of sci-fi concepts and fantasy absurdity. It’s basically an IRL slum dialled up to 11.
That’s an SE shot. The forward most y-wing doesn’t disappear before it fully exits the frame like it does in the original version.
Oh, well never mind then. For some reason I thought that shot had been replaced with CG Y-Wings. I haven’t seen the SE in ages so I probably mixed it up with some of the CG X-Wing shots I remembered.
So I was going through the featuettes for CW season 2 and while talking about the PT-era Y-Wings they show this clip from the original version of ANH; https://youtu.be/xvJ7CH87LWw?list=PLYpCQhK-tG802hqakmcm5XvrctJh0cTQP&t=251
Does anyone know which version this is from? It looks to good to be from the GOUT version. Could this be a despecialized shot? The featurette would ave been made in 2009 or maybe a year or two later depending on when the DVD/Blu-ray was released.
Star Wars: Rebels - Season Two Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG83JYy6t5c30u94L7qISFSM9 - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (2 videos).
Star Wars: Rebels - Season Three Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG83OGvytdZuIEGD8w1daYzFR - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (5 videos).
Star Wars: Rebels - Season Four Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG804zClyfRgPcAfxV6K796AL - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (3 videos).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars Movie - Webisodes & Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG83wVkwpQyjE5GQF7iWLiiof - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (12 videos).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season One Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG802hqakmcm5XvrctJh0cTQP - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (29 videos).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season Two Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG82uBf-bbGpCBhJCJD6uEdS- - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (34 videos).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season Three Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG83mHtKEJ-RFk2HX4a4v4b1a - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (28 videos).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season Four Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG810xv8y-J_LlAuwJYjAhUZ3 - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (11 videos).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season Five Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpCQhK-tG80yajKm0o3uP10CCsjHiZ9F - Playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel (22 videos).
I don’t think we’re really arguing at all though! Just a thorough discussion. I apologize if it seemed otherwise!
Oh, I didn’t really think so either, which is why I wrote it in quotation marks (I wasn’t quite sure what word to use). Though now that I think about it the word has more negative connotations in English than I’m used to, so my bad.
I get what you’re saying, but this applies to pretty much all directors, showrunners, writers, etc.
i don’t think that’s necessarily true, But even if I agreed with that - why would the fact it applies to all directors/showrunners/writers (those three things are three very different things, btw) be any sort of rebuttal to the points I’m making? If it applies to them, it applies to him. So what’s wrong with the criticisms I’m making - which are aimed more at people who are willing to carry his water for the sake of minimizing his shortcomings than they are at him and his actual shortcomings as a storyteller?
I’m probably generalizing a bit here, I just personally think that auteur theory has inflated a lot if filmmakers who wouldn’t have been much or even anything without their crews. But, then again, the individual crew members wouldn’t have been able to make the specific movies and shows that we enjoy without the directors and showrunners organising it all either.
A big part of what I’m criticizing here is the inclination for people to essentially transform collaborative art into singular authorship for the sake of championing a “visionary” for negligible reasons. It was wrong when they did it for Lucas’ benefit, and it’s still wrong now. I’m not so much trying to downplay his contributions as I am fighting against the idea his contributions are as essential to Star Wars’ continued success as they are often claimed to be.
Generally speaking, I competely agree and I’m not calling Filoni a “visionary” but he’s clearly added something special (or at the very least “solid”) to all the SW shows that he’s worked on.
I also think, while I’m at it, that he benefits not JUST from the proximity to Lucas (pay attention to how often his praise is essentially backhanded, as if he’s a vessel for Lucas’ genius instead of a creative in his own right - even Freddie Prinze essentially framed him as such when he went viral on twitter sticking up for him) but also from the fact he’s got a bit of a handicap because he works in children’s animation. Because so many people honestly believe that’s a “lesser” medium, and that stories “don’t count” as much in that medium as they do in live action, his successes end up being appreciated to a somewhat unfair extent - they read it as his being so good he transcends the medium, when what’s happened is they’ve opened themselves up to what that medium can do in a way they don’t normally do for other practitioners of that medium. If they did, they’d likely discover there are a lot of people who are just as good, if not better in many ways, at what Filoni does as a showrunner.
Favreau is the showrunner on Mandalorian, anyway. Filoni supports that. I don’t think he’s an equal there. He’s a key element, but it’s Favreau’s show.
We clearly agree on pretty much all minus a few nuances here, so I’m not sure why we’re “arguing” about this.
When I said “Filoni-esque” I didn’t mean he should be handed the reins to all of SW, I didn’t even necessarily mean he had to be involved with everything, just that what he’s done for SW animated shows and contributed to Mando should be kept in mind by future showrunners. Though, as mentioned, I do think they should keep him around as a creative consultant like Favreau did. And I do think Filoni does have a “style”, albeit a flexible one.
I think people are more or less substituting all the same things they used to say about George Lucas (before he inevitably disappointed them in one way or another because they were too busy buying into every last myth about his creative process) onto Filoni now. He’s not really a visionary - a huge percentage of his Clone Wars successes are essentially “which really old movie these kids haven’t seen shall we loosely adapt this month.” It’s not so much “clever homage” as it is strip-mining classic film. Which - again, you can argue “that’s what Lucas did” because we all know the story about The Hidden Fortress, etc… but that plays into my larger point that Filoni gets a lot of rope simply because he “does things” the way Lucas “did things” as if the mere fact that Lucas did them makes them good.
I get what you’re saying, but this applies to pretty much all directors, showrunners, writers, etc. There are very few people who are truly original, and I wouldn’t even put 70’s Lucas in that category. Even great and “original” directors borrow and alter old ideas.
The fact he gets credited for all of “The Clone Wars” despite the fact he had a ton of help in the form of other directors, writers, contributors, animators, voice actors, etc… it’s the same mistakes everyone made with Lucas, just mapped onto a different “visionary.”
This applies to literally all directors and showrunners. Just the fact that they find the right people to make their movies/series the way they want it be is part of what makes it their movies/shows.
It’s not that I dislike him. Like I said, he’s probably better just being “The Story Group” than he is being a hands-on creative. But I don’t think he’s as necessary as people tend to make him out to be, and I think he’s got big problems as a storyteller that get papered over because of that Lucas connection, and the familiarity and habitual nature of just repurposing old forum arguments ABOUT Lucas, and just copy/replacing with Filoni’s name.
The lowest parts of the Mandalorian are all his. And to be fair - many of the lowest parts of The Clone Wars are ALSO all his. I don’t think the “leap” to live-action has very much to do with it at all, because those low points have a lot in common across both mediums. And the things he’s been good at are things other people are also good at, and some people (Favreau, Waititi, Chow, Famuyiwa) are already better at. He’s not as necessary to Lucasfilm’s success as people like to frame it. He’s been part of very good things. I don’t think he’s the answer. He’s PART of AN answer. But I think Star Wars’ future is best served not by consistently asking “What would George Do” and looking to Filoni for not much more reason than “he’s the next best thing to George.”
I completely agree with the last couple of statements here, and although many overplay him, I do feel like you’re downplaying his contributions here. I’m not saying Lucasfilm should hand everything over to Filoni, but he’s clearly a guy they should keep around and consult as a “story group” as you compare it to (though I personally don’t think that’s a particularly accurate comparison as the actual story group doesn’t really do that much at all).
I’d personally be fine with all future SW shows, both live action and animated, being Filoni-esque.
I wouldn’t. This show’s lowest points are the ones Filoni directed and wrote. The highest points are the ones he has the least involvement with.
I’d agree that the least good episodes are the ones Filoni directed, though I’d say that’s simply due to his inexperience doing live-action. As far as first-time directors go I’d say he did a pretty good job.
“Filoni-esque” doesn’t really mean much, either, since the only real identifiable hallmarks of Filoni’s storytelling are, as stated by his biggest fans:
George Lucas talked to him a lot.
He likes Princess Mononoke.Filoni’s status seems to be less earned than it is an easy substitution exercise: All the ways fans used to unfairly deify Lucas as a storyteller supreme are just being mapped onto Filoni now because George Lucas handpicked him.
The thing Filoni has most in common with Lucas is that his storytelling instincts are sound but his execution is lacking and he’s probably better off being “The Story Group” than he is actually involving himself in directing or writing.
I don’t see how that’s necessarily a critcism. He’s known as a showrunner, not as a director. And showrunners can have a “style” the same way as directors and writers do. Being able to control and guide a creative team, including directors and writers, is an important and difficult job. And unlike the story group he doesn’t just maintain continuity, he makes sure it all feels consistent and sticks to th established style of each individual show. Although Mando is very much Favreau’s creation, I think Filoni has added far more to it than he gets official credit for.
VFX Artists React to STAR WARS bad and Great CGi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh1Tz3zwhFU - from the Corridor Crew YouTube channel (17 mins long)
A slightly misleading title since they’re reacting to pre-CG effects, but this video is part of a long series called “VFX Artists React to Bad and Great CGI”, hence the name. It’s also a little bit annoying that while they’re gushing over practical/optical effects they’re only showing SE clips. But other than that it’s still a pretty interesting and fun video.)
The blurb:
“Niko, Clint, and Wren sit down to react to some of the zestiest CGi moments from the original STAR WARS trilogy: What makes a visual effect bad? What makes one great?”
(They also did a similar video for the PT.)
Yeah, I personally like that it feels like a live-action version of a Dave Filoni animated Star Wars show, which seems intentional since Filoni is one of the showrunners. But I understand why someone might not like that.
Ditto. I’d personally be fine with all future SW shows, both live action and animated, being Filoni-esque. If it gets too dark, I personally would find it strange. My brother keeps half-joking that he wants aN R-rated SW show/movie, and even if that was possible, it would just feel off IMO. RO was to me the right amount of edgy and dark while still being SW. I don’t think it could go too much further than that. And Mando struck a good balance. Though I hope the Cassian and Kenobi series avoids any baby Yoda-like things to “balance” things out (though it works really well for Mando).
Isn’t that kinda what ANH was though? I mean aesthetically it looked just like many other serious 70’s sci-fi films, and pre-SE it was even a fair bit violent, yet at its core the story is basically a Flash Gordon-inspired kid friendly adventure.
George Lucas in 6 vintage Japanese STAR WARS commercials for Panasonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwxeE3jIt5A&t - from the Eyes On Cinema YouTube channel (ca. 4 mins long)
The Mandalorian Stagecraft Photos
https://www.slashfilm.com/the-mandalorian-stagecraft-photos/?fbclid=IwAR2Ra3VRnNC1Yxdt0g-Qe8-sC3nlDTqkZ4TgfeHkzHrr7iItPZnH104RrP4
The last two and the one with Kuiil were pretty obvious, but some of these were quite surprising.
MidAmeriCon (1976) Worldcon - Star Wars Q&A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmhjvkj8_aw&t - from the FANAC Fan History YouTube channel (27 mins long)
The blurb:
“MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Kansas City in 1976. Before the film was released, before Star Wars and George Lucas were household names, producer Gary Kurtz, star Mark Hamill and marketing director Charles Lippincott came to MidAmeriCon to promote Star Wars. This Q&A session is full of fascinating background information about the film, the filming and the attitudes of the Star Wars team. For example, listen to Kurtz talk about the massive $18M gate they would need to break even. This is brought to you by the FANAC Fan History Project, with video from the Video Archeology project (coordinated by Geri Sullivan, with technical work by David Dyer-Bennet).”
MidAmericon (1976) Worldcon - The Preview of Star Wars (interview with Charles Lippincott)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoKK-aFcQIg - from the FANAC Fan History YouTube channel (3 mins long)
Episodenothing blog link discussing the convention and the Q&A video.
Re-watching the Wampa scene I noticed that you can see a shadow move across the cave wall. I guess because of the SE (first version I saw as a kid) is just always assumed that it was eating the Tauntaun off-screen, but it seems like in the original version the implication was that it was wandering around. Or perhaps there were meant to be several of them in the cave.
Making of Holochess for Star Wars: The Force Awakens!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sexd06I8mzg - from the Adam Savage’s Tested YouTube channel.
The blurb:-
“One of the many surprises in Star Wars: The Force Awakens that delighted fans was the appearance of the Dejarik holochess game on the Millennium Falcon. Adam Savage went behind-the-scenes at Tippett Studio to watch Phil Tippett and his team create the stop-motion animation sequence, and learns a secret about how this cameo connects to the original Star Wars!”
Behind-the-Scenes: Making the Stop-Motion Puppets for Star Wars: The Force Awakens!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0kac3ZFkkw&t - from the Adam Savage’s Tested YouTube channel.
The blurb:-
“The Holochess animation Easter egg in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was truly a labor of love, and the team who made it used a variety of interesting technologies to create it. This week, we return to Tippett Studio to chat with this sequence’s art director, visual effects supervisor, armaturist, and head puppet fabricator (our very own Frank Ippolito!) about the fabrication of these stop-motion puppets!”
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Celebration Reel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUb_zpdyDpU - from the official Star Wars YouTube channel (3 mins long)
Originally shown at Star Wars Celebration July 2016.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story “Creature Featurette”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2N0Mn4i4Dw - from the official Star Wars YouTube channel (1:20 mins long)
“Director Gareth Edwards and Creature Effects Supervisor Neal Scanlan offer a behind-the-scenes peek at the creatures of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”
ROGUE ONE Blu-ray BONUS CLIPS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT24bd2XPxQ&list=PLYn2a0e2FVIKni_wHXR5CJYBnnnYH7mIB&index=15&t - from the Flicks And The City Clips YouTube channel (13 mins long)
Index:
Vader (0:00)
Death Troopers (1:14)
Mads Mikelsen (2:11)
Saw’s Origins (3:36)
Casting Diego (4:35)
K-2SO: The Droid (6:04)
Cardboard K-2SO Head (7:15)
Walking on Stilts (8:18)
Riz’s Auditions (9:23)
Training (10:41)
Connections (11:52)
Well, we’re getting three live-action series within roughly three years, and the Coruscant underworld is getting explored more and more in cartoons and other EU materials, so i’ts definitely a possibility. And although main-stream SWhas never touched upon noir in any blatant fashion yet (maybe a little bit in ep. II?) it still fits within that movie-serial-vibe that’s its all based on.
PS. There was a book series called Coruscant Nights which is basically a noir private-eye type of series set in the lower levels of Coruscant during the early days of the Empire.
Critic & Fan Reactions from 1980 - STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MOA6aHx5mg&list=PLYn2a0e2FVIKni_wHXR5CJYBnnnYH7mIB&index=135&t=0s - from the HelloGreedo YouTube channel (7 mins long)
“I love looking up old reactions and reviews from when a movie came out. The internet is a time machine! It’s interesting to see how feelings can change or stay the same over time. How will the sequel trilogy be remembered years from now? How will The Last Jedi age? How has the public perception of the Star Wars Prequel trilogy changed since 1999? Let’s take a look at some critic and fan reactions to Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.”
Episode I Webisodes & Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA5E2EE8E10B45724 - Full playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel.
“A 12-part web documentary, which originally appeared on the official website. A wide variety of topics were covered, from Lucas’ very first day of writing the new script through production design, costumes, creatures, the casting of Anakin, problems with R2-D2 and other issues.”
Episode II Webisodes & Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDC9DF0527A71C0C1 - Full playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel.
“A 12-part web documentary, which originally appeared on the official website. Covering a wide variety of topics from the pioneering use of digital photography to locations, to various technical challenges, etc.”
Episode III Webisodes & Featurettes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0918EFDB5FB29B49 - Full playlist from the mranderson00001 YouTube channel.
“A 15-part web documentary, which originally appeared on the official website. It covers running the production simultaneously from California and Australia in the early days, linking Revenge of the Sith to Star Wars, “old-fashioned” special effects, creating General Grievous, weapon design and construction, pick-ups and re-shoots, McGregor’s take on Obi-Wan, McDiarmid’s performance, etc.”
A few select webisodes (that I personally think stand out or are particularly fascinating):
Thousands Of Things (Doug Chiang designs the Naboo Starfighter)
Bad Droid Karma (building R2-D2 for ep. I)
A Twinkle Beyond Pluto (about the Ep. II extras)
A Jigsaw Puzzle (about the Ep. II miniatures)
Creating General Grievous (from brainstorming to concept art)
Becoming Obi-Wan (McGregor talks about his performance and emulating Alec Guiness)
The Creatures of Episode III (about make-up effects and animatronics)