swagmasta69

He loks like he’s looking at him though?

Reality is a point of view.

double post

Greenscreen=/=Lazy
The director just does his thing whereever the shoot is. Doesn’t matter to him. Building sets and doing strenuous activity wouldn’t fall to the director in any scenario.
Eyelines are all fine in ROTS.

And no matter whether you think it’s stupid and pointless or not (an argument could be made), The Ring Theory proves that George went to insane lengths to have the different episodes form a structure of echoes and mirrors.
So lazy he is not. Nuts maybe, but not lazy.

He just spends most of time on tangental things, and not enough on the boring reality stuff.

I can see why people hate him, but I consider him to be a mad genius.
His movies click with me. Maybe I’m just as autistic as him.

I realize that his films could becalled “shodily made”, but I’m in it for raw imagery and emotion, and not the technical logical side, which is what he’s best at (imagery abd emotion I mean).

Get your eyes checked.

The art design? The PT has a plethora of new creative planets and vehicles, TFA has notTatooine, notEndor, notHoth, planet Ireland, and exremely lazy vehicle redesigns.

Explain how the prequels are lazier than TFA in a 90 page essay, due friday.

The prequels, especially ROTS, got mixed to good reviews.
Very similar reviews to the OT at the time of release.
Roger Ebert gave TPM 3.5/4 stars.

I’m not saying it’s not true, I just think it’s a sad state of affairs when such low effort garbage is so acclaimed.
Critics have been worthless for a while though.
The OT got mixed reviews, and they are ALL (yes, ROTJ included) much better than TFA.

Lord Haseo said:

imperialscum said:

Wazzles said:

swagmasta69 said:

I lost you at number 3.

It’s generally regarded as great. Sorry.

Don’t be ridiculous…

Just because the people who hate TFA are loud doesn’t mean they have the numbers to justify all the noise.

Come now my friend, let us not sacrifice creativity on the alter of mass appeal.

TV’s Frink said:
number 2.

hee

Smithers said:

1.Empire Strikes Back (9/10)
2.A New Hope (8.5/10)
3.The Force Awakens (8.5/10)
4.Return of the Jedi (8/10)
5.Clone Wars 2003 (8/10)
6.The Clone Wars TV Show (7.5/10)
7.Star Wars Rebels (7/10)
8.The Phantom Menace (5/10)
9.Revenge of the Sith (4.5/10)
10.The Clone Wars 2008 movie (3/10)
11.Both of the Ewok Movies (2/10)
12.“Droids” cartoon (2/10)
13.Attack of the Clones (1.5/10)
14.“Ewoks” cartoon (1/10)
15.The Star Wars Holiday Special (0/10)

And yes, I’ve watched all of that ^

I lost you at number 3.

TV’s Frink said:

he left out all the bad stuff, which is most of the movie.

I obviously do not hold this opinion.
You don’t catch on pretty quick.

moviefreakedmind said:

VC sounds too much like smooth jazz for me to take it seriously. It’s also very solemn, but I’ll admit it gets better towards the end right before the cut to credits. I also hate the stupid shots of people cheering on all the other fake CGI planets.

To be clear, I only meant the song, I’m not talking about the SE.

LuckyGungan2001 said:

swagmasta69 said:

1. Star Wars
2. Revenge of The Sith
3. The Empire Strikes Back
4. Attack of The Clones/The Phantom Menace/Return of The Jedi(with Victory Celebration)
5. Return of The Jedi sans Victory Celebration
6. The Special Edition OT
7. The Force Awakens

That is a very interesting list. Would you mind sharing why you feel that way? I’m not being sarcastic, its just rare that somebody ranks the films like this, especially on this website.

1. Star Wars
   The best paced SW movie. Ends on an incredibly joyous note. It’s all already been said. It’s probably a perfect film.
2. Revenge of The Sith.
   The opening long take with two brothers almost perfectly in sync, the sublime Padme’s Ruminations, Seeing everything from the previous two movies (in a way all five) brought full circle is incredible to behold, seeing Yoda rise up into the senate chamber while fighting Palpatine, seeing our two heroes finally fight (what hapoens when two force users put their hands close and push is actually something I had wondered for a long time), Obi Wan’s “I loved you” tears at the heartstrings, the closing sequences (Polis Massa, Vader donning the armor, finally seeing Alderaan after 28 years, Obi Wan talking with Yoda about Qui-Gon, Vader walking down the bridge of the Star Destroyer, Obi giving Luke to his Aunt and Uncle) is a jaw dropping segue into the Dark Times.
3. The Empire Strikes Back
   After a shaky opening with the ridiculously impractical AT-AT’s we dive into some of the best moments of the saga. The Cloud City Luke-Vader fight ends with a bombshell, but my personal favorite moments in the film are the superb bit of acting with Leia sensing Luke as she’s leaving Cloud City, and Yoda’s quote “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter”. A weakness of the film is that it doesn’t have as many moments that inspire childlike wonder as the other films.
4. AOTC/TPM/ROTJ(with VC)
   All three films have just as high highs as the others, but the lows are a bit lower.
   The lows-
   TPM- JarJar’s antics in the four pronged climax really hurt the tone.
   AOTC- Some wonky CG and C-3P0’s antics hurt the tone.
   ROTJ- Incredibly awfully paced. They crammed a whole movie into the first act, and the rest of the movie ranges from crap (Ewoks defeating “an entire legion of my best troops”), to lazy (DS2), to the very highest point of the saga (everything with Luke from Luke and Vader on Endor to the ending shot).
   HOWEVER, Yub Nub is a garbage closer to a six (or even three) film epic saga.
   Victory Celebration gives the finale a truimphant feel to rival ANH’s medal ceremony.

see above
A good ending scene can make or break a film.

6. SE OT
   More than any CGI or new scenes or alterations of that sort, I just can’t stand the new color timing.
7. TFA
   Derivative, utterly imagination free piece of corporate dumbed down dreck.

Dek Rollins said:

swagmasta69 said:

You didn’t see ROTS in theaters?

Nope. I actually didn’t have the fortune of seeing the others in theaters either, I watched VHS and DVD. I know right, no true SW fan would dare skip out the theater showings, but also realize, as a kid, I really didn’t have much regard for a “proper” way to see a film. One of my older brothers did see them all in theaters as far as I remember, though.

Eh, don’t feel bad. I’ve only seen ROTS and TPM 3D in theaters.
(And TFA if you count it).
I would like to see TN1’s new restoration screened in a theater though.
It looks so amazing.

You didn’t see ROTS in theaters?

Nice sidestep.

obligatory response

Oh, I don’t think so.

I said “I think”.

DominicCobb said:

swagmasta69 said:

DominicCobb said:

swagmasta69 said:

adywan said:

swagmasta69 said:

I would argue that TFA and the Holiday Special are the same kind of monster.
Both made without the creator’s involvement and made solely for profit.
There is nothing even close to a creative vision for either entity.

So you would need to lump the prequels into the same “made solely for profit” category. Those films were only made for the money. He had no intention of ever making those films. Lucasfilm needed a money maker. the only parts of Lucasfilm making any sort of money was its subsidiary companies ( ILM, Skywalker sound etc). Lucasfilm needed a hit. The only things of any value on its books were Star Wars and Indy. They had had too many flops. The SE’s were done to test the waters. Did the public still want Star wars? If those had failed, then pre production on TPM would have likely stopped.

But its pretty obvious now that TFA could have been a masterpiece and you would still have bashed it just because it didn’t have George’s stamp all over it. Well thank god it didn’t. The prequels were nothing more than an advertisement for what ILM could do at that point and to generate much needed profits for a failing Lucasfilm. You only have to watch the behind the scenes doc on the TPM DVD that he wanted full CG sequences, not because it would be good for the story, but for nothing more than because he thought other people would want to use ILM, and this new type of FX work, for their own movies.

I don’t want to argue with you, being a huge contributor of content that I watch and enjoy, but the prequels were in no way made solely for profit. This demonization of extensive CGI use is just grasping at straws. It’s not lazy, George doesn’t personally do any effects work, practical or digital, and CG animation is not easier than practical effects to create. The worst you could say Is that George jumped the gun on CG tech when it wasn’t quite there yet.
George had the broadstrokes of the PT laid out by the end of making the OT. (Lava planet, ROTJ Vader seeming much more like Anakin Skywalker from the prequels in dialogue and characterization, etc.)

Very broad strokes. In many ways the overuse of CGI was because scripts weren’t ready in time to build sets and scenes were created whole cloth in post. Read the Secret History of Star Wars or, hell, just listen to the PT commentary tracks.

I’ve done both (not in a few years mind you) and I don’t remember anything about CGI being used because of time constraints.
Watching the AOTC behind the scenes recently they say that back then CGI still actually took longer than building a set/model.

I think the actual amount of time building a practical vs. CG set is variable, but that wasn’t what I was getting at. I merely meant when they were built. Practical sets need to be built before hand, CG afterwards. Georgie didn’t finish his script in time so they had to make things afterwards (that’s where the accusations of laziness come from).

Calling the criticism of excessive CGI “demonization” seems a little extreme. I know some here claim to hate CGI but the truth is CGI is an important and useful tool. Hating CGI is silly, but none of us here really do. We just hate excessive CGI. Lucas just went overboard on AOTC and ROTS (there is a lot of CG in TPM but a reasonable amount. The problem is just that when you’re creating whole sets out of CGI it becomes very hard to suspend your disbelief and accept the live action characters as actually part of that environment. The beauty of the original Star Wars was how grounded in reality it was (the used universe aesthetic and all). Even though it was a galaxy far, far, away, everything felt real. In AOTC and ROTS, while pretty, the galaxy just does not have the same tangible feel as it does in all the other films.

I see what you mean, but I think it’s just a generational thing. Even knowing of the extensive CGI use in the PT, I actually find Coruscant to be more interesting and immersive than any OT location, so I guess one of the many reasons I enjoy the prequels more than a lot of this board is because the special effects used don’t mess with my suspension of disbelief.
I did grow up in the “video game generation”, after all.
I watched TPM all the time as a child and when AOTC came out on VHS I watched that a ton too.
I was raised on those and the unaltered OT VHS trilogy and I actually enjoyed the PT more as a child.
Of course, I now fully appreciate the OT, but seeing ROTS in theaters just completely blew my mind.
I’m rambling. I guess I’m saying nostalgia is strong- but I did go through a prequel hating phase (Plinkett and all that) and when I came out of that, I actually liked the prequels on what I percieve to be true, albiet flawed (though not nearly as flawed as people claim), vision.

I find the PT to be as good as the OT.

/ramble

Dek Rollins said:

swagmasta69 said:

George had the broadstrokes of the PT laid out by the end of making the OT. (Lava planet, ROTJ Vader seeming much more like Anakin Skywalker from the prequels in dialogue and characterization, etc.)

Now, I’m not sure what your getting at with this sentence. Are you one of those people that think he had planned for the PT to exist the whole time? For those that use “that’s why he called them Episodes V and VI” as an excuse to think this, that is not why he originally used the episode numbers. He used them in yet another way to recreate the feel of coming into a theater to see some Flash Gordon serials, and you just came in the middle of the story. And ROTJ Vader wasn’t any closer to PT Annie than in the first two.

To me, ROTJ Vader acts more like Annie in that he is more of a sympathetic character, and the dialogue in the scene with Luke and Vader on Endor just fits more snugly with the PT than much of Vader’s lines/characterization in the other two OT films.

DominicCobb said:

swagmasta69 said:

adywan said:

swagmasta69 said:

I would argue that TFA and the Holiday Special are the same kind of monster.
Both made without the creator’s involvement and made solely for profit.
There is nothing even close to a creative vision for either entity.

So you would need to lump the prequels into the same “made solely for profit” category. Those films were only made for the money. He had no intention of ever making those films. Lucasfilm needed a money maker. the only parts of Lucasfilm making any sort of money was its subsidiary companies ( ILM, Skywalker sound etc). Lucasfilm needed a hit. The only things of any value on its books were Star Wars and Indy. They had had too many flops. The SE’s were done to test the waters. Did the public still want Star wars? If those had failed, then pre production on TPM would have likely stopped.

But its pretty obvious now that TFA could have been a masterpiece and you would still have bashed it just because it didn’t have George’s stamp all over it. Well thank god it didn’t. The prequels were nothing more than an advertisement for what ILM could do at that point and to generate much needed profits for a failing Lucasfilm. You only have to watch the behind the scenes doc on the TPM DVD that he wanted full CG sequences, not because it would be good for the story, but for nothing more than because he thought other people would want to use ILM, and this new type of FX work, for their own movies.

I don’t want to argue with you, being a huge contributor of content that I watch and enjoy, but the prequels were in no way made solely for profit. This demonization of extensive CGI use is just grasping at straws. It’s not lazy, George doesn’t personally do any effects work, practical or digital, and CG animation is not easier than practical effects to create. The worst you could say Is that George jumped the gun on CG tech when it wasn’t quite there yet.
George had the broadstrokes of the PT laid out by the end of making the OT. (Lava planet, ROTJ Vader seeming much more like Anakin Skywalker from the prequels in dialogue and characterization, etc.)

Very broad strokes. In many ways the overuse of CGI was because scripts weren’t ready in time to build sets and scenes were created whole cloth in post. Read the Secret History of Star Wars or, hell, just listen to the PT commentary tracks.

I’ve done both (not in a few years mind you) and I don’t remember anything about CGI being used because of time constraints.
Watching the AOTC behind the scenes recently they say that back then CGI still actually took longer than building a set/model.