Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[WestMan]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

I also think it depends on which changes we're talking about. Adding CGI creatures in a film from the '70s looks very strange in my opinion and there are a lot of shots in the special editions like that. They just take me out of the movie. I feel the same way about the special edition of E.T.

Adding CGI characters of actors who have been dead for over 20 years is far more strange.

If Lucas did that, people would still be complaining about it. But Disney did it, so it is "okay".

Amazing how things get rationalizes....

[crissrudd4554]

The guy in the video was making a point that if Disney releases the OUT on BD they're responding to the 'fanboys'. Not necessarily. If Disney/LF want to release the SW films on BD again giving us the same SEs from 2011 isn't exactly a good selling point IMO. Even if it's a remastered version of the same SE with corrected colors there's gonna need a certain push to get people to buy those versions again i.e. including the original cuts.

[Arawn]

Originally Posted by crissrudd4554

there's gonna need a certain push

Hopefully it won't be a teal push

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by WestMan

Adding CGI characters of actors who have been dead for over 20 years is far more strange.

If Lucas did that, people would still be complaining about it. But Disney did it, so it is "okay".

Amazing how things get rationalizes....

And it's absolutely bizarre how these days George Lucas now doesn't get any of the credit for his achievements -- there's now a massive, weird effort underway to de-legitimize him and make him out to be a guy who simply lucked into an idea that other, supposedly more-talented people were able to keep him away from long enough to make three good films out of, which is totally false.

A good example of this is The Empire Strikes Back script. Lucas originally had an outline, and he hired Leigh Brackett, whom he was a fan of, to write the first draft. He didn't want to go in the direction she took it, so he rewrote the script from scratch himself, and subsequently refined it with Lawrence Kasdan. When she died, he gave up his own screenplay-credit so that she could be credited as a tribute, despite the fact that she died before she was able to contribute to any subsequent drafts. When it was the 100th anniversary of her birthday a year or two ago, umpteen websites reported it, all of them attributing the film to Brackett, and slagging Lucas off for getting rich off of other people's work.

Kasdan, Kershner, and Marquand are all on record as speaking glowingly about the guy long after they no longer had to, and Lucas has publicly admitted to hiring people, like Kasdan, who were good at the things he wasn't. He asked Kasdan to help him write the prequels, and initially asked his pals to direct Episodes II and III. He didn't f**k off while other people made Empire -- he was busy directing effects-sequences on the other side of the Atlantic and managing the company that was making the film, and Kershner recalls him ceding the limelight so that people would understand that it was Kershner who directed it, not him.

At the moment, popular culture holds Lucas as an egotistical figure of ridicule and fun, and it's all because he directed a few films some people without a sense of proportion didn't like. If Lucas died today, there would be newspaper cartoons and memes with Jar Jar sobbing at his grave, or some such shit -- whereas, if J.J. Abrams passed, he'd be drawn holding a lightsaber with X-Wings flying in formation behind him.

[Caseyscott]

Originally Posted by WestMan

Adding CGI characters of actors who have been dead for over 20 years is far more strange.

If Lucas did that, people would still be complaining about it. But Disney did it, so it is "okay".

Amazing how things get rationalizes....

I've only heard people say bad thing about the CGI in Rogue One. I'm not sure how the overall reception could be tallied though, but I think the CGI takes you out of the movie in the same way it does in almost every scene of the prequels and the additions to the original trilogy.

[Hardback247]

Originally Posted by Caseyscott

I've only heard people say bad thing about the CGI in Rogue One. I'm not sure how the overall reception could be tallied though, but I think the CGI take you out of the movie in the same way it does in almost every scene of the prequels and the additions to the original trilogy.

I'm very much used to CGI, so I don't mind it.

[Lionel Horsepackage]

Originally Posted by Caseyscott

but I think the CGI take you out of the movie in the same way it does in almost every scene of the prequels

Wait...seriously? Say what you will about CGI additions made to '70s films, but I rarely, if ever, had a problem with immersion-breaking "fakeness" in the prequels -- quite the contrary, there's some absolutely stunning, photorealistic work in those films.

[Arawn]

Originally Posted by Caseyscott

I've only heard people say bad thing about the CGI in Rogue One. I'm not sure how the overall reception could be tallied though, but I think the CGI takes you out of the movie in the same way it does in almost every scene of the prequels and the additions to the original trilogy.

Actually, there's a place in Rogue One where the ships don't look like CGI, they look more like Legos!

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by Arawn

Actually, there's a place in Rogue One where the ships don't look like CGI, they look more like Legos!

LOL I know which ones you mean and I thought the exact same ting!

[Caseyscott]

Originally Posted by Lionel Horsepackage

Wait...seriously? Say what you will about CGI additions made to '70s films, but I rarely, if ever, had a problem with immersion-breaking "fakeness" in the prequels -- quite the contrary, there's some absolutely stunning, photorealistic work in those films.

There is some amazing work, but it's continually punctuated with out of place effects (mostly characters). The over use of CGI in the prequels likely contributed to the terrible blocking and overall poor frame composition as well.

[Hardback247]

What about the CG effects in The Fifth Element? That movie came out two years before The Phantom Menace.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

What about the CG effects in The Fifth Element? That movie came out two years before The Phantom Menace.

Fifth Element doesn't **** every single frame with some kind of CG tweak, that's the point. It's got a few pointed CG effects & sequences, sure, but for the most part it's using practical effects and it gives the movie a sense of tangible realism that the prequels can only dream of managing.

Hell, when the prequels are all CG then I think they look their best e.g. the battle of Geonosis, but as soon as those pesky flesh-and-blood humans are composited in the illusion is always broken.

[balthazar_bee]

The CG work within the series has always struck me as being extremely variable, even within the same film. Take Episode II -- we start off with some remarkable Coruscant cityscapes and we devolve into pure video game territory with the Geonosis battle.

At times it's almost laughable, like the moving camera and dramatic zooms are going to distract us from how silly some of the CG clone troopers look against the CG desert landscape. Maybe if they had cut to Ewan McGregor standing against a green screen shouting, "Look over there!" a few more times they could have sold the illusion.

[Hardback247]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Fifth Element doesn't **** every single frame with some kind of CG tweak, that's the point. It's got a few pointed CG effects & sequences, sure, but for the most part it's using practical effects and it gives the movie a sense of tangible realism that the prequels can only dream of managing.

Realism kind of depends when it comes to Star Wars. Like many other sci-fi franchises, loud noises can be heard in space, even though everyone knows that sound doesn't carry in a vacuum.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by balthazar_bee

The CG work within the series has always struck me as being extremely variable, even within the same film. Take Episode II -- we start off with some remarkable Coruscant cityscapes and we devolve into pure video game territory with the Geonosis battle.

At times it's almost laughable, like the moving camera and dramatic zooms are going to distract us from how silly some of the CG clone troopers look against the CG desert landscape. Maybe if they had cut to Ewan McGregor standing against a green screen shouting, "Look over there!" a few more times they could have sold the illusion.

Heh, I actually LIKE the Geonosis ground battle stuff and I think it's Coruscant that looks horribly shiny and fake in Ep II, but one thing we both agree on is the dreadful delivery of "Look over there!" from Ewan McGregor.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

Realism kind of depends when it comes to Star Wars. Like many other sci-fi franchises, loud noises can be heard in the vacuum of space.

So just because we can hear sounds in space that excuses things looking flat and fake and lifeless when it comes to the visuals? Riiiiiiiight.

[Rodney-2187]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Short for "re-composite", as in scan the original background plates and VFX elements (ships, death stars, 'splosions etc) and relayer them onto each other digitally, rather than the old optical process which consisted of running several different strips of film with all these different elements through a series of projectors, beam-splitters and lenses (as described in Nicolawicz's post above) to combine them onto one piece of film.

So the effects elements themselves are the same, they've just been assembled digitally rather than optically which reduces the artefacts of the latter process like visible black outlines around objects, a lack of opacity meaning that you can see 'through' the effect, visible garbage mattes (little clear 'boxes' around effects) and so on.

Sounds great to me! Take my money!!! Get those SE changes out! So tired of seeing cgi Jabba in SW!

[Hardback247]

I believe the PT is supposed to look that way. It takes place during a time of prosperity before the Galactic Empire ruled over everything. Their effect on the galaxy is why everything looks more old and used up in the OT.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

I believe it's supposed to look shiny. The PT takes place during a time of prosperity before the Galactic Empire ruled over everything. Their effect on the galaxy is why everything looks more old and used up in the OT.

That's the second time you've trotted that out in reply to me and, once again, I'M AWARE OF THAT as I'm not talking about the production design when I say "shiny", e.g. it's the sterile, ersatz "digital" look of the computer-generated/assisted characters and ships and backgrounds, having precious little trace of any kind of grounded realism compared to the human elements that have been composited in.

That's why I'll always say that Lucas' reach exceeded his grasp, as things like digital cameras and this kind of wall-to-wall CG manipulation have come on in leaps and bounds over the last 15 years. You only have to look at Rogue One to see how far CG realism has come, to the point where people actually COMPLAIN that the ships look like models! I guess we're through the looking glass when it comes to today's younger generation growing up with these kinds of CG bogosities, now they moan when it looks TOO real!

[balthazar_bee]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Heh, I actually LIKE the Geonosis ground battle stuff and I think it's Coruscant that looks horribly shiny and fake in Ep II, but one thing we both agree on is the dreadful delivery of "Look over there!" from Ewan McGregor.

That's one of those all-too-rare moments in the prequels that is so bad that it becomes amusing. When the prequels are bad, typically, it's slog-level bad. Between doing his level best to deliver such awful dialogue in a green screen environment, in the service of some rather dubious storytelling, and then having to do endless press about the results, it's small wonder McGregor took to the sauce. Still, give the lad credit -- the film would be absolutely unwatchable without him.

That's interesting about the relative levels of realism on Coruscant vs. Geonosis. Admittedly, my memory is a bit sketchy -- maybe I'll have to take another look at Clones one of these days.

I should stress that I'm only talking about Coruscant at night -- the day stuff is pretty blech. The first scene in Episode II is already, probably, the single worst scene in the entire series, but that horrible CG approximation of "spaceship landing on a foggy platform" don't help none.