So what film do you think will screw AOTC out of the VFX Oscar for this year?

I don't know that "Two Towers" will do as well, critically, as the original movie did.

I found the book "Two Towers" to be boring. I ended up buying it on Audio book and listening to it on a drive from Cincinnati to New Orleans. If I hadn't, I probably never would've made it through. The Ents were god-awful boring, and what followed wasn't too much better.

 

FotR used that shakey can't see what's going on method of fliming combat that I find annoying.

 

haha yea instead of reading books I think im just gonna buy or d/l the audio book from now on. and who knows, so far the Ring movies have been really really good, as good if not better than the books, so I'm really looking forward to it. it was also shot at the same time as LOTR, so the feel ought to be the same.

again, what is FOTR?

 

Found On The Road

 

"Even Ezekial thinks that my mind is gone! But, I aint ever punched a tourist, even if he deserved it..."

I don't know how I remember Weird Al...

Alright you two, let the FX expert settle this debate.

There are a few scenes within FOTR (Fellowship of the Ring), where Weta uses "digital shrinking." Both of you are partially correct however, because it's not quite "shrinking." Using motion-control, they filmed a lot of the wide shots seperately with each different actor that needed to be "shrunk." Motion control allows them to redo the same camera movement and perfectly. This technique is necessary to composite a scene correctly. Usually, they simply filmed the hobbit, or dwarf against a bluescreen from a far away distance Then, they would digitally compostite said character into the scene seperately.

If you would like examples of this technique, look no further than just before the "balin's tomb scene." It's a wide shot within the halls of Moria, and it looks terrific because the camera is arching up and everybody is the proper size. Another good example is at Rivendell. The technique is prevelent throughout.

I have to agree with the Ezekial that the MASSIVE softwear moments were incredible! Lucas used a lot of close ups durring the battle, but the opening of FOTR (the last alliance of men and elves against Sauron) is brilliant!

 

TTT will probably be more exciting as a movie than as a book, since several of the battle scenes were done "off screen," while the main characters were hiding, or were just plain elsewhere. For example, the Ents trashing Isengard wasn't shown in the book; Gandalf and the Rohirrim just showed up there to see Merry smoking a pipe amidst the ruins of Isengard. And the slaughter of the Orcs escorting Merry and Pippin wasn't shown very much either. And neither was the battle between Faramir's troops and the Southrons.

It will definitely be more action-packed than FOTR was. I can't wait to see Helm's Deep!

 

Undoubtedly, the Academy will choose "Undercover Brother" for Best Visual Effects and Sound Editing, in place of Attack of the Clones.

 

ahhhh

FellowshipOftheRing

Ive always thought of it as LordOfTheRings

anyways.

even then, the bluescreen, knowing lucas he would use some of his digital movie magic and shrink the actors that way for an artificial lookign effect. but maybe I'm just tired of his overreliance on digital fx instead of good 'ol fashioned film techniques.

 

saying the big battle scene in FOTR had better VFX than the one in AOTC is bull****, the battle in FOTR did not look good

 

spinning Gandalf was a not so great effect and neither was the photo negative Galadriel.

 

SPIDER MAN will not be nominated for an FX Oscar. Even critics who've liked it have noted how shoddy the fx are. My early guess would be AOTC, MINORITY REPORT, and TTT. Personally, I hated BORED OF THE RINGS and would like nothing more than to see it and Peter Jackson disappear. Thank God they're releasing them in consecutive years. Breakdancing wizards is not a good idea. We can get this nonsense over with by 2004. And the winner is....

...You'll have to wait until May 2003.

 

An arching camera shot over thousands of independently moving elves, orcs, and humans, that flys up a massive volcano, until all you can see is molten lava and plummeting orcs didn't look good to you!?!

Were you watching the LOTR cartoon again?

LOTR inspired Lucas heaviliy. The first film was fantastic, and I expect the next two to get even better. Peter Jackson is a god for filming back-to-back. Talk about a fan pleaser...

 

LOTR: TTT or Spidey

 

What's with all the LOTR bashing? Sheesh.

You can't really say a movie will "rob" or "screw" AOTC out of an Oscar unless you see that movie and its special effects first. The Two Towers won't come out until December, and I think WETA is still doing some of the effects, such as Treebeard. I thought the effects in FOTR were excellent, except a couple of shots of the Cave Troll.

 

Ezekiel, I find your lack of support disturbing.
Take your buisness to a LOTR site

 

I don't think it will win because it was shot digitally...also because it's star wars. But if something happens to beat it...I hope it's Minority Report...If Star Wars can't win...I atleast hope someone who respects and loves star wars wins...like the great speilberg himself.

 

LOTR is awesome if you've never read the books. meanwhile, AOTC is terrible if you have never seen the first 3 films. that shows how different they are in acting and storytelling.

but anyways on fx my major problem with AOTC and most films out today is that they are using digital where they dont have to because they are lazy. for instance, I personally would have prefered to see a puppet yoda in the jedi council and us not seeing his feet. but on quality, nevertheless, LOTR and AOTC I think have very similar quality in FX, but LOTR does a better job with the grittiness feel and proper use of it.

edit

oh yes, I forgot this. the naboo ship, its too shiney. a real life ship would not be that shiny. other things are the "plastic" CGI effects. the fx just look plastic, the latest I guess, but I prefer FOTR

 

how about claymation?

 

"LOTR is awesome if you've never read the books"?

Is that why I hated it? Because I read and appreciated the book and was in such agony that Peter Jackson raped it?


Thanks for backing up my theory.

 

It's not the VFX I worry about. It's the sound that worries me. If you need any more proof that the oscars are a popularity contest then look to 1999 when everyone was crazy about The Matrix. Now go to your DVD collection and get your copy of The Matrix(and I know you have it, for many of you it was the first disc you got with your player...newbie)pop it in and give it a listen. Sounds good right? Now grab your copy of TPM and put in....now tell me which sounds better? There is no way that The Matrix should win that one. There are more examples but they are too numerous to name.

 

The only thing Episode 1 robbed was 2 hours of our lives. TPM sure as hell didn't deserve the best special effects award. Just because a movie has the most CGI shots doesn't mean it should get an award. Matrix was clearly better in the FX department. Also, it wisly used it's FX only to advance the story. Lucas went overkill on CGI only because he could. A huge example of this is the underwater sequence with Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Jar Jar. What the hell was that? It was like 8 minutes long. It added ZERO to the story and it was boring. It was just there to show off ILM. Waste of time.

How can you people already declare Episode 2 the winner for Oscar's Best Special Effects award when 2002 isn't even halfover! Just wait for Gollum and the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers which comes out this December. OMG. It will be breathtaking.

 

Go here then

 

hey now, LOTR is a probably the benchmark for the perfect movie adaptation of a novel. the acting is terrific, in contrast to the stiff acting hallmark of Lucas, the pace is excellent, and the script is very well organized with the right emphasis, all areas where AOTC is lacking. of course I've never read the books, but most people who have read them say that they were bored because they knew the story already, but say it was a good movie. and Rupert has a good point. AOTC is mostly eye-candy and a technical demonstration of the latest in digital filmmaking. on the other hand, digital can be used to make otherwise impossible shots possible and make for better storytelling and such. I would have loved to see the prequels without one digital shot, I think that with that limitation the prequels would be 1000x better than what they are now because LUcas would have to be creative in his directing and rely more on people than computers.

 

No doubt that I'm in the minority here but I don't necessarily think that TPM was really screwed out of anything. I just think that the crew on The Matrix did an incredible job in doing something in visual effects that had simply not been done before and was completely different, much the same way that ILM did back in '76/77. I think that innovation went a long way in deciding a close contest. As for AOTC, I think that Two Towers will be its closest contender.

 

That "bullet-time" was done in a gap commercial before it was seen in the Matrix.