Jar-Jar and Gollum

"They did a poor, poor job with CG:ing Qui-Gon. It took me out of the film experience completely!"
Where was QG CG? I never noticed. Just like I never noticed the CG OB 1 in AOTC until I watched the doco n the DVD.

The thing that made Gollum more real than JJ for me was the facial expressions and the voice. The little looks he gave were exactly how people use there faces when they are angry or scared or in pain.

It isn't how real the character looks it is how real they feel and Gollum feels more real.

 

Yeah, where in the hell is Qui-Gon CG in TPM?

 

It´s common knowledge that Qui-Gon was all CG in TPM. Liam Neeson had a car accident and couldn´t be in the film, so they had him do a couple of reference shots and then they CG:d him in there.

 

LOL!

 

Seriously though, where is Qui-Gon CG in TPM?

 

Hello.....anybody out there?

 

There are a couple of stunt-type moments in which Qui-Gon is CG. The two that come to my mind right now are his leap in the droid control ship out of the air vent, and his leap of the ledge after he knocked Darth Maul to the ledge below.






Mace Windy,
new year, same level of windiness!

 

I can't believe that only one person here has mentioned the clonetroopers, because they looked amazing! There are still people I know who don't believe me when I tell them that there were no clonetroopers. That it's all done in the computer and they didn't have any on the set, anywehere. And not just the action shots, but the shots of them doing relatively normal things like talking to Yoda and such. Now THAT is an accomplishment, IMO.

I just went and saw TTT again last night, and while I still thought it was a great movie, and Gollum was very well-done indeed, there are still quite a few flaws there. Like the whole lighting thing. Yes, they did take a lot of shortcuts with the situations they put him in. The lighting scheme they used really does make it easier to blend the flaws in the animation into the background. And the first shot of Gollum, where we see him crawling down the wall towards the Hobbits? How can anyone say that doesn't look like a cartoon?!? I was expecting any minute that he would turn to the camera, put his finger on his lips to shush the audience, and pull a big sign out of his loincloth that read "Be vewy, vewy quiet - I'm hunting Hobbits!"

Yes, his facial features were extremely impressive. The echange between Smeagol and Gollum was truly a highlight of the film. But it seems to me, judging by the rest of the film, that the film makers spent most of their budegt on Gollum's facial features. Treebeard looks fantastic in close-ups as well, but as soon as they pull back for a long shot the realism is gone. And the compositing of Treebeard, Merry and Pippin and the background looks similar to work that was done in the early eighties! In AOTC the only scene I can remember looking horrible was Anakin on Naboo riding the beast in the meadow. (I can't remember what it's called at the moment.) Okay, a few of the scenes in the arena with the Nexxu and the Reek looked a little cartoonish as well. But not any worse than the Wargs.

But with Jar Jar vs. Gollum, a lot of people are confusing the technical aspects of the characters with the characters themselves. Some people who can no longer find the child inside them simply hate Jar Jar. While a few of those people will admit that he is still a technical marvel, even though they don't like him, most cannot seperate the two so they say Jar Jar is an unconvincing CGI character because they don't like him. If you don't like the cahracter of Jar Jar, just say so. But to say he isn't a technical masterpiece is simply ludicrous.

Besides, if there was no Jar Jar, there would be no cool-looking Gollum.

 

All I'll say is that there have been two PT films, and Watto has "outacted" Anakin in both of them... with FAR less screen time I might add!

 

Is it me or does Gollum look a little like Steve Buscemi?
[image=http://www.serkis.com/images/9989.jpg] [image=http://mr-6144.v-mirror.spb.ru/actors/buscemi/buscemi1.jpg]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Taun-we. Her close-up shot was very well done.

[image=http://www.sgtfretsurfer.com/Grilled-Sarlacc/c/taunwe/taunwebg.jpg]

Taun-we, like Gollum, has a grey complexion. I wonder if it is inherently easier to create the illusion of realism with grey CGI characters?

To me, Gollum is currently the most well made CGI character. For the most part, his complexion is photo-realistic, his movements are fluid, and his interaction with the actors appeared to be seamless.

Gollum doesn't take away from ILM accomplishments. The PT characters share many of the aforementioned qualities. In general, I think Rob Coleman & co have been semi-handicapped by the fact that their characters are creatures and not humanoid.

Lets see if ILM rises to the challenge in Episode III. (I'm sure they will.)

 

The difference between Gollum and JJ I think is that for Gollum an incredible amount of effort by the actor Andy Serkis[sp??!!] was put into his scenes, since Gollum was really him with a supper-tight suit on[later re-done of coure] I thought Gollum looked so real becasue all his scenes were EXACTLY mimicing Andy's moves, as were his facial expressions. Awesome job PJ!

 

Gushers (sorry Jedi_Monkey) will always claim AOTC has better CGI than TTT, and vice versa.

Real clonetroopers? I bet these people are the same that thought Padme wasn't the queen...

Btw, the closeups of Treebeard were animatronic.

 

"Btw, the closeups of Treebeard were animatronic. "

Except for the face - that was rendered over with CG. It turned out to be a practical impossibility to get such a complex face to move well with practical/mechanical work, and get the "acting" range they wanted. (See the Cinefex TTT issue)

But they did animate the face (and the rest of his body in full shots) in a special way to get that animatronic/stop-motion feel, as they thought it would fit a wooden creature.

BTW - fun fact: They rendered a force of 600 ents for the assault on Isengard.

 

I wonder, how many characters in episode 3 are going to be digital, i mean, there were a few in episode 1, then more than a few in episode 2, are there going to be googles of digital characters in episode 3?

If so, it probably won't be really good.

Don't get me wrong, I like digital characters, but there shouldn't be so many in one movie. AOTC was just on the border of making me mad with all the digital characters.

 

As muh as I loved TTT and LOTR in general I thought that the backgrounds in the Treebeard scenes looked like something out of CHIPs. But for the most part it didn't detract too much from the story. They did move my favorite scene though. I always loved Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli's arrival at Isengard. I hope they have time for it in ROTK but I thin that it may be one of those things that have to be omitted due to time ontraints.

I feel that it's intereating that people complaining about the way Gollum looks in direct light because in the book you would have neve seen him in direct light. Gollum's years spent under the Misty Moutains had made him extremely scared of direct light to the point he didn't even like travelling by full moon IIRC.

 

People complain that WETA "cheated" by only showing Gollum in the dark --- But we did see Gollum quite a bit during day-time, though. In fact, I think the majority of his scenes were in daytime. (In the marshes, at the black gate, in ithilien, at the end)

 

Night? Day? It doesn't matter if you're actually telling a story.

A special effect shouldn't be noticed.

 

The majority of Gollums scenes were during the day.

 

The thing about Gollum is that he interacts with the other characters. He's in a 3-way brawl! Give those guys some credit! The entire goal of CGI is to be so good that it's not noticable. There were some parts that Gollum could have used some more work, but at times he looked like he was really there, interacting with the characters.

Look at Star Wars now. There's absolutely no interaction between a digital character and a live character. In AOTC, there's a few shots were Anakin hops onto an animal, but those are laughably bad shots that I could have thrown together here on my Inspiron 8200. Even when Jar Jar is talking to other characters, it seems as though the actors are looking through him, not at him.

TPM was pretty good in terms of CGI, but AOTC waaay overdid it, scene after scene looks fake. I say that LOTR is infinitely better in terms of visual effects simply because they don't cram every single shot with extraneous, distracting CGI.

A Jar Jar/Gollum comparison isn't even a question. Not only does Gollum look better and live in the world better than Jar Jar, but his character actually has a reason to exist and has much better lines.

 

LOL

 

.......Not only does Gollum look better and live in the world better than Jar Jar, but his character actually has a reason to exist and has much better lines...........

I totally agree there Levi.

I felt pity for Gollum, and even concern for him during a couple scenes. Which is more than I can say for Jar Jar, whose purpose was....what? If he was for comic relief he sure didnt make me laugh. And if he was to symbolize tolerance I acutally hate him even more now.

 

Look at Star Wars now. There's absolutely no interaction between a digital character and a live character.

Did you watch the same movies I did? Jar Jar did not ineract with Kenobi and Qui-Gon? He was talking with them and looking at them. Qui-Gon was holding on to him when they first meet. Qui-Gon grabbing Jar Jar's tongue? How about Dexter hugging Kenobi? I can see if you do not like the PT but come on. They have some great effects. Digital characters were awesome. Yoda was the best. He looked more real then the puppet. And pleasse would everyone look at the Beginning documentary. Ahmed best was there for interaction and he also was in a articulation suite. Serkis was there for reference as well. And then later in the articulation suit. The effects were done the same. Qui-Gon touched Jar Jar's Shoulder in the Gungan water speeder to calm him down. I have seen movies where the cgi character was done striaght from CG and no one there for reference. Just some dots hanging there. And you can tell that but looking at the interaction. Those were the worst. Lucas and PJ took it a step further and actually had the actors there who were playing those parts.

 

Not only does Gollum look better and live in the world better than Jar Jar, but his character actually has a reason to exist and has much better lines

The only line I remember is "My precious". Some of the time it was even hard to understand what he was saying. As was Jar Jar.

And Jar Jar has a reason to exist. He brought the Gungans and Naboo together and He gave Palpatine emergency powers.

 

If he was for comic relief he sure didnt make me laugh

Well he sure made others laugh. The 4 times I saw TPM people were laughing. Just because you did not does not mean others did not.

 

Ekenobi, when I say interact, I mean touching. And not just a pat on the shoulder or a grab of the tongue, I mean some serious, physical touching.

Take a look at the scene where Anakin and Padme are in the field, and Anakin starts riding one of those hippo-thingies. It's fake to the point of hilarity. Look at the arena battle when Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan are riding the Triceratops-thingie. It is also laughably poorly done. When the live actors are talking to the CG characters in Star Wars, it just feels like a one-sided conversation, like they're looking the person.

In LOTR, when Gollum walks, he kicks up dirt. When's he's in the water, he makes splashes. When he grabs Frodo's arm, you can see the cloth on Frodo's cloak move. He even gets in a full-out brawl with 2 hobbits. The shots in LOTR are incredibly more intricate than the shots in SW, and you can tell that more work has gone into making Gollum look real.

And just to let you know, when Obi-Wan hugs Dex, all of Obi-Wan is computer generated except for Ewan's face.