PT Practical Effects in the Prequels- Sets, Pictures, Models, etc.

Just want it to be known that Ewan hung from an actual, physical assassin droid, and not from a blue screen rig.

 

Some reason that other pic ^ didn't work!

 

Nothing really new but the beginning is pretty funny:

 

Ehh, Plinkett. >_o

 

If you showed most people this shot nowadays and asked them if it's "All-CGI" I think they would say yes.



Of course they would be wrong.



Even the ship is a model.



Transition from practical model and miniature shot to final film shot.



How is much of this shot created simply with the miniature?



Like this by blending all the different shots with old fashioned motion control















Then you add in other elements.

Quite.

"The human eye can detect fakeness really well" He says over shots of bluescreen from the PT on his own video but this one uses his own arguments against him on the OT.

He doesn't at all get it does he? He doesn't understand that the human eye isn't as great as picking out "fakeness" when the fakeness is done really well as it was in the OT and then taken to another level with the PT.

What he really means is that he likes the "real" fake of the OT but thinks the PT's fake is "fake"

One can only assume he will do the same for the ST since it will be fake as well. I guess he's hoping the fakeness meets his approval.

LOL!

 

Thanks for posting that image of Ewan, Delta Scepter.

 

Oh yeah, Plinkett's reviews are very "intelligent" and "insightful"!

 

Yes now we know how "terrible" all the films really are!

ROFL!

 

Wonderful pictures and thread!

 

Some of these like the small pic of the jedi are deleted scenes!

 

Here is a link for a video about more Plinkett ignorance. I put it here because I know people that post on this thread will appreciate it.

 

^
I'm honered man, thank you!
That video was the 2nd video** i made being inspired by this thread and all the wonderful contributions of pictures in here!!! I'm trully honored if someone feels this is even partially worthy of even being here!
**(first was that other ''Plinkett's ignorance'' which was more focused on this subject of visual effects).
But this one took more than 5 times the time (about 30 hours) & contains 10 times as much ''elements'' (audio,video,pictures all edited,re-edited,converted,than edited again...ughhh...) than the first one...and also suffering through 3 complete Plinkett-reviews (LOL) in order to make.......after which i have new (pro)found respect for all these guys sitting for endless hours in front of screens compositing all the various models/miniatures/digital paintings/live action footage of people and/or locations/cg-enhancing everything that give us breathtaking results like ones posted before...
I can't even imagine how many hours this took to make...big quadriple digits easily come to mind...

(and i also understand why Lucas re-visits everything...lol. I can see many flaws in my video that i didn't see while making it, like ex.too fast editing & i should have used video for the Emperor/Vader scenes-but that was done last and my head was exploding even only at the though of 5 hours of more editing/converting of video/sound/etc.,LOL)

I spotted this mistake in ROTJ yesterday...
Jump to 2:10 in the video and watch the last 4 pairs of TIEs appear out of nowhere...i can't see anything even remotely similar in PT space battles...

Even though this is the enhanced DVD edition & the ''shaking'' of the models has been corrected almost 98%, i think the black outlines around each model
(the - admitedly AWESOME - shots of the D7s in StarTrek I are one of the best examples for that...the black outlines are huge in those shots), especially when composited in front of a larger model, their ''flickering'' etc. etc. are still very obvious to us who grew up in the 80s...and while the effects were cutting edge for the times and no disrespect is intended (not by along shot)...saying that they look better than currect ones is ,imo, just a bare faced lie...simple as that...

 

I recall a ROTJ special effects tv show from the 80s mentioning how some tie's that were suppose to disappear behind the MF but instead fly over it - out of scale (in the scene immediately after the one you note). It may have been fixed in the SE, im not sure. It looks like it's still in there, but it happens so fast.

 

I almost gave my self epilepsy re-watching that 1sec scene 40 times in a row, lol, but couldn't see something obviously wrong.
Weren't the TIEs going through the MF in the un-enhanced editions?

 

17 Pages of pure awesomeness!

 

I always knew the notion that the Prequels were all CGI was BS. All three of the films have extensive credits for a small army of set builders, designers, decorators, carpenters, plasterers and so on. So according to marvels of intellect like the Red Letter Moron, George Lucas hired all these people to stand around and do NOTHING! Who knew Lucasfilm was a make-work jobs program?

Something else I noticed in the credits: The cast and/or crew shot exteriors on location in California, England, Tunisia, Italy, Australia, China and Spain. Now why would they do all of that if everything was shot in a studio? Am I supposed to believe that not only did George Lucas hire a bunch of people to do no work, but he sent them all over the globe to not do it?

 

This really is a very impressive thread!! Great sticky!

 

The Invisible Hand bridge set is amazing! It makes me wish they could make a Star Wars studio tour, like the Harry Potter one.

Is C-3PO in episode 1 an actor or some kind o puppet? Because he always looked too thin to be an actor to me.

 

was Anakin initially supposed to be in the arrest scene?

 

Not sure..

 

He was in the version of the film as completed before it was changed.

Full article here:

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/theturn.html

The following is a summation of Anakin's turn as originally written and filmed: Palpatine reveals his true identity to Anakin, telling him that the Jedi are planning to take over the Republic and to accept the Sith and the darkside. Anakin is conflicted but distrusts the Jedi--his mind is being influenced by the darkside already and he chooses to stay with Palpatine, essentially accepting the Sith in this scene. Mace and the Jedi then enter Palpatine's office--with Anakin present beside Palpatine. Mace tells Anakin to get behind him but Anakin remains where he is. When the Jedi ignite their lightsabers to arrest him, Palpatine uses the Force to retrieve Anakin's lightsaber and the fight begins. Anakin watches as his two mentors fight, and as Palpatine is disarmed he unleashes the Force-lightning. Mace and Palpatine struggle, and Palpatine's face is drained of his visage in the effort to sustain the lightning. Finally, as the two masters remain locked in a standstill, Anakin cuts off Mace's hand, and Palpatine fries him and sends him out the window. Anakin collapses in disbelief that the Jedi were indeed attempting to take over the Republic, and Sidious knights him, telling him to go kill the rest of the Jedi before they retaliate.

This is what appeared in the film when a rough cut was assembled in 2004. Seeking to gauge the film, Lucas showed this cut to a number of people, most of whom expressed some concern or confusion over Anakin's motivation for giving in to the darkside. "Some people were having a hard time with the reason Anakin goes bad," Lucas says. "Somebody asked whether somebody could kill Anakin's best friend, so that he gets really angry. They wanted a real betrayal, such as 'you tried to kill me now I'm going to kill you.' They didn't understand that Anakin is simply greedy. There is no revenge. The revenge of the Sith is Palpatine." (vii) Arguably, Lucas hadn't clearly developed this element of Anakin's pyschology. However, while Lucas did not initially instigate as drastic changes as some suggested, he would soon change his mind from his first instinct, which was to leave the film as is. While editing the film down further, Lucas began to realise that the through-line of the picture was Anakin, and that any scene not directly related to him be exercised. The removal of these superfluous scenes unexpectedly began to shift emphasis towards the character's obsession for Padme, which Lucas then began to actively re-structure the film around, because, as he says, it seemed "poetic." Anakin would go to the darkside to save Padme, with his attempts to prevent her death ultimately killing her, in the vein of Macbeth.

A puppet in essence with the performer painted out afterwards.



TPM not done by AD though:


AOTC AD did the puppet on location this time but then they changed it to him in the suit.

There was a whole scene where Padme gives him his coverings but on reflection I guess GL thought that a droid working in the desert with no covers for 10 years was a bit of a stretch not to mention neglectful on Shmi's part.

 

The Trade Federation Battle ship is amazing! It's so detailed! Much better than the Death Star close up models is ANH.