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

Agreed.

 

Well, that's not going to happen so go ahead and keep spitting in the wind.

 

First of all, I have to ask, did you not read the whole article? Because the author gives other examples of "shade" that are being thrown at the Prequels in order to get people who didn't like the Prequels to be interested in the ST. I only posted the part about the effects because this is the Practical Effects in the Prequels thread. He also discusses that they've only been releasing OT figures; J.J. "joking" about putting Jar Jar's bones in the movie; new books, comics and TV series focusing on the OT era, and other things. He builds a solid case that the way they're promoting these new movies is directly targeted at the Star Wars fan who hates the Prequels.

Secondly, JJ and KK were at *CELEBRATION*, talking to *STAR WARS FANS*, and making comments like "we are using practical effects and real sets" [CROWDS CHEER WILDLY], and "Star Wars is a Western" [CROWDS CHEER WILDLY], and wheeling out a practical BB8 that doesn't have nearly the range of motion of the CG BB8 that was in the first teaser trailer and therefore probably won't be in the movie as much as those screaming people in the arena thought. The Vanity Fair article says that they threw out George Lucas' script because the main characters were teenagers and they felt that it was too close to The Phantom Menace and they wanted to avoid that. This was after George Lucas had already told Stephen Colbert a couple weeks prior at the Tribeca Film Festival that the story he wrote had the characters in their 20s so it wasn't Phantom Menace all over again.

Almost everything they say publicly about these films is about distancing themselves from the Prequels without out-and-out bashing them. Their talking points are clearly meant to draw in the Prequel haters. They know that the fans of all 6 films will see the ST. They want to make sure the people who were soured by the Prequels will still go. This rhetoric is going to hurt them in the long run. Especially since they know, and the Vanity Fair article even shows, that they're are going to be using a TON of CG in this film.

Regarding, specifically, that "saying your film has real sets and practical effects is about today's films as much as anything PT", that's nonsense. Disney owns Lucasfilm and their most recent movie Avengers: Age of Ultron has 3000+ visual effects shots while the Prequel films only had roughly 2000 each and they are boasting about this fact. Yet for Star Wars, the producers make sure to mention all the "real sets" and "real props" and "real makeup" and "practical effects" they are using. What's good for the goose is apparently not good for the gander.

No, they are not talking about "today's film". They are talking specifically about Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

 

The hypocrisy of people bashing CGI while oohing and awwing at certain popular movies for having it has been a peeve of mine for quite some time. It is all misdirected frustrations with the prequels. I'm surprised to see this stuff coming from the filmmakers, and it's disrespectful to the people--some of whom are working on this new movie--who built sets and props and practical effects for the prequels. I know the aversion to The Force Awakens having modern CGI effects is going to unfairly dominate a lot of the anyone-is-a-critic-with-a-voice publicity come December. I'm looking at a picture at Box Office Mojo from the Avengers movie of the Hulk with robots on him and it looks like a cartoon.
Where did this term "throwing shade" come from? It's as bad as the mainstreaming and media usage of the term "diss/dissed" twenty years ago.

 

No idea. I'd like to know this myself.

 

It is a damn shame what the movie industry has resorted to these days! I mean now it seems that filmmakers and movie and company execs' have to now resort to "toddler coddling" tactics to promote their films. Because it seems that Disney and Lucasfilms are just too busy changing the soggy diapers of all the man-children that were scorned over the PT! Seriously? That they have to pamper these clowns and then blow smoke up their rear ends so they won't feel scorned by these new films. This behavior by both filmmakers and film viewers is beyond disgusting! I mean when I was young and watching the OT, all that mattered to me was how great the whole thing was. Not just how it was made. Or what measures went into designing it. It was pure spectacle. And that feeling has stayed with me till this very day, even as I write this.

Now we live in a day where everything in entertainment has to be put under a microscope and analyzed just to see if there is any enjoyment within the very thing meant to entertain. This "practical effects" phenomenon will be pushed into more and more future movies to please all the whining clowns that have made this very phenomenon by doing just that, WHINING!

 

Eh, well said
man-children, or frustrated clients... I really find it's a customer attitude, that's interesting in a way because Star Wars obviously has a big commercial aspect and each trilogies redefined these big budget blockbusters thing, but I still believe its lasting effect is rather almost entirely due to its cultural value, and over time these pathetically down-to-earth concerns, regarding the "realism" of fantasy movies, about how it's made, will certainly be irrelevant.

On the same topic, I actually follow the Jurassic World promo and obviously, most of the dinos are CG, but honestly if you indeed put aside this technocratic term in your mind (it's really getting moronic: cg blah cgi blah blah), there is a great spectacle that is shaping up (and hopefully, a thematic quality too.... because these vfx discussions really are a loss of energy when there are meaningful themes to discuss, like in SW).

But the most ridiculous is, folks know there will be a few animatronics, and it happens that a a handful of shots from the previews stand out as particularly realistic to the point my trained eyes can't be 100% sure if it's cgi.... and here's the thing: I read people commenting: "that shot is fantastic, I HOPE it's an animatronic".......... isn't it ridiculous? So you get a perfectly right shot but to approve it you first have to be confirmed it's "reaaaaaaal"?

I also feel the CG whining mostly happens for sequels of films that were released 10 or more years before: Jurassic, SW, the Hobbit... the whiners problem is that it's not exactly like the previous movies.
The Hobbit is a particular example, because while these movies undoubtedly have more cg than LOTR, the first films were already filled with a hell of a lot of cg (unlike the OT of course and a lot, lot more than JP), and from what I see online, what shows the really bad faith is that every-single-shot becomes awful.... not just a few specifics like "this building could have been a fine, big miniature", really, any shot is now declared unacceptable.

I think you're absolutely right when you remind that it used to be about "how great the whole thing is", and I think it's still the case for a lot of us here on this thread.
Also, I recall back in the 90"s my brother and I were laughing at the fact that all creatures in Jabba's palace look so ridiculously like obvious puppets, and we loved it. Then, to take one example, when AOTC came out I thought the 3 arena monsters were really (deliciously) grotesque, and the cgi look does play its part in this, just as the puppet did. So my point is that as far as I remember Star Wars has always been partly about those things that are ridiculous yet appealing for this very reason, it's not a question of realism, in both cases it's aesthetics no matter the technic used.

 

Yeah you make some really great points. That was one of my points was just getting immersed in the story of the films I watched. Even when I got older and saw the PT in theatres, it was the story that was the most thrilling aspect that drew me into it. The visuals and music were also aspects as well. But it was just that, the story, music and visuals. Not how they were made. I am surprised no one has started jumping on the practical effects train against avengers yet? It seems that CGI is OK with just about anything else, even when used in complete and blatant excess. But with the SW films need to be held to this ridiculous standard set by whiny fans that think the movie series was made solely for them.

All Disney and Lucasfilms are doing now is just coddling the man-babies by telling them, don't cry. The scary George Lucas boogey man and his CGI demons won't harm you no more. Man-baby want his wittle bottle and blankey now?

 

I've just come across those videos about the behind the scenes of the prequels. We have many pictures of the sets and models used during the making of Episode II. These are very interesting videos!

By the way, for those who believes that the prequels were 100% CGI, George Lucas mentioned this himself during the making of Episode II (at the very beginning of the first video): "It takes longer at this point in time for them to build and finish a CG model than it does for them to just build one".

 

What an awesome thread

 

The Jigsaw Puzzle one has been posted before but the Reel 6 one hasn't. Brand new to me. Thanks for posting! ^_^

 

They shouldn't be too sure about that, though.
Right now, my desire to see TFA is at about 5%. Up until now, they've made it blantantly obvious that they're either not at all interested in me as a viewer or think I'm too stupidly loyal that I would not put off by their lowbrow bad style marketing approach.

We'll see.

 

I am of the same opinion as you though I am weak and know I'll see it. I probably won't wait in line for this one though. Somebody else can do that for me since I've been waiting in line for friends for all the other movies that we've seen on premiere nights together. They can pay me back by waiting in line for me for this one.

 

grow up people.

 

George doesn't exactly help things-

The recent issue of Wired about ILM's 40 year history:

GEORGE: By the third prequel, almost all of the environments and everything were all done on the computer.



George, the ILM model shop had the largest crew in its history for ROTS. They were creating whole environments by that show, Kashyyyk, Utapau sinkhole, Polis Massa, Mustafar, etc.
It's just ridiculous when the main creator buys into the false narrative.

 

Sometimes, I get the feeling that a lot of these movie sagas, television shows etc. creators, have a tendency to contradict themselves in interviews.

 

By the way, here is ILM's 40-year retrospective:

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/inside-ilm/

It's a terrific read. Look at this iconic cover:



From L to R: George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson, Michael Bay, Ron Howard, Guillermo Del Toro, Lynwen Brennan, Gore Verbinski, Colin Trevorrow, Duncan Jones, and a lot of ILM's creations.

 

but we know what he means and the practical parts they did use.

 

Well from a certain point of view they were. Obviously everything was digitally composited after capturing all the raw materials.

George has made it clear for a long time he loves screwing with people's heads and he isn't any different now. If they simply take him at his word without looking into it then he figures they don't deserve to know anything more.

Part of it is movie people talk in short-hand and say CG or CGI to cover a multitude of things. JJ on his commentaries keeps saying "That isn't real."

He's not buying he's selling. Just as Lucasfilm from JJ, KK Kasdan and Iger are selling a false narrative about TFA.

 

Yes, we know. But, that's not the larger readership of the Wired or any publication. All it does is push the false narrative of "it's all done on the computer". He undercuts the whole argument with that one quote. It's going to be read by people who buy into that narrative as further confirmation of its legitimacy.


Qui-Riv-Brid that's a huge stretch. Digital compositing is not the same as "almost all of the environments and everything were all done on the computer" any more than when they composited models optically. They didn't say "all of the vfx were all created entirely on the optical printer."

And stop taking this damn thread off topic! If you have issues with JJ, take it to the 7SA forum! You've already spammed half this damn thread over the last several days with your anti-JJ/anti-JJ screed.

 

I'm not saying it'd be nice but it's just as likely he playing along with Lucasfilm. Do the WIRED reporters actually bother to point out the reality of the situation or are they just accepting everything anyone says at face value?

I don't know how talking about VFX on a VFX thread is off-topic and I don't have any idea why you think I'm in any way, shape or form anti-JJ.

Not in the least.

I'm talking about the public comments and stance that Lucasfilm has decided to take. How that is anti-anyone I have no idea.

 

Do you purposefully enjoy taking threads off-topic? You do it here and I've watched you do it in 7SA too.

 

Uh, I'm pretty sure people probably did say something close to that, depending on the context of what was being talked about. In this case, there's absolutely nothing inaccurate about what Lucas is saying. He's talking about how the digital revolution changed the way movies were made, and one of those ways is the fact that pretty much everything is now done on a computer. Even practical sets and models are run through the computer and modified, because they basically have to be. It's not the same thing as saying, "All of it was CGI." That would be a wildly inaccurate statement. And Lucas would obviously know that, which is why he didn't say that.

I don't think Lucas is all that concerned about the dumb anti-prequel narrative that certain people are still peddling. He was just giving a quote about the state of the industry at the time of Episode III. Why would he care about being political, so long as what he was saying was accurate (which it was)?

 

Accurate would be to say most of the environments. He didn't say that. He said almost all or nearly all. That is inaccurate.

And no, they did not say back in the optical days that most of the environments were created on the optical printer. That is inaccurate. The elements were put together or composited there. But everyone still said the vfx were created using models/miniatures etc.