To those who think AOTC was just made with CGI.....

Bluescreen acting really is like stageacting. I never thought of it like this before.

Christopher Lee actually said something to this effect.



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

It cracks me up when people complain about looking at things in movies that are fake.

Yeah, did you really think a ship was sinking in TITANTIC?

Did you really think Charleton Heston parted the Red Sea in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS? (When the sea parts, the water was actually walls of jello with fans aimed at it.)

People watch totally fake stuff all the time. Have you seen SHREK 1 and 2, THE INCREDIBLES, FINDING NEMO
and MONSTERS INC? Those are just a few examples of computer generated imagery that people found perfectly entertaining. I never heard anyone complaining about too much CGI in those!

The funniest stuff is people complaining about actors struggling with bluescreen and CGI. People are such sheep! That's an internet myth.

There's nothing funnier to me than someone who's made a life decision to make a living pretending to be a fictitious character complaining about acting within a fake environment for the camera!

 

Some CGI looks really fake while others look real. A good actor can work against anything if he has an imagination. Lets go home. I'll drive.

 

And was there anything apart from maybe the floating pear, Anakin on the Shaak, C-3PO and Jango in the Droid Factory that looked bad? IMO, EVERYTHING else breathtaking and better than we had ever seen before in CGI.

 

"EVERYTHING else breathtaking and better than we had ever seen before in CGI."

You may want to scratch that "WE" part. AOTC does not contain the most breathtaking CGI I have ever seen. If I think about it, the CGI in AOTC would be down the list. Not because its that bad, but because its mostly stationary ( buildings landscapes ) and the effects are never used to convey a spectacular event. George Lucas is the GodFather of effects, there should be way more going on than videogame backgrounds. I would have thought it inconceivable that I could be floored by effects outside of the NEW STAR WARS films. It has been conceived.

Im not part of the "too much CGI" crowd though. If it looks good, do it. If it looks SCI-FI Channel grade, release it straight to DVD. Its never nessessarily too much, ( although Lucas would CGI air ) its mostly in the quality of the CGI item that presents problems.

 

If it looks good, do it. If it looks SCI-FI Channel grade, release it straight to DVD. Its never nessessarily too much, ( although Lucas would CGI air ) its mostly in the quality of the CGI item that presents problems

I agree 100%. Sometimes, a viewer can tolerate a mediocre effect shot, if it fullfills its purpose. I know I do. Most scenes in AOTC look great and I have no doubt that ROTS will look even greater. I never doubt the quality of the images that we get from SW, I'm more critical towards the story, but we discussing the FX here.

There are some scenes that look great:IMO, Anakin riding the speeder, searching for his mother in Tattoine, looks FANTASTIC! Mace, Obi-Wan and Yoda walking and talking in the Jedi Temple corridor, well, sorry, but.... If you pay attention, no movie with SFX has every shot perfect. It's just what NeoBaggins wrote: From Lucas, the GodFather of FX, I personally expect EVERY shot to be perfect. Still, so far Lucas has a 90% success on this. And I was happy as I saw in this thread that ILM is still using models combined with CGI, I believe that's the most effective method to do FX today. And I saw a documentary for ROTS, called "We Still Do A Little Bit", where they shown that some 'old school' techniques will be used.

Okay, then let us know how it can't be compared?

I may be late, and my argument not so good, but I have a lesson at the University called "Theatrical Arts and Moviemaking". Yesterday, we watched a theatrical play, played by a single actress, sitting on a chair, having a monologue... Sure, it's a theatrical form, but Star Wars isn't experimental minimalistic post-modern theatre! Of course, an actor is paid to do what the director wants, but IMO, the actor benefits more if interacting with another actor or in a very believable setting. I'm not saying that Ewan and Hayden should go next to a volcano and have a duel! (Well, on a second thought...)

 

Well, AOTC did come up with digital battle zoom-ins and all CGI Clones. Also, it is silly to compare AOTC effects to other movies due to the quantities. AOTC had more than 2000 effect shots (still the heighest amount in a real shot movie, right?) so it will include a couple of not as great shots. Then compare it to another movie with less overall effects who also has non-perfect CGI scenes- adding up would probably mean AOTC has less bad CGI shots than any other movie using CGI.

 

You have to give ILM unbelieveable credit just for the sheer number of effects they've done for three films. We're talking, by the time they finish Revenge, over 6500 effect shots. That'll never be surpassed again! Yes, some shots aren't as great but out of 4 hours plus of film spread across two films, ILM has dropped the ball maybe 10 times total. Add to that that their budget for effects isn't as high as people think or isn't as high as the other franchises that deal heavily in effects shots.

I can forgive bad effect shots simply because I know they're working at an insane pace with an insane amount of shots yet their shots so far in this Prequel Trilogy have been some the best images I've ever seen on film.

And we're just talking the Star Wars Prequels!

Attack of the Clones' effects shots were a step up from The Phantom Menace. I'm sure Revenge of the Sith's shots will be a leap forward. They've had 8 years to learn and this is the last hoorah. It'll be awe-inspiring.

And I still love the fact that they're still using models even moreso than people think. GL is using every tool available to him. It just seems that the Visual Effects get the most credit or critism in the Prequels. Really unfair if you ask me.

 

thanks for the cool pics. i had not seen those models before!

on the topic of the CGI. I thought it was really pretty impressive in AOTC. The only parts I have a problem believing is the C3PO in the droid factory and some of the close-ups of the clone troops. (just don't look quite right to me?) Everything else was cool. I really did not even think twice about Yoda or Dexter or the Kamino aliens.

 

My biggest complaint about CGI would have to be when it's used when a much better alternative could be used. Yes, I know special effects are not supposed to look completely real, but the goal is to make something that's at least realistic and believable, right?

When it comes to things like creatures, CGI tends to cartoonify things for me. Take the Gungans for instance... I honestly think had they been guys in rubber suits, you'd get much more realistic, believeable characters. Considering how expressive Jar Jar's face is, it would have giving the effects crew a great chance to further develop animatronics.

The same could be said for Yoda. The CGI Yoda was not believeable to me. I would have prefferred that the character had remained a puppet... and, while I don't want to get into an argument about THIS, but you may say, "How could Yoda have had a lightsaber dual if he were a puppet?" I'd say Yoda was a lot cooler when we left his fighting to our imagination.

Anyway, as for the clone troopers, they too would have been much more believeable were they actual people wearing armour.

I'm not saying CGI, when used in live action movies, is bad. But, I think at this point in time, to acheive certain effects, there are alternatives to CGI that would create a more realistic, more believeable result.

 

You have to give ILM unbelieveable credit just for the sheer number of effects they've done for three films.

It is hard not to admire numbers like that - at least, the people who have to produce numbers like that. But, I think that is what creates the problem. Too many shots to do that few are done spectacular, most are just average and some are outright bad.

The Shaak scene is terrible, as well as riding the bull thing. On par with the Rancor, perhaps the worst of all OT effects - one that still annoys me after thirty years. AOTC is full of bad CGI. And full of great CGI. It is just full of it. The model and set work mentioned, such as the industrial hangar, is some of the best shots in the movie. But even the model shots are interlaced with CGI. Yet, the factory sequence is a CGI nightmare.

And as noted, many of the shots are just still backgrounds. The chase through Coruscant is excellent FX work until they get down to the streets of Surburbia Clean 2010. Geonosis has excellent effects, but bad editing - and the Clones never really set well for me. For that matter, neither did the CGI troopers added to the Originals.

I'd be much happier to see bigger sets and more location shooting. And that is one of the real reasons I find TPM a much better film than it's prequel counterpart. Everything was used sparingly and FX were balanced. Some CGI. Some model. Some sets. Some location. AOTC just 'seems' to overflow from it.