PT The Prequel Trilogy and Historical Revisionism

Lucas was only interested in merchandise to fund the films and his companies. Not so he could waste it on hookers and blow. He's called the merchandising money seed money for ILM, THX, Skywalker Sound, Skywalker Ranch and Lucasfilm. That's where he is able to pay his employees and built up everything that he did. The initial budget for TESB came from that, and all of the budget for ROTJ as well.

 

You can try to direct this conversation with argumentation theory all you want, but if you're going to make statements like:

you'll probably need to address your point in a way that doesn't sound so empirical, because all it is is speculation on behalf of given evidence. Evidence which at this point can swing both ways.

 

Unfortunately, that is the proof. Disputing the proof with "these people cannot read his mind" does not discount the proof.

The things that have been said by those that worked closely with Lucas and the fact that a lot of strategic moves Lucas made from a storytelling perspective can be traced to toy sales. (ie. Ewoks originally being scary lizard creatures being turned into cuddly teddy bears)

 

That's not proof, that is you making an attributional error. You have the same information that everyone has but you misattribute something and claim it is true.

That Lucas got into the idea of toy sales early is true. That happened. But it is very illogical to make a leap from that to saying, without irony, that merchandising influenced every story decision Lucas made going forward.

I say you have made an attribution error because instead of thinking about the many possible factors that go into storytelling or filming, you have zeroed in on one specific thing and claimed that that is the only right conclusion to draw.

 

the fact is no one really knows what happened during the filming of any SW films except the people who were actually there. Of course that will never stop people from arguing about it for the next 15 years

 

Actually my original assertion was:

"When the actors and other prominent figures associated with the films acknowledge Lucas made decisions purely based on toys -- I think there is legitimacy to this."​

And no one would say that *every* story decision was influenced by the same thing. That's just a foolish premise. But, I would argue there is enough coincidental proof and statements to say that it did impact Lucas - and potentially impacted him significantly.
But as Darth Lobot stated - no one was there. So, all we have is hearsay and conjecture.
It's highly unlikely you'd ever hear Lucas go "MUAHAHAHAHA! I DID IT FOR THE TOYS!" so that argument is just irrelevant.

 

Couldn't be more true...

 

Going back to the main topic of this thread:

Myth: "The prequels were 100% CGI. Actors were always kept in studio in front of a blue screen and green screen. They should have relied more on "practical effects" and go to locations for filming. This would have allowed actors to better interact with their environments and give better performance".

Reality: For all the flack the prequel movies get, the use of CGI technology at the end of the 1990's and beginning of the 2000's was still very expensive and very time consuming. Miniatures, models, costumes and sets were still used for the making of the prequels. Another surprising fact is that more models and miniatures were used during the production of the prequels than in the originals as Fon Davis, one of the artists behind the prequels, said once.





Steve Gawley and Lorne Peterson, two artists behind the making of the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy, talk about the models and the practical effects used during the making of the prequels starting at 6:18 :


In order to create environments and planets that were unique, rather than going to real location or using matte paintings, models were built, photographed, and were undergoing some digital enhancements, if needed. Those models were then projected around the actors, who were firstly in the middle of a blue or green screen, during the post-production phase of the making of the movie. This process is a normal one which is being used in every film nowadays.

























Even if environments and planets were still created with models, the film-making crew and the actors still had to go to locations in order to create many scenes. The following locations used in the making of the prequels were: Tunisia for Tatooine, Palace of Caserta in Italy for Naboo's Palace, Whippendell Woods in the UK for Naboo's forest, Plaza de España in Seville in Spain for the City of Theed, and Villa del Balbianello in Italy for Naboo's lakeside. Film crew still went on other locations and took some pictures in order to use them and create the environments and planets by combining them with the models built such as: Phang Nga Bay and Guilin in China for Kashyyyk, Mount Etna for Mustafar, Grindelwald for Alderann.

You can check this list of the different locations used in each Star Wars movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_filming_locations

 

^^^ To continue my previous comment ^^^:


Real sets were built for the prequels in which the actors had (finally) something to interact with :













Practical effects, models and real scale vehicles for the action sequences of the movies were still used:

 

^^^ To continue my previous comment ^^^:

Of course I can see some people saying that since there were plenty of models and mostly miniature sets in the Prequel Trilogy, therefore the actors had "little to interact with" on set and couldn't give better performance.

In the Original Trilogy, they using more or less the same technics, actors had also "little to interact with" and also found themselves in front of blue screens. Proof that even if the acting in the originals could seem in some ways better than in the prequels, this has nothing to do with the fact that they have "nothing to interact with":























Carrie Fisher jokes about having to "act to nothing" so much that she has almost forgotten how to act on a normal set at 7:43, back on this interview from 1983, after Return of the Jedi.





Most movies today are using the same technics as the prequels: actors found themselves mostly in blue screen or green environments and have "nothing to interact with", but still, people never (or have little to) complain about their performances:

The Avengers:


The Hobbit:




The Wolf of Wall Street:




Star Trek Into Darkness:




Gravity:





You can check those links for further pictures and videos regarding the "practical effects" and CGI used in the prequels:

http://makingstarwars.net/2013/08/star-wars-episode-vii-cgi-versus-practical-effects/

http://makezine.com/2015/10/07/the-surprising-practical-effects-of-the-star-wars-prequels/

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...e-prequels-sets-pictures-models-etc.50017310/

 

I won't quote it, but that was a great post! My complaints as far as CGI in the prequels mostly stems from things that could easily have been practical. The clone troopers for one thing. A lot of the flips could have just been wire work too.

Those are all things I can live with though.

 

I'm not sure if it's really worth it, but I feel that this thread could be stickied by the moderators since there are some solid arguments in this one, especially Darth Nerdling's first post.

 

I do not enjoy the prequels, for the most part. Though an interesting point about the Phantom Menace has always struck me. It is the most decried by fandom as well as critics. However, as can be shown in this post, it used the most real scenery and costume and prop-design out of all of the prequels. It also had something like a real story with "good guys" we could root for.The Gungans were irritating and their appearance is extremely dated, yet at least they worked for the narrative. Yet, this film always averages less than Revenge of the Sith- which honestly, I don't get. Revenge of the Sith relies heavily on nostalgia and its supposed "darkness". However, I have to admit, Phantom Menace is a better film, and probably closer to what some might refer to as "Original Star Wars".

It's just a kind of paradox I have noticed. I don't want to hate on the prequels, even though they aren't my cup of tea.

 

This miniature looks amazing , but I'm not sure if a scene with that exact lighting was used?


The scene I remember the most looked blue and not good.



In anycase even if the miniature was used the idea is to film it as separate element with the actors composited in later.

The end effect is jarrring and looks 'fake' leading people to assume it was all CG. Same with the Kamino set.

Granted it was likely cheaper to do what they did (film a minature set and composite in the actors) than to build a real set with the actors.
and Lucas' penny pinching probably knocked down the effects quality of the prequels a little bit more than it should have.

Still can't believe they were done at about 100 mil a piece, even for 1999-2005 dollars, they were not expensive films.

 

It's called giving examples of the unpredictability and irrationality of people. There is no such thing as the one perfect snowflake. That is the point. You can't generalize about people. Everyone is different, and everyone is going to react or like or dislike things differently based on their own experiences.

Point being, there was never a time in the history of Star Wars fandom where in-which every fan agreed on anything. The idea that the democratization of the internet enabled the vast majority of fandom to speak in one voice is just not true. There has never been one voice.

bran

 

I feel I need to make a correction here, because the statement that ROTS had an 8.0+ score, and was in the Top 250 for the first couple of years is incorrect. The imdb webpages have been cached since about 2004:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060701000000*/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121766

What this reveals is, that ROTS imdb rating was 7.9 a month after it's release, where it would stay till November 2005, when the rating increased to 8.0, after which it appeared at the bottom of the Top 250. However, it had dropped out of the Top 250 by the second half of 2006, and it's rating decreased again to 7.9 by December 2006, when it had accumulated 100,000 votes. It would keep this rating until mid 2010, when it lowered further to 7.8, after which it slowly sunk to 7.7 two years later, where it would stay until the release of TFA, after which is dropped to a rating of 7.6.

The statement that TFA dropped from 9.5 to 8.5 is also incorrect. TFA had a score of 9.1 on the day of it's release:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151216115540/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2488496/

By the time TFA had accumulated 100,000 votes on the 20th of December, the rating was 8.8. So, in reality the drop was less severe than suggested by the OP. It appears there's a tendency to inflate ROTS reception, while deflating the reception for TFA, to make it appear ROTS and TFA had roughly the same audience reception after it's release. Since this is a thread about historical revisionism, I think we should stick to the facts.

 

Addendum:

So, ROTS has always struggled for a place at the bottom of the Top 250 within the first year after it's release, while TFA is still ranked #61 almost a month after it's release. So, although it is difficult to predict where TFA will end up in the long run, although a lower ranking seems likely, thusfar it's not a myth, but a reality that TFA had a far better initial reception than ROTS, both critically, and in terms of it's imdb ranking.

 

I honestly think this is the most accurate comparison possible, one that I have often thought about myself. It is a fact we've come to witness multiple times, when great artists have been ridiculed in life, but once they're gone, only then will people start to reflect on their work objectively. I believe it isn't until George passes (and becomes a Force Ghost ;D) that the hate will die down.

 

Myth: George Lucas had become a total control freak the late 1990s, refusing to collaborate with others and insisting on writing and directing the entire Prequel Trilogy himself.

Truth: Despite his success, George Lucas has long had mixed feelings about directing so many movies. Even before Star Wars, Lucas had thought for a time that American Graffiti (1973) would be his last movie. He didn't know if Star Wars would be that successful, so he made A New Hope as a standalone.

Lucas found directing on top of all of his other duties to be very stressful, which is why he didn't even direct the following Original Trilogy films.

Between A New Hope and The Phantom Menace, Lucas did not direct a single movie. He was credited as a an executive producer or producer on numerous movies, and he also collaborated with Steven Spielberg and others as a story writer on the Indiana Jones movies.

According to director Ron Howard, Lucas didn't even want to direct The Phantom Menace:

"He didn’t necessarily want to direct them, and he told me [Ron Howard] that he had talked to [Robert] Zemeckis, he talked to me, he talked to Steven Spielberg. I was the third one he spoke to. They had all said the same thing, ‘George, you should just do it!’..."Nobody wanted to follow that act, I don’t think, at that point. That was an honor, but it would’ve been just too daunting.”

So far from seizing total control of the Star Wars prequels, George Lucas actually approached at least three other prominent, big name directors about taking care of his baby for him.

 

Models and miniatures look (in my opinion) more convincing than using matte paintings, and hold up better.

In the OT, not everything used were sets, in most cases they used matte paintings. The actors were also in front of blue screens and then the matte paintings were added later in post-production:

 

I don't think the Jackson/Lucas comparison is a good one. People suspected Jackson of being a possible pedophile for a long time.... people might think Lucas is kind of weird, but that's about it

 

I'm well aware of that but they were few and far between and used for really expansive shots like that. I've been able to tell the Matte shots in the OT for ages, save for a few of the more cleverly done one.

The one with Obi-wan deactivating the shields in ANH looks particularly bad,

Also matte shots are usually used to 'fill in' parts of the scenery that would be too expensive to create for real. Few would argue that's bad use of CG. In fact, it's what people expect as many TV shows and movies you wouldn't think are effects heavy do it now too. Replacing the skyline to look like another city is common. The Zodiac CG to real-life real is amazing and shows the good things CGI can do.

But the actors are generally grounded in real sets and even real world locations.

The PT issue if almost every other shot including major setpieces like Geonosis was bluescreen/composite with the actors acting to nothing. So even using miniatures didnt help.

 

It seems that you didn't pay attention to my previous post in which I described that many other movie-makers were, and are actually, using the same technics (actors in front of blue or green screen composite) and "having to act to nothing". And these were in succesful movies or movies that are generally considered as good (The Avengers, Gravity, The Hobbit, etc...). And yet actors, or the general public, hasn't complained about it, or about the actors' performance. Many blockbusters nowadays are using much more CGI (and it also seems that they are using less and less miniatures and models) than during the production of the prequels at the beginning of the 2000's.

EDIT: Plus what tells you that the actors weren't grounded in real sets or in real ground after all those pictures I've posted? Did you really check my entire posts or just pick the only one in which I was talking about miniatures?

Check those bloopers of behind the scenes of the prequels in which the actors act most of the time on "real sets":

 

I saw it, but I mentioned things like Zodiac where most people didn't even realize all the CG scenes because they were done so well and for 90% of the movie, the actors have real things to act to, so when it cuts to a shot that has a lot of CG (that is also done well) it's not so jarring.

My problem with the PT, and this got progressively worse after TPM is so much of it I could point to as just actors infront of greenscreens.

For example, you had 1 hangar scene in ROTJ with Landa/Han sending each other off that is just a blue screen BG that they later composited a matte painting into. It looked back in the 90s when I watched the SE, but it was a short scene of a classic so it didn't detract. In the prequels there were several shots like that in ROTS alone with the principals just walking talking/expositing as they walk to a ship or exit a ship after landing when you can tell its almost 100% cgi backgrounds; it's just bad to do it that way. People can tell when the whole BG is fake.


Edit: To address your point about modern blockbusters, Avengers is a superhero film that rightfully looks cartoony and overly colorful. That's the aesthetic of the MCU, but I don't think many fans of SW expected that look in the PT back in the 00s.

The Hobbit films extended the look of the LOTR movies which had some bad CG of their own, but like the OT, the LOTR films had a lot of practical sets and people forgave the bad shots because the movies were really good. I don't want to get into the quality of the PT and what people thought of the acting as it would explode my post and this discussion, so focusing it only on effects. So yeah, you have a point. People did nit pick the PT because they didn't like the underlying films as much. You can get away with more if people like the films more. Whoddathunk.

Also the Hobbit prequelogy is a bad analogy. Those films are garbage and I would watch PT any day to those dreck.

 

It always amazes me that a lot of people keep mentionning that for the PT, but never for other movies in which they are using the same technics nowadays...

Double-standards indeed...

EDIT: I guess I'll never get it what many people have against CGI. When I'm watching a movie, I already know that it's not real. Movies have never been real in general...