ST Practical or CGI?

Exactly! Too many people are repeating the view that the prequels is full of bad CGI, and hence immediately assume that the films could be improved if you use more live sets and more puppets.

 

Nothing worse than CGI so pervasive (and bad) that it feels like I'm watching someone else playing a video-game. I highly doubt that's where we'll get here. The appearance of "Bob" was a message to the fans that not everything will be green screen.

 

Having grown up with the CGI-filled movies of the 2000s, I must agree that puppets are superior in my eyes. Mind you, I think CGI is the route to go for the big space battles - look at the ROTS battle, which is absolutely gorgeous. That being said, close ups always looked better on puppets because there is no trickery involved - the puppet is actually there. It also adds a unique look to the film, and makes it stand out from the CGIfests. Mind you, good puppets need to be used - we can't have another TPM Yoda - but I think they can afford good puppets. But when done right, puppets will always look better than CGI to me.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Blame that on the people who made the TPM Yoda puppet.

Also, keep in mind there was a new Yoda puppet made for ROTJ.

 

Speaking of puppets, what happened to the original Jabba one?

Was it destroyed after filming on Jedi wrapped up?

 

This critique of TPM puppet Yoda personifies some of the confusion/conflation on these matters. One can’t have it both ways.... If you’d plonked the original Yoda puppet into those TPM scenes it would have looked far worse. The TPM puppet was a much more advanced (in terms of mechnaised movment) and ‘realistic’ looking creation... It was based on the original designs (but de-aged) and it was controlled and voiced by the same man (Frank Oz). The reason it ‘didn’t look as good’ (which I personally don’t agree with anyway) is that he wasn’t half hidden by foliage, smoke or half light. TESB had the advantage of being able to use the light better. Sure, perhaps Lucas and the cinematographer should have done more to obscure TPM Yoda in those more exposed scenes (the council – daytime and Naboo parade), but to me that only further highlights some of the restrictions of puppets.

Of course, the updated version of TPM with digital Yoda is pretty much perfect.

 

exactly.

 

Both puppetry and CGI have made tremendous advancements in recent times. Anybody doubting puppetry should have a look at what the Henson studio did with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So many of the visuals in that film will never look any worse than they do today because they were real.



CGI has also come a long way, especially with anything that's inanimate. It's becoming easier all the time to accept a CGI creation's interactions with real actors. Weta's work with Gollum and Smaug are great examples. I felt something when Dobby in Harry Potter was killed. It's definitely improving.

What I'm hoping for is a nice mixture of both whenever either technique is best for the situation. If a practical effect or puppet can be used to good effect then absolutely use it. If you need a character fighting, like Yoda did in ROTS, that's simply not practical. Use practical in situations where CG tends to struggle and use CG in situations where puppetry, props, set design, etc is impossible. Star Wars is its own thing within film history. The use of puppets is a part of that history and a part of that visual continuity. When we see a puppet within the Star Wars universe we're willing to suspend disbelief more the same way we suspend explosions in space or objects being lifted through manipulation of the Force. It's part of that world and we suspend disbelief in order to escape into the adventure and away from real life.

Star Wars can get away with puppets in ways few other films can. So, why not use them when it's cool to do so? I saw "Bob" and smiled. It made me feel nostalgic. That's a good feeling, not a bad one.

 

In the end, I think nobody here, not even the most purists, expect that the ST should be entirely about using puppets and no CGI at all. In fact Lucas demonstrated us that he would've done the OT with computer graphics if he'd had the technology in the seventies. After all, the OT is filled with matte paintings which was like CGI in many aspects, except they were hand painted. GL used puppets because that was state-of-the-art in the 70s. Puppetry was reaching its highest point on those years.

I think in the end what a lot of us want is believability and realism. If JJ knows how to achieve that, either with puppets or CGI, fans will be happily satisfied.

 

The puppet dinosaurs in Jurassic Park hold up better than any current cgi dinosaurs.

 

Even the CG of the first JP still look great

 

The reason it doesn't look as good is because they used a different material, which may have looked more real in person but looked bad on the movie screen, and the facial design/structure didn't look like Yoda. Everything from the color (not scene in the pics below), nose, ridges, brow line, check bones, chin, mouth, and eyes look completely different.

 

I think they tried to make Yoda look younger, but that was unnecessary since forty years makes no big difference when you're 900 year old.

 

yeah, but it doesn't look younger, it looks completely different. To make it look younger they should've kept the same structure and removed some wrinkles, not change the entire structure.

 

Yeah. They totally failed (and they were aware of that, otherwise they wouldn't have changed it in the blu-ray)

 

To think, he could have looked closer to the original.

 

The thing with Yoda puppet in TPM was that they were trying to make him look thirty years younger than he was in TESB. The end result was something that didn't quite work out and which is why when the CGI Yoda was created, ILM followed the original puppet more closely and is ultimately why the test footage that was used in preparation for ROTS was finally used for the 3D conversion and the Blu-Ray release.

 

Not sure what happened to it, but, I went to the Star Wars Identities Exhibit last Summer in Ottawa (Canada for those that might not be sure). In the exhibit they had both of the Jabba Puppets eyes on display to show off the mechanics that were inside it. So if the puppet did survive, which I doubt it did because of the size, then it's sitting somewhere, eyeless...

 

1st as I said, I not against CGI. Visual Effects have grown tremedously over the last 30 years. But I am against filmmakers overuse of it. There are ways to use CGI and not have it overtake all the shots. The CGI Stormtroopers/Clones did not look better than OT. When I said Lucas is to Blame that may have been harsh but my point was he changed visual effects with ILM but the CGI revolution really didn't take hold over hollywood until the Prequels. Before it was a CGI shot here or there like "Jurassic Park" or "T2". Now every blockbuster is so over CGI/VFX that it does look like Video games. When Lucas didn't have the technology he found different creative ways to make it look real with Puppets, Models/Pratcial Effects.

I will say this, people think the Prequels were 100% CGI but that's not true, Lucas and ILM still used models and sets. I just want balance that. I just think if the film has too much CGI than that will take away from it IMO. Example, "Sith" opening was great but that was all CGI yet even that small space battle can't hold a candle to the Space Battles in the OT that used mostly Models. So no I'm not trying to have it both ways. I'm just saying for all the good CGI has brought to cinema let's not act like it's been perfect cause it hasn't. Mark Hamil even said wanted a mixture and not all CGI.

 

Keep in mind that all of Yoda's scenes in ESB/ROTJ were all shot in dark environments with diffused, dim lighting, which probably helped conceal some of the "fakeness" of a puppet. TPM puppet Yoda was shown in a full-view, brightly lit Jedi council chamber.

 

I've actually seen the Yoda puppet from the OT, and you can tell from the moment you laid eyes on it that it's fake. So I would agree with you that lighting had a lot to do with it.

 

God, TPM Yoda looks so High, lol.

 

I believe the puppet on display is a replica; the original no longer exists.