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Steve2911 posted:He made a trilogy, then allowed a bunch of EU material, then made another trilogy and introduced more, worse EU material (Clone Wars and such like). If he didn't sell up he'd probably have made another trilogy in another few years too. Just because Disney has the money to make their EU material in movie form rather than 1000 terrible books, terrible comics and terrible games, doesn't mean it'll automatically be worse. Clone Wars is better, not worse, than the prior EU material you refer to.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:28
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Steve2911 posted:This is stupid. You're stupid. I'm sick of hearing that CGI is ruining movies but it always being focused on certain movies while others get a pass. Good counter argument though you simpleton.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:29
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Guy A. Person posted:Lol the puppets in the OT look like fake drat garbage. I can't believe people prefer that to quality CGI. (And again I love that nobody thinks the Hulk or Iron Man need to be done as puppets, it's only Star Wars) CGI is not quality if you can recognize it as CGI. The whole point is to be seamless. This is much easier with Iron Man who wears a suit of sharp lines and clear color transitions. Similarly, the primitive CGI of the early 1990s worked for the T-1000 because the character design played to the strengths of the technology. Trying to do a wizened, wrinkled face like Maz's with today's CGI is setting yourself up for failure. I haven't seen any of the Hulk movies or the new Avengers so I can't comment on Hulk. Whatever the issues with the OT puppets, there is never any doubt that they exist as physical presences.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:29
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"Here we go again." - C-3PO
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Dec 27, 2015 19:31
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rockopete posted:CGI is not quality if you can recognize it as CGI. The whole point is to be seamless. This is much easier with Iron Man who wears a suit of sharp lines and clear color transitions. Similarly, the primitive CGI of the early 1990s worked for the T-1000 because the character design played to the strengths of the technology. Trying to do a wizened, wrinkled face like Maz's with today's CGI is setting yourself up for failure. I haven't seen any of the Hulk movies or the new Avengers so I can't comment on Hulk. But Maz looked great? How was the mocap CGI on her a "failure"?
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Dec 27, 2015 19:31
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Guy A. Person posted:I'm sick of hearing that CGI is ruining movies but it always being focused on certain movies while others get a pass. It's not about giving certain films a pass. It's recognising which effects would potentially look better if they were done practically. The Hulk is a huge, fast man that constantly interacts with his environment. Doing him with purely practical effects would look awful. Some effects are more appropriate for certain things. There's no reason they can't coexist. This movie did some things/creatures practically and some with CGI, and I thought they got the balance was pretty drat good. I'd be interesting in seeing what Maz would have looked like as a puppet but I'm not unhappy with what we got. V I agree with this though. stev fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 19:35
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rockopete posted:CGI is not quality if you can recognize it as CGI. The whole point is to be seamless. The goal is to create something that isn't real. Puppets and CGI are different approaches with different advantages/disadvantages. Puppets look more physically present at the expense of major issues with mobility and expressiveness. Sorry, I think your metric of "it needs to look like it is physically present on set" is bonkers. Maz was really well done.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:36
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The second time I watched TFA I kept an eye out for Maz's alleged terrible CGI treatment but I failed to see what the hubbub is about. She looked ok to me.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:39
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Guy A. Person posted:The goal is to create something that isn't real. Puppets and CGI are different approaches with different advantages/disadvantages. Puppets look more physically present at the expense of major issues with mobility and expressiveness. If I am to believe that Maz exists as much as the clearly real characters sitting at the table with her, then she needs to look like it. If Maz can't hit this standard with puppets or CGI, then her character design needs to be changed to something that can be achieved with these techniques. e: UFOTofuTacoCat posted:The second time I watched TFA I kept an eye out for Maz's alleged terrible CGI treatment but I failed to see what the hubbub is about. She looked ok to me. I'm not saying she is terrible, in fact she's the best CGI I've ever seen. The problem is that given her character design, that's still not good enough. And this will become clearer and clearer as the years go by and technology progresses. Iron Man won't have this issue because there's nothing to improve on, he simply looks real. As soon as you see Maz you know she's not, no matter how much better done she is than any previous CGI. rockopete fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 19:43
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Never do anything unless it's perfect, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY
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Dec 27, 2015 19:48
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Cnut the Great posted:This is basically the crux of the issue. Star Wars is now just cannibalizing itself. There's something incestuous about it. Haven't you personally spent half the bandwidth of Imgur to convince us that Lucas cribbed off of the OT all the time? I mean, there has been no more full-throated defence of "It's like poetry, it rhymes" than from you. And it's not even true that TFA is only inspired by more Star Wars. The entire final showdown in the forest is inspired by samurai movies' swordfights in bamboo patches.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:49
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Steve2911 posted:V I agree with this though. I don't think we actually disagree on anything, I wasn't saying Hulk or Iron Man weren't well done, or that puppets should never be used. I was commenting on a trend to bash CGI, but how some films/series for some reason don't get the same level of blanket criticism. It was a total non sequitur though an wasn't aimed at anyone in this thread in particular so I shouldn't have brought it up. rockopete posted:If I am to believe that Maz exists as much as the clearly real characters sitting at the table with her, then she needs to look like it. If Maz can't hit this standard with puppets or CGI, then her character design needs to be changed to something that can be achieved with these techniques. Again, why is the metric "it needs to look like there is a physical presence at the table" and not "we need this unreal character to do certain things and need to choose a technique to best suit that". If someone thinks the puppets look fake and are bothered that they are constantly stashed behind a table or something with no mobility, isn't that going to ruin immersion/believability as well?
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Dec 27, 2015 19:52
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Bongo Bill posted:Never do anything unless it's perfect, right? Actually you could argue this works because the skeletons have been reanimated by magic, so it makes sense they would move unnaturally. Which goes back to my point that the effect should mesh with the design and context.
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Dec 27, 2015 19:58
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rockopete posted:Actually you could argue this works because the skeletons have been reanimated by magic, so it makes sense they would move unnaturally. Which goes back to my point that I'm a big dumb idiot ftfy
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Dec 27, 2015 20:04
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rockopete posted:Actually you could argue this works because the skeletons have been reanimated by magic, so it makes sense they would move unnaturally. Which goes back to my point that the effect should mesh with the design and context. Maz is an alien creature whose skin might be made of a material that doesn't look "natural" to us.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:04
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I think Maz looked fine. PT Yoda really looked fine too, the problem was that we'd met Yoda before and he looked like an entirely different character.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:07
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Guy A. Person posted:Again, why is the metric "it needs to look like there is a physical presence at the table" and not "we need this unreal character to do certain things and need to choose a technique to best suit that". If someone thinks the puppets look fake and are bothered that they are constantly stashed behind a table or something with no mobility, isn't that going to ruin immersion/believability as well? I don't know about you but I consider the believability of a character's physical presence a bit more fundamental than...well, anything else. How can you have a character believably do anything in a scene if she isn't really in the scene? This can be used to great effect if you're doing a hologram or otherworldly presence-also well done in the OT--but that's not what the movie is going for here. Even though the technology has advanced immensely, it still isn't quite there. And again, I'm not necessarily arguing for a puppet, just a character design that works with rather than against the technological constraints to create a truly believable presence. Guy A. Person posted:Maz is an alien creature whose skin might be made of a material that doesn't look "natural" to us. When all the other alien characters don't have skin like that, it stands out. Maybe there's a reason for that, but it's never given, and it seems a lot to ask of the audience to arbitrarily make an exception with this one character just because. rockopete fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 20:09
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rockopete posted:CGI is not quality if you can recognize it as CGI. The whole point is to be seamless. If the whole point of movies is to be seamless with reality, then movies would be a lot more boring. Also this comment is pretty funny in light of the fact that Lucas specifically designed his PT sets so that the CGI would be seamless with them. And it works, because everyone thinks that it's all CGI.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:10
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Guy A. Person posted:Maz is an alien creature whose skin might be made of a material that doesn't look "natural" to us. This is some next level bad CGI defense.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:11
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Human character CGI is definitely not "there yet" when used in a movie with a cast of live action human actors, but that wasn't even the point that started this crap. The point is that CGI between 1999-2005 was noticeably worse, to the point where it would drag the viewer out of the experience in a really jarring way. Maz is not a perfect humanoid facsimile, but even in the most negative possible viewing she also isn't so bad that it really fucks up the experience. At least, I certainly didn't think so. Plus, the fact that prequel Yoda was not just "there," but actively doing acrobatics, flipping all around and dueling his human-acted counterparts really exaggerated the flaws of the CGI at the time. speng31b fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 20:14
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speng31b posted:Human character CGI is definitely not "there yet" when used in a movie with a cast of live action human actors, but that wasn't even the point that started this crap. The point is that CGI between 1999-2005 was noticeably worse, to the point where it would drag the viewer out of the experience in a really jarring way. Maz is not a perfect humanoid facsimile, but even in the most negative possible viewing she also isn't so bad that it really fucks up the experience. At least, I certainly didn't think so. Yeah, I can't disagree with this. I have my issues with Maz but she doesn't ruin the movie for me. I suppose it points to how much I enjoyed the rest of the movie that I can take issue with this relatively minor detail.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:20
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computer parts posted:Also this comment is pretty funny in light of the fact that Lucas specifically designed his PT sets so that the CGI would be seamless with them. And it works, because everyone thinks that it's all CGI.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:21
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rockopete posted:I don't know about you but I consider the believability of a character's physical presence a bit more fundamental than...well, anything else. I think it's pretty clear that I don't consider the believability of a character's physical presence to be all that important at all. I think there are a lot more considerations to what makes a good and effective character. Also, thank you for clarifying that you weren't arguing for a puppet, I was under the impression that you were. The specific quote that I found odd was "I would never have mistaken Maz, most importantly her face, for a practical effect or costume. So she was still clearly not a physical presence, which is a failure." This really seemed to imply that the ultimate goal wasn't even "I want something believable" and more "it needs to be believable as a physical on set presence". turtlecrunch posted:This is some next level bad CGI defense. It totally is. Which is why I used it in contrast to a similar defense of a really bad practical effects. That is the context for my comment.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:22
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I think the CG for Maz was fine, I just found her character design to be a little bit humdrum. For such an important character, she should have been a bit more distinctive, especially given how busy the scene where she's introduced in is.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:33
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Guy A. Person posted:It totally is. Which is why I used it in contrast to a similar defense of a really bad practical effects. That is the context for my comment. ohhhh 
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Dec 27, 2015 20:36
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I bet you in 2035 CGI will "still not be quite there yet" but there will be a bunch of practical effects that are at most slightly CGI-retouched which are interpreted as "obviously CGI, and not that great at that."
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Dec 27, 2015 20:38
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Steve2911 posted:This is not a good thing. It's seamless CGI, seems like it should be the textbook definition of good.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:39
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speng31b posted:Not sure any of those examples are really equivalent. In particular, with CGI Yoda I remember it being really jarring at the time, not just because it was CGI, but because the CGI wasn't quite good enough. Now it is. Maz didn't drag me out of the moment to think "wow, that's really offputting." CGI Yoda totally did. I don't think either Maz or Yoda looked particularly better or worse than the other.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:40
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But did you guys feel threatened by the CGI? Personally I couldn't take it seriously because it wasn't threatening, I laughed at all of it.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:46
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Nessus posted:I bet you in 2035 CGI will "still not be quite there yet" but there will be a bunch of practical effects that are at most slightly CGI-retouched which are interpreted as "obviously CGI, and not that great at that." At that point they can just build fully realized robots or genetically engineer an actual alien creature, but I'm confident there will still be something that we can complain about.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:46
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Cnut the Great posted:(And it made sense to bring back Chewbacca. The battle was taking place on the Wookiee homeworld. Chewbacca is a Wookiee. He's old enough to have been around back then. And the OT tells us pretty much nothing about him aside from the fact that he's a big shaggy dog who hangs out with Han Solo and carries a crossbow. Thanks to Episode III, we now know that he witnessed firsthand the devastation that the Empire visited upon his people. We know he's fought beside Jedi before Luke. We now actually have some small idea of what makes Chewbacca tick. Is that not valuable?) This gets it backwards. Episode III isn't attempting to illuminate Chewbacca in the OT, who is well characterized by his actions and costume. Instead, Episode III is making a prominent wookie more tragic by relying on the OT to let us know how far he falls from the position of authority he has prior to the invasion of whatever planet it was he was on. Watching A New Hope and having someone nudge you in the ribs and say, "Hey, that guy used to be a general" or whatever does nothing to enhance that movie.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:48
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Effectronica posted:Lucas is using adaptations and sequels and remakes as an example of Hollywood playing it safe. That's not the same thing as saying they're bad in and of themselves. (Avatar, an original story, also played things safe as well.) Really, you seem to be knee-jerking a bit. Why is 'playing it safe' bad? Why does Hollywood deserve criticism for this? Lucas's implication (or even flat-out statement) is that Hollywood is playing it safe at the cost to new ideas or concepts. Which is silly in and of itself as there are new concepts on a regular basis. Lucas (and almost everyone who makes this argument) seems to focus on the idea that these new ideas don't make as much money as The Avengers, not that they don't exist, which is silly. And if he's trying to argue that these films don't get $250 million dollar budgets that is also ridiculous when his own big success of a film was made on what amounts to a fair modest budget even with inflation taken into
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Dec 27, 2015 20:50
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computer parts posted:It's seamless CGI, seems like it should be the textbook definition of good. It means that both the CGI and the physical sets stand out from the characters, who look like they're in a 90s FMV game.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:51
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Augus posted:That would be Captain Phasma, actually. Except she actually accomplished less than Boba did. 
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Dec 27, 2015 20:53
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real_slime posted:- The actual space battles are the worst part of the film. 15 mins of a bunch of nobodies shooting at models from the same cockpit camera angle intercut with explosions. Really lost interest at this. This I honestly have trouble getting. It's true that later space battles are more complex as a result of the technology improving, but the Death Star Trench sequence has a tension that I haven't seen in ANY of the other films. The technique in it is excellent- there's a real sense of the TIEs closing in on Luke, actually reducing the space on the screen (the choice to have them all fly right to left is an interesting one- it's an "unnatural" movement to us so that makes it seem somehow more difficult). The editing of course is great, the ticking clock is very good, William's score just keeps getting more urgent until it's finally just a bunch of strikes, etc. It's one of the great action sequences of all time. Even if it is mostly copying 633 Squadron and The Dam Busters.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:55
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lol. Nerds are the best/worst whether or not that was a joke.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:01
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ImpAtom posted:Why is 'playing it safe' bad? Why does Hollywood deserve criticism for this? Playing it safe is bad because stagnation is bad. Hollywood deserves criticism for this because they're dominant. Your move. His implication is that playing it safe keeps movies like American Graffiti or Star Wars were at the time from coming into being. Because the environment has shifted to where although you can make a film that has an American Graffiti budget or quality, it won't get the kind of treatment American Graffiti did. Independent and low-budget films are treated differently from high-budget and blockbuster films, and as a consequence, movies are fairly stratified and kept into neat boxes. So although someone could make an $11 million, or $40 million sci-fi flick, they couldn't make the next Star Wars by doing so.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:04
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I don't remember back in 1999, were there any background characters in The Phantom Menace that took off in popularity the way that nameless trooper has?
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Dec 27, 2015 21:05
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Phylodox posted:I don't remember back in 1999, were there any background characters in The Phantom Menace that took off in popularity the way that nameless trooper has? JarJar?
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Dec 27, 2015 21:07
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Effectronica posted:Playing it safe is bad because stagnation is bad. Hollywood deserves criticism for this because they're dominant. Your move. How is Hollywood stagnant? Effectronica posted:So although someone could make an $11 million, or $40 million sci-fi flick, they couldn't make the next Star Wars by doing so. Again, why do you say this? The fact that they haven't doesn't mean much because something like Star Wars is absurdly rare. That doesn't mean you still can't have popular low-budget sci-fi films. What about District 9 for example? That made like $100 million on a $30 million dollar budget.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:08
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