Slashdot Mirror
R2D2 (Kenny Baker) Replaced with CGI for Ep2
BirdTor writes: "Kenny Baker, the diminutive actor who played R2D2 in all of the Star Wars up until now has been dumped. George Lucas plans to use a computer-generated R2D2 instead. I don't know, there's just something charming about the Kenny-driven R2D2 bumbling along that I doubt the new 3D-generated R2D2 will be able to capture."
My Reasoning:
For interesting thoughts on realism vs. cartoonism, you'll want to grab a copy of Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics."
In it, he purports that the more "cartoony" the character art, the more closely the viewer can identify with it; the more realistic the character art, the more the viewer dissociates from it.
As evidence, look to Dilbert versus Mary Worth.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
mod_perl is the only way to go!
>
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Don't know if it is a mock-up though. Lots of cool stuff like the star destroyer and x-wing are purported to be original production effects models, but some of the other stuff was mocked-up (Like the Darth Vader costume IIRC)
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I've also seen a number of movies where I didn't expect the CGI, and was appalled by it.
I knew there were models in the originals, but they were still impressive.
I had lowered my expectations a bit by the time I saw it too. The only way I made it through was by mentally replacing JarJar with Lisa Kudrow. It was a much more entertaining movie after that.
...they killed Kenny. Those bastards
Must....drink....coffee...
Free music from Jack Merlot.
>little bit of a way to go
It's hardly fair to trash Toy Story for not being photorealistic.
Remember, Toy Story came out five YEARS ago (1995)... that's an eternity in the computer (and thus, the CGI) world.
And Toy Story II is not a fair testiment as to the true abilities of Pixar. Since TS2 is a *sequel* to the original, it MUST keep the same visual style. Even though Pixar is certianly CAPABLE of a much more sophisticated CGI now than in 1995, they could NOT make TS2 photorealistic. And who's to say that photorealism would be appropiate in a Pixar/Disney production anyway? Jobs/Lasseter have done great things with Pixar's visual style as it is. I don't think a little "cartoony" visual style detracts at all.
Can you inagine a photorealistic Woody and Buzz Lightyear? I didn't think so. That wouldn't have fit within the style of the Toy Story universe.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
CGI is good but nothing can match real 3D objects..
UPS Sucks
Did he have a little steering wheel and buttons to work the lights?
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
It's the same sh*t he's pulling with DVDs. The man is too full of himself to remember where he came from: story telling.
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
about R2D2 was how he was imperfect. sort of ragged bot...i hope the computer animation does not smooth out those movements.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
A robot gets fired and replaced by a virtual robot.
We humans spent all that time worried that robots were going to replace us in the workplace. I think our fears were misplaced.
-----
Last time I checked, there was only one actor in the original Star Wars (Harrison Ford). Looks like Lucas was close to his dream.
Everything looks new. Sure.
You did realize that the new Star Wars movies are *PREQUELS*, right? That means they happened (time-wise) *before* the old Star Wars trilogy.
Before the clone wars. Before the growth of the Empire. You're seeing the junkheaps and battle-scarred X-wing fighters, because that happens *years* after the story of the prequels...
It makes total sense that things look new and fresh and clean in the new SW movies... things are about to get nastier, and yes there's going to be a whole lot more degeneration around - that's the point!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Well, it's obviously a ploy to gain greater power for himself. I still think there could have been a more entertaining way to do it.
I know a lot of lawyers who've advanced their careers through major tax law cases, but it doesn't mean I want to see a 2 hour movie I waited forever for about it.
Wow. I hadn't heard of the retraction. Quite a dress rehearsal for when it really happens. Wonder if this will be a wake-up call for the Screen Actors Guild, which will negotiate a "no artificial humans" clause in future contracts?
Good point-- everything they use is leftover stuff from the Old Republic. And thought XWings are built during the Rebellion, they saw constant combat, as opposed to Naboo fighters, which had never been used due to the peace of the Republic.
Shiney isn't the problem. The two problems with SW:E1 were:
1) Nothing looked usable. Everything was a show-room model, not something you would buy on a day to day basis. The stuff could have been bent, broken, dirty and scratched, but to me it still would have looked like concept models.
2) Nothing had texture. Texture seems to be the lost art of moviemaking, now that everything is CGI. Muppets and costumes have great texture and subtlety. CGI creatures look too 'raytraced'-- like someone painted over plastic wrap.
We're losing the personality from these movies. You couldn't make the Dark Crystal from a cartoon or CGI. Lucas seems to enamored of the latest technologies, and has left behind the old ones which are still useful.
I just read today that some guy modified AIM by adding AppleScript running Eliza. Idiots were contacting him and they had no clue that they were talking to a 1st generation AI program.
I even heard there is a program that immitates that judge on the deCSS case. Problem is, nobody can tell the difference between the program and the real McCoy as both make really bad decisions.
Now, let's imagine when they write an Al Gore CGI program. At least it will have more life to it before it runs itself into an endless loop of changing its political position. Even if the PC loses a few flip-flops, it can still borrow some from the program and keep on running.
RD
Comment removed based on user account deletion
1970 - George Lucas makes _THX-1138_, a plodding didactic film about the dehumanizing aspects of technology and holographic characters virtually indistinguishable from real people.
2000 - George Lucas opts for a CGI Artoo instead of a real actor.
Perhaps a new reading of THX-1138 is in order? Perhaps Lucas what actually portraying his utopian vision of humanity's future rather than the dystopian hell everyone assumed he was talking about.
I guess it only took him 30 years to lose his soul.
-carl
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Well, maybe he can get a higher paying job at Lucas Ltd doing the graphics ;-)
I wish him best of luck.
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I mean, first he says, "If they don't use human beings these movies are in danger of looking like Disney cartoons... "
Then he follows that up with, "The progress in digital and computer technology has been frightening. It was light years on from when I was in the first Star Wars movie."
I think these conflicting statements can easily be summed up in a few words...
Beeeeeeeep BEeeeeeeep Beeeeeep!!! EEEEooooo EEEEoooo EEEEooooo!!
-thomas
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
"And like that
"I have a sneaking suspicion that if there were a way to make movies without actors, George (Lucas) would do it."
The scary thing is, I can see this. Lucas has always seemed obsessed about the 'vision'. He's got his own ideas how things should look and how they'd go, and the more people he has to get to help him realize that vision, the more diluted it gets by everyone else's contributions.
Makes perfect sense seen from that point of view. The fewer other 'personalities' involved, the more tightly you can control the outcome.
Purity of vision is a double-edged sword, though. Some writers just desperately need editors riding herd on them. It may be exactly the masterpiece the writer wanted, but if nobody other than the writer can understand it because nobody with sufficient clout could sit him down and say 'this doesn't make sense', well...
-- Bryan Feir
When I was camping out for E1, Kenny actually came by the line here in Dallas to say hi to everyone. He's very nice, polite, and cool as hell. Lucas... First you give us the pablum that is Jar-Jar, then this? Have you no shame?
-------------------------------------------------
I would think they would want him to act a little bit more like a "normal" human, not a caffeine addict.
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -wT
use CGI qw/:standard/;
use CGI::Carp;
if(defined url_param('action')){
for (url_param('action')) {
if (/respond/) { beep(2); }
elsif {/move/} { wobble;
beep(1};
whirr(2);
move(url_param('direction'));
}
elsif {/trapped/} { hack('imperial_comp');
beep(2);
}
else { #default
random_beep();
}
}
}
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Actually I meant "progress" in an ironic way, indicating that, "Well, that's what happens when technology progresses." More to the point, the progression of technology is going to have both positive and negative side effects. I wasn't saying that it's necessarily good or right, it's just the way it is.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Gentlemen, start your pocket protectors... Regarding the pros and cons of going CGI to do R@-D2. I write about special effects for The Hollywood Reporter, so here's my $0.02 from an "insider's" perspective.
First of all, I'm not sure how much on-set actor interaction you'll lose with a CGI R2, which some people fear will lessen the performance value. He/it is, after all, a very non-anthropomorphic, trash-can shaped character who moves and emotes entirely differently than everything around it. (Keep in mind the sound effects come later.) And given the complexity of dealing with the props and Anthony Daniel's C3PO costume, the droid scenes are probably heavily scripted, with no improvisation, and thus necessarily limited. Aside from timing the slap of Daniels' hand on R2's head, there's no real reason to have Baker on set, although you could still have him be his own stand-in (like Ahmed Best did for Jar-Jar) and just erase him from the shots. I don't mean to keep dumping on Kenny, but if the radio-controlled R2 version were good enough, he would have been out of that suit years ago.
If there's one thing CGI does well, it's smooth metal surfaces, so it'll look fine. And while I hope we won't see R2 flying or jumping rope, going CG would allow him to move a little bit more. As it is he usually just stands and beeps. In fact, aside from the classic whimpering pass-out after he gets shot by the Jawas, he/it hasn't exactly been giving Robert De Niro a run for his money (and even that performance was more about the sound effect than Kenny Baker taking a fall).
Finally, if I'm not mistaken, we've already seen a CGI R2 several times. The new X-Wing Death Star attack flyby in the Star Wars special edition, with R2 in the back seat, was all CGI (done on a Mac, by the way). And I'm pretty sure the shots from "Phantom Menace" where R2 is working on the outside of that chrome Jedi ship were also CG.
You have to understand how these things evolve in a film production. It's far from diabolical. Here's my theory: Someone probably produced a very good CGI model of an R2-style droid for use in a background scene, or to populate a flock of droids. That file could have been picked up and used for the Episode 2 "animatics," the detailed low-rez version of the film used to plan shots and effects. Somewhere along the line, someone decided why not go CGI.
All in all, I'd say if you were going to safely go CGI with any "Star Wars" character, it'd have to be R2, though you could make a strong case for doing Yoda CG, since the muppet version looks odd these days. And in that case you could easily give Frank Oz the digital inputs that would allow him to perform a CG Yoda completely. It would look BETTER than any physical puppet.
They can't destroy R2, he shows up in the last three movies! Duh!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I'll agree with point one.
But for texture, I refer you to Toy Story 2 and Dinosaur. TS2 had well-done grunge on occasion, and D had great fur, great rocks and great vegetation (shame it had nothing else going for it...).
Things are getting better in CGI-land.
But realistic CGI is no match for reality. Reality is fractal and random, both to a degree that can never be matched by simulation. Yes, "never" is strong language. Yes, I do think it's correct to say "never."
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Man, if this next one is as bad as the last, I will have lost all hope and will have wasted many years of waiting for a good new movie from Lucas.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fanatic, but I'd love to see a good quality Star Wars movie. If you can tell that it's CGI, it's just a waste of screen time.
I wish he'd get back into myths and legends like the originals. Wars over trade routes aren't exactly the most exciting plot glue.
George Lucas doesn't get it anymore. The charm of the original movies that made him so successful is more than special effects. It's the details like the way Artoo and Threepio moved... perfect comedy of motion, even if accidental... and the worn, old junkheap look of the Falcon. Those Naboo fighters looked like pre-fab toys. No battle-scarred X-wing fighters for these movies, no sir. The bad acting, the good acting, the classic heroic fantasy in a new fantasy world with robots and starships - that was the magic. It's gone now...
It's a new generation, and 20 years later, the new star wars isn't star wars... it's the Matrix trilogy. (Yes, there are two sequels already in the works.)
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
Probably had his horn in there with him, how'd he fit it all in there? ;-)
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Lucas would end better using better technology like servlets or at least FastCGI.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
In Star Wars, you could just tell that was a real plastic dustbin waddling around.. I personally didn't know if it was a person inside or a remote-controlled thing, but if they make a CG thing it would spoil the magic...
I think Kenny Baker himself puts it best:
One of the reasons I disliked EPI so much was the disconnect between the physical and the CGI elements, particularly in terms of the actors. I get fired up when Han, Luke and Chewie come marching down through a crowd of Rebels to get the medals. I could not care less when fake-looking, cartoonish CGIs win a battle over other fake-looking, cartoonish CGIs.
And that's the problem: you're showing fabulous special effects, but there is less and less "reality" to ground the movie.
======================================
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
It looks like there's going to be a lot of apprehension surrounding the next film. The botching of certain elements in Episode 1, and now this. I don't think the digitization of R2 will have that much of an effect on the character. I'm sure they're working hard to recreate the bobbles and bleeps of the R2 we know and love. My only concern is that due to the nature of today's CGI R2 might come out shiny and rendered looking. There's still something to be said for hand made models and costumes when it comes to realism.
:P
I don't think its fair to compare Jar Jar and R2. Jar Jar was a big mistake, as anyone with half a brain knows. R2 was beloved because he A) didn't speak some kind of horrible broken english, B) was able to convey huge amount of emotion despite speaking in bleeps and bloops, something they never got right with Jar Jar, and C) was one half of a comedic duo. C3P0 was a major part of making the R2 character loveable, and with Jar Jar that other half was missing, or was filled in by whatever character happened to be in the scene at the time. These are things that shouldn't be lost in the CGI transformation of R2, unless they manadge to mess it up completely. I'm sure that if they destroy R2, the public will never forgive Lucas
"I live in a world of make-believe, with faeries and leprechauns and tiny little frogs with funny hats."
The actual story is here -- the url given is a page that's "today's" news, which is now yesterday's news.
---
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
My question is, how the hell did they fit James Earl Jones into that little Darth Vader suit?
(and how did he turn into a crusty white guy after that?)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
One thing that the Mister Lucas has said on many occasions that that he *is* trying to get to the point of making a completely CG film that looks real; I'm not sure if we'll ever get to it, and I don't care. Yes, CGI is great and wonderful, but there is still this amazing sense of being envelped by a story that only live actors can give you.
Robert Llewelyn(sp?) may have looked like a bearskin run in his Chewbacca suit, but I think feel he was more believable than Jar Jar Binks and all his 2300 hours of rendering time. Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done.
But then again, it's George's studio, he's paying for this himself.. so do we really have the right to bitch?
Eh, probably.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
{*sniffle*}
Robots are people too, dammit!
--
while ( !universe->perfect() ) {
hack (reality);
--
while ( !universe->perfect() ) {
hack (reality);
}
--SpookComix
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
Kenny Baker was not in *every single* shot that R2D2 was: some were remote controlled, etc.
However, I still find this choice rather off. If Kenny can still do the job, why not do it? How much is it going to cost to model, animate and render all the new R2 shots, vs. having KB do it?
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
If you honestly thought that you had to explain on Slashdot that there are two Matrix sequels in the works, this must be your first day here.
Welcome aboard.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
But that wasn't what I was saying. EVEN IF they had been burnt and scratched, they would have looked like burnt and scratched concept models. They didn't look functional, they looked like they were designed with extras to make them stand out in a showroom.
Look at the XWing-- even a pristine Xwing looks like it was a practical, production spaceship-- designed to fight, not to look pretty. Even the wreckage of a Naboo fighter looks like it was designed to be the most powerful-looking and fast-seeming ship, rather than actually powerful or fast. Maybe the Nabooians were dominated by their Marketting Droids.
If so, who can blame Senator Palpatine.
What? There's more than one guy in the world with the name Kenny Baker? ;-)
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
And I can honestly say that in the dozen-odd times I've watched Episode I, I never once thought, "Hey, there's Kenny Baker." It was always, "Hey, there's R2-D2." I'm sorry Kenny didn't get to work on Episode II (Oh my god! They fired Kenny! You bastards!), but, well... that's progress.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
In a reported attempt to keep full creative control, as well as to reduce employment costs, George Lucas is replacing his entire production staff with CGI characters.
I just can't wait to see how they explain the change in Darth from young Anakin(sp?) to James Earl Jones... sort of reverse M. Jackson?
Probably with a little CGI?
oh man... there goes my Karma...
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
Maybe they should replace the director and screenwriter with CGI as well. It would be an improvement over the Phantom Menace.
Sigh.
sulli
p.s. The theater where (I think) Star Wars opened, the Coronet, is about to be smashed to bits. I guess nothing is sacred, but who expected it to be?
sulli
RTFJ.
Just because you can do it digitally, doesn't mean you SHOULD do it that way. Special Effects are just that, EFFECTS. They are not characters, they are not personalities, no matter how good your animators are or how fast your rendering farm is.
This'll piss a lot of SW fans off, but I was very disappointed with Ep1 and don't feel that Lucas is a good director at all. He's lost his art of story-telling and can't direct worth a piss. (not compared to Spielberg anyway)
Star Wars ep4,5,6 are legends because they were brand new ideas when they came out, and they have aged in our memories like fine wines. We all have nostalgic memories of seeing these films in the theatres for the first time, many of us barely able to see over the seats. (I remember standing on my seat throughout Empire) But in this age of Titanic and Toy Story, our kids won't be looking back on Ep1, 2, and 3 with the same eye. To them, its just another two hours of visual crack, soon to be replaced by the next flavor of the month.
Bah. Gimme a director and film crew that is starving and barely making a living. THEY make good movies because they NEED to. George Lucas is fat, unimaginative and so full of himself he won't need to eat until ep3 is on DVD. (shall we bet on 2025?)
"Oh My god! They killed Star Wars! Those Bastards"
Vulgrin the MAD
I sig, therefore I am.
Use a low-pass pseudorandom number generator to generate jitter. Then add it in appropriate amounts to the motions of R2.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I see this as a continuation of a trend. Consider the recent advent of Ananova, the artificial newscaster, and the announced intention to use a completely computer-generated 'actress' in a major upcoming movie (sorry, the title and leading actor escape me for the moment). The day is approaching when movies can be made with no live actors at all while appearing to feature real humans. I can see a couple of things happening as a result: 1) actors who are completely artificial creations who never lived, and 2) living (or once-living) actors 'licensing' their images for use in a film, but never having to appear before a camera. Of course, movies will continue to be made with live humans in them, just as live theater productions continue today, but increasing amounts of content will be artificially generated, for the lower cost if nothing else. Maybe the actors can act in their street clothes and have the wardrobe added later. Maybe location shots will be a rare event. Anything is possible when you can create whatever you want on a computer. The world is definitely going to change.
"George Lucas always told me that R2D2 really came alive when I was inside him."
What the heck is this guy really trying to tell us? And I thought this was a kid's site.... [Rimshot]
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
"I have a sneaking suspicion that if there were a way to make movies without actors, George (Lucas) would do it."
-- Mark Hamill (The guy who played Luke Skywalker)
--
"A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has lost an eye." -- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
I'm thinking there's a decent chance that this will work for R2D2 because there's so much other footage to base him on. They can render him using old footage as a planning mechanism, and not lose the "personality" (and why pay an actor twice when you have a computer??)
If this were star wars, in 2000 instead of over 20 years ago, and they did the robot from scratch in CGI, I think they'd have a problem... they might want to call it Jar Jar.
Yeah, I know - I a sick puppy
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Right now CGI impresses us with its ability to create the fantastic, but CGI can only get so good before it's perfectly photo-realistic. After that, there'll be no more room for improvement, and it'll be up to the actors to make the film even more convincing yet.
ChicagoFan
I have been informed by a co-worker that this story is not entirely true...
While the actor is no longer doing the part of R2, it will not be CGI. Here's the story that started it all.
Evidently someone saw this and extrapolated that the droid would be inserted digitally. But they are absolutely, definitely 100% positively using an R/C version for the film: There's also another shot of a crewman with a radio, controlling R2, but I can't find the picture right now.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I believe the quote is: "If you can do it physically then do it rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on computer graphics." Examples are the egg "waking up", all the sets, the shuddering during takeoff and landing, the outside shots of the derelict, Ash's death and of course the Alien itself.
Now Alien was made at a time when computer generated gfx were at the stone-knives and bearskins stage, but somehow it's aged extraordinarily well. It just has a kind of raw lifelike quality to it that you just didn't get in EP1 - you could feel the effort that went into the acting and directing.
Ironically enough, many people's favourite sequence in the Matrix is the lobby shootout - which hardly features any CGI at all (except the wire removal).
Get a grip George - work on your casting and story some more and you might have a film people like.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.