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Star Wars Prequels' Art Director Doug Chiang Talks
inherent writes: "Recently, representatives of three fansites covering Westwood's upcoming release, Earth and Beyond Online had the opportunity to interview Doug Chiang, Art Director for the Star Wars prequels, and the designer of the spacecraft models in Earth and Beyond Online. Chiang speaks on topics like the differences between film and digital animation, advice for upcoming digital artists, and the now infamous Jar Jar Binks. The interview transcript is available at Earth and Beyond Portal"
Obligatory "why is this news for nerds/stuff that matters"
There, now please proceed with the discussion.
Killing off Jar Jar in Episode 3 would make the fans happy, as well as providing a pleasant "Mr. Hooper's gone" introduction for children to learn the realities of death.
Besides that, I (and others, no doubt..) would actually go see one if I knew Jar Jar was going to get snuffed out beforehand.
My $0.02,
Bowie J. Poag
Did anyone else who read the article notice that he seems to talk about 13 year old girls just a bit too much.... he's not a catholic priest in his spare time is he?
This looks to be a somewhat interesting interview. From the looks of it though, the questions deal mostly with the aspects of Chiangs life rather than any details of the upcoming movie. Frankly, I don't really want to hear is life story, or what website I can go to if I want to learn more about is past work. I want the lowdown on production, like what they used for the animation, props, and all that cool stuff.
I've been a Star Wars fan since the late 70's- I even bought a Millenium Falcon with my allowance (though I sold it at a garage sale when I was a teenager, boy am I kicking myself for that one). Anyway, this movie looks like it's got quite an all star production crew. I'm looking forward to seeing it, hopefully in one of the digital theatres if it's not too expensive. Though I sometimes wonder at the dedication of the people willing to sacrifice 3 months of their lives to wait in line.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Doug Chiang Interview
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Recently, representatives of three Earth and Beyond fansites had the opportunity to interview Doug Chiang, Art Director for the Star Wars prequels, and the designer of the spacecraft models in Earth and Beyond Online. This is a transcript of the interview. LC is Lance_Cutter of www.terrantradecorp.com. LoD is Lord_of_Dreams of eb.stratics.com. D is Devon of www.ebportal.com. DC, is, of course, Doug Chiang.
LC: When did you discover your gift or abilities?
DC: I think it was even before, actually in high school, I took my first filmmaking class in 7th grade. At that time I had always drawn, and I was always frustrated because I wanted to do something more than just drawing. I took this film course that showed me animation and how to turn drawings into motion. Once I grasped that, I really jumped into it and spent the whole summer and weekends making little claymation films. The moment that kind of defined it for, I think, a whole lot of people was the year after that. Star Wars came out. That showed me that there were people out there who actually do this for a living, who could actually design and create film in this specific genre. That got me started thinking, and I did a little more research into the whole process. I grew up in Michigan and the film community there is very quiet, so it was a matter of just finding out where and who these people were that were doing all this great work. Once I realized that people were doing that, I really started taking up the focus of what I really wanted to do.
At first when I started, I wanted to be a stop motion animator. I wanted to be another Reddy [Ed's note: The tape is scratchy here, and I can't find the guy he's referring to. If someone has a clue, let me know. Reddy is a phonetic spelling of the first name.]. He was one of my biggest influences because I discovered his films way before Star Wars, even though I didn't know who he was, I just knew there was something really neat about his films. It's the whole fact that you can take a camera and pieces of clay and make your own film in the basement was spectacular.
LC: The claymation thing is just amazing to me. I don't have the patience for it.
DC: Oh yeah. And the scary thing now is with the 3D rendering tools for the Mac you can do amazing stuff. It will be interesting to see what happens in 5 or 10 years when these kids start coming out of their basements. They're going to be spectacular filmmakers. All you need is a Mac or a little PC at home and you can make your own films with sound and everything. That's going to be frightening
LoD: What made you come to Westwood to work on Earth and Beyond?
DC: Well, I was finishing off my work with Star Wars when EA contacted me to see if I would be interested in, at first, just consulting, or looking at their project. I said "Sure." At that point, I was just starting to get interested in computer games because I was trying to get one of my own properties developed into a computer game. So that opened the door where I just came in and started talking with them. The more I saw the material, the more more of my initial project with the Westwood team, I just really liked everybody and the project. Basically after that we just started talking and I said, "Sure, whatever you guys need, I'll try to find the time and contribute." Prior to that, I had been approached by other game companies to do other game designs. It just never worked out, whether it was time, or the projects just weren't that appealing to me. I loved everything about this. I loved the subject and I loved the team, so I set time aside.
D: What are some of the challenges you face in the video game realm that you don't face in film?
DC:You have to design things that really have to work. In film design, you can design things that work for a specific shot, so for instance, you don't have to show how the landing gear really works, or how a door opens. A lot of times you'll see a ship land, and they'll cut away to another action. Whereas in this you play real time, and you will see and experience the ship coming down and you see the function of what it's supposed to do. So that factor made the design process a little bit more intensive because you have to figure out that component and make sure it actually works and actually animates.
But the biggest factor that was really hard was the modularity of this game. It was "Come up with a design that was really strong as a base design, but then taking that design and adding various components and improving that design at those stages so that each upgrade will make the designs look better rather than degrading." It's a hard way of thinking because normally when I design something, I like to create the best combinations of shape for that design and say, "That's done. That's it." When I did that, and the Westwood team approved it, and then said "Ok, now make it even better," it was like, "Wait a minute, if I could have made it better, I would have given you that." It was a real hard way of thinking, but it made it challenging because I just came up with elements that were slightly different. But it wasn't really better in a sense that it was superior to the base design, just different. Each one can be perceived as being better, and an upgrade.
So that was the hardest part. Thinking of designs in that way, as interchangeable parts so that it's kind of modular and not too specific, but it can still work.
LC: How do you approach a new a project and yet keep everything fresh for the new project versus what you've already done?
DC: You know what, that's kind of what my job description is. I don't like to be typecast as only a Star Wars designer, or only a "whatever" designer. I like to think that my background in design skills allow me to be flexible to adapt to each of the projects.
In the case of E&B, there was a huge creative brief that was already designed. That basically set all the ground rules and told me exactly what I could break or push. From there, my process is to digest all that information and go and start researching elements, getting inspirations from my library of books and shapes and things that I know. Then I try and combine that and merge it so it fits.
Ultimately what I'm doing is bringing my aesthetics to the Westwood aesthetics, rather than bringing my aesthetics and changing Westwood to something else. There's a lot of what I do is very different from things you're familiar with like Star Wars or Westwood. What I like to do is take those skills and adapt them to other projects.
Of course, there are certain shapes I like. That always permeates through the designs. But, there are shapes that work because there is some kind of integrity to them. SO those are the common elements I try to keep. I try to be as flexible as possible, and address the questions of each project.
That's part of the fun of what I do. The films I work on are so varied.
LoD: With your previous Star Wars experience, did you ever consider working on the Star Wars multiplayer game, Star Wars: Galaxies.
DC: You know what, no. I guess they never asked . I never really thought about it, but it probably wouldn't be as appealing because a lot of that has already been done before. For me, it would just be addressing the same thing. It would just be taking the same designs and reworking it to make it work for a new medium. That in itself is not as appealing to me. I would rather take a new property and design from scratch.
D: On your films, what's the process like when you work with a team of other artists? How do you make everyone's ideas work together?
On a film project, like Star Wars, I will come in and assemble a team, and each of the team members will have a very specific skill. Some will be great at costume design, some at feature design. I try to tap into all those different talents and guide them. Of course, the team that's being developed is still be driven by the film director, whether it's George or somebody else.
The same process happened here on Earth and Beyond where it was essentially the directors, Jerry and Gary and those guys, and my goal was to be that team as a single person. So much of that work had already been done. There was only one very specific task left, and that was the space ships.
LC: What's been your best piece of work, in your opinion?
DC: Oh no. That's a hard question.
I would have to say the ones that come to mind are the Naboo Starfighters and the battle droids. They were very specific problems and I felt it was the best solution. Those are ones I'm also really happy with in terms of addressing all the needs of what those designs had to be in terms of addressing the historic points of addressing why the ships and robots looked the way they looked.
I'm judging from a very specific angle, which is the design component. As a design, I liked them. Whether they're successful as an element that appeals to the public, doesn't matter. For me, they were the essence of good design for me. I'm proud of the way they turned out.
LoD: Was there any particular inspiration for the Earth and Beyond specific models you created?
DC: That's a hard question, because there wasn't a specific inspiration. The creative brief spelled out the general guidelines. But beyond that, they told me to wipe the slate clean, and create something fresh that still fit within the guidelines of the worlds they were creating. I basically started putting down on paper shapes I like to see. Whether they're shapes for film or whatever, I didn't really worry about how they were executed.
There weren't really specific inspirations. Like the Naboo Starfighter was inspired by art nouveau jewelry. In this case, it was really a matter of sitting down and doing a bunch of sketches until I got a shape that I liked.
D: So, what's up with Jar Jar . More specifically, as you were working on Jar Jar, was that the reaction you expected? For example, the thirteen year-old girls can be huge Jar Jar fans, but it makes me cringe.
DC: That's hard to say. In the instance of Jar Jar, when we're designing things like that, whether its for film or for games or whatever, I try not think about what the general perception is because we are so narrowly focused on trying to come up with a really good design. Jar Jar was actually the best possible combination of shapes and personalities and elements that George wanted. We were actually very thrilled with it. We didn't know how he would fit in the story. Our main goal was to design the character.
But, we realized at the end that Jar Jar wasn't made for us. It was made for the 13 year old kid. It's not fair for us to judge, because I can't judge those things. When you're working on a film, you're so immersed in the film that you can't look at things objectively.
And so when the reaction comes out that the character wasn't as appealing to myself or someone else is really irrelevant, because we're not the audience, and we shouldn't be the critiques of that.
D: What was your reaction when you saw Jar Jar in the context of the film the first time?
DC: Oh, I loved him.
But I'm not a good person to ask, because I loved all those guys. I can't look at any of the projects I worked on objectively, you're asking the wrong person, you should be asking a 13 year old girl
LC: How do you deal with creative blocks, or do you even have them?
DC: Oh, I definitely have lots of them. It's a tough challenge. I just kind of push and force my way through it. Other artists have different approaches.
What I like to do is just sit down and start drawing, even if their really bad, just draw.
The thinking is that I'll get all the bad ideas out and let the good ones come out. My biggest fear when I sense a block coming is to just stop. Tjhat only compounds the process. Once you stop in any of this, it's really hard to get going again. Especially if you have a creative block and stop at the same time, it will be a long time before you get going again. You can quickly undermine yourself and your self confidence.
LoD: Have you actively played Earth and Beyond yourself, if so, what do you think of it?
DC: No, I haven't. The last time I played it was several months ago when I was up here doing our first game. The game has come a long way since then, but it was really fun. Keep in mind, I'm a really novice game player. I couldn't really do what I was supposed to do. But, I loved it. That's what drew me to the project was the whole world, and the fact that you were exploring new worlds. It had all the elements I really enjoy. Here is a game that really puts together all those pieces.
LC: What advice do you have for people who would love to follow in your shoes? What courses would you recommend?
DC: The best thing would be to get a lot of classical training. One of the things I see in a lot of portfolios is that somewhere along the way people are forgetting that they need to learn the basic foundation skills of good drawing, good perspective, good color, good composition, whatever. People are jumping right into doing 3D modeling and rendering. That's one of the dangers of the programs today. You can make something look really good, but it's all glitz, it's all surface, there's no underlieing structure. So what I tell people, is if you want to get in the business, learn how to draw first the traditional way. Do life drawing. Do regular painting. Once you master those skills, then you can put ontop of that all the other layers of new tools. That's the one thing you can't get from these tools. After all they are tools. No matter how flashy these tools are, if you don't have the ideas and education and foundation to support them, the images will look glitzy on the surface, but have no substance. That's the one factor: substance. The portfolios that stand out are the ones who have gone through that classical training. If they don't have the photoshop skills or the visual painting skills. That's ok. That can be taught in a class. If they don't have those foundation skills, it takes many many more years of training to get them. It's better to learn the basics first.
LC: Do you have a site or anything published where fans can look at more of your work?
DC: Yeah. www.dchiang.com. That site highlights my book project: Robota. You'll find I have some tutorials on there. Some demos of how I sketch and paint. Eventually they'll be more there. I'm working on a trailer right now. A 3 minute trailer, once it's finished in June, we'll post it up to the site, along with a bunch of other animation stuff.
D: How many revisions would you say went into the development of the ships for Earth and Beyond.
DC: Actually quite a bit. Jerry and Gary were very specific about what forms they'd like, and the very specific timers of how it fits within the world. On average, I would say each design would take maybe half a dozen or so and refine that. Then I would take the 2 or 3 that they liked a do another dozen of those, then we would hone those down again. Usually by one or two stages like that, we'll have the finished design and from then I can just refine it. But it varies, on some of the ships it was quick, others it took a bit longer.
D: What were the most difficult ships (and which was easiest)?
DC: The easiest were the Jenquai. That was because they were a little more elequant and fluid. The hard one was the Terrans. They were supposed to be like Earth, but they couldn't look too much like Earth. It was like trying to adapt something that everyone was very familiar with and take it to the next level and make it new.
It was like taking what NASA would build in 2 or 3 hundred years, but still make it recognizable that people from earth would build it.
It's always easier when you can take big, broad steps like creating a design for an alien culture. The rules are more open. Noone really has anything compare it with. You're not really tieing in to a sense of history, but the Terrans had strong ties to things we know.
LoD: Do you have anything in the future you could tell us about?
DC: Not really. I'd still like to keep my day job, designing for films. But on the side, I'm trying to get Robota developed into as many different things as I can. That's the only big question mark. Whether or not this big experience works, we'll see in 3 or 4 years. Other than that, it's hard to say. I'm basically "Designer for Hire." I'd love to more computer games, it was really great, really fun.
in terms of setting yourself out from the crowd, at least in graphic design terms, there is no substitute for having classical training in the visual arts. too many people think that they're hot stuff just because they can use photoshop.
I find George Lucas and all his productions much like Steve Jobs and all he has done. Lucas began as an innovator, creating a new genre and shaping society as we know it. Jobs, along with Wazniak, did the same thing- creating what the people wanted, an affordable personal computer, and shaping society along with it.
But both individuals evolved, and from my standpoint, grew corrupt with the power (like Anakin). Jobs controls Apple again today with an iron fist, and Lucas stifles creativity with his quest for profits. I no longer have any interest in buying an Apple computer, as it no longer stands for what it did, just the same as I no longer have any interest in seeing the upcoming Star Wars movie. Both are sellouts, and I will never forgive them for that.
Does art reflect society or does society reflect art? The evils we see today, the corruption, the violence- it all occurs in the media. So I ask you, if you choose to see this Star Wars film, while you're watching it, think about how the capitalistic creed of these men and how many lives they will destroy.
D: What was your reaction when you saw Jar Jar in the context of the film the first time?
DC: Oh, I loved him.
*shudder*
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Troll=1, Total=2.
:)
Either today's moderators have no sense of humor or they like little girls
I remember seeing pictures of Jar Jar before the film came out and even bought into the excitement of the character as all those pre-release articles came out. Hell, Jar Jar even made the cover of Vanity Fair (among others).
Of course, then I went and saw the movie and was horrified as soon as Jar Jar opened his mouth. This just couldn't be!
I kinda thought he would be more like a Chewbacca characater. He kind of looked like could be a monkey-wrenching wise-cracking type of character.
So, if you separate the Jar Jar "design" from the actual character (admitted it's very hard), he's a pretty cool looking character. At least when he's not snatching food with his tongue.
He seems to be saying that the special effects type work of Video games is more difficult and detailed than the same type of work in Movies. I thought that was pretty interesting, as I would have though the opposite. Of course I never have been much of a game player.
But there have been many games based on movies, and they seem to be able to produce / create a game much faster than a movie. Also, I never have seen a video game budget approach the numbers they give for some of the big movies these days. (Yes, I realize they have to pay the actors and such)
It still seems to me that making a movie would be much more time consuming and diffucult than a video game. IF for no other reason than the fact that you have to mix the reality and digitally created scenes perfectly, whereas in a video game, it is all digital.
I guess Final Fantasy would be the best type of comparison, since it was all digitally generated.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
What does this mean? Normally, when I think of characters designed for this demographic, I think of something of the "heartthrob" type. If any character in the Phantom Menace was "for" 13 year old girls, it would probably be Ewan McGregor's Ben Kenobi.
If Jar Jar is supposed to appeal to any demographic, it probably be those people who appreciate slapstick humor: the very young, the perpetually immature, or those old enough to remember a time before other types of humor (e.g., irony, wordplay) were invented. Basically, anyone who likes Daffy Duck.
Personally, I thought he was great. But I would not expect any 13 year old girls to agree with me.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Color me a skeptic, but I'll believe in this so called 'Star Wars Episode II' when I can go to theater and see it with my own two eyes. Don't believe everything you read, this 'StarWars' is pure fiction. Pictures can be faked, and video can be edited. I'm waiting for some good solid PROOF of this 'Star Wars: Episode II'. Until then it's just so much hokem.
Wait, what were we talking about? Jar-Jar must die? I'm down with that. But so many people here want to see Jar-Jar die. I want to see something else happen. I want Jar-Jar to be turned into that monster in Jabba's palace from "Return of the Jedi". That would rock, cause then Jar-Jar would be this painfully, horribly disfigured creature, AND we would have all seen him die a painfull death already, no waiting.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
daffy duck and bugs bunny are far from mindless slapstick. in fact, your examples of other types of humor (irony, wordplay) would be better descriptions. sure, there's an element of slapstick, but there's so many other levels it's working on.
Well, at least I could read the 'printer friendly' version.
Jar Jar is important to the story line. Yes, he is silly, he talks like mickey mouse on crack, and he flops around stupidly, but had it not been for Jar Jar, there would be no episode 2 or 3.. or the rest even. If Qui Gon and Obi Wan had not stumbled across
Jar Jar, they would have never gotten transport to the naboo city, nor would they have cannon fodder types to fight the war with the battle droids. The trade federation would have won, and the evil sith schemes would have prospered.. probably would have started the elimination of the jedi a few years earlier.. So, next time when you bash jar jar, realize that he is important to the story.
...but I agree with the sentiment. This article on Salon says things better than I could, and this one covers the values put forward in Star Wars pretty well.
D: What was your reaction when you saw Jar Jar in the context of the film the first time?
DC: Oh, I loved him.
On the poll that Westwood are running on their Earth and Beyond Online site, their ae some very interesting results :
What operating system do you have installed on your primary gaming system?
- Other 5112 23.51 %
TOTAL 21747 100.00 %Thats almost a 25% market share that this Windows only version will be missing out on :/
Will there be a Linux or Macintosh version?No.
It's a shame really! Why do some companies instantly dismiss making Linux version's of games? With SDL etc. and the speed of computers nowadays, not developing for Linux is quite imho stupid. Thank heavens for NeverWinter Nights \o/
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Ok, yes, I know the concept of demographic groups and marketing to them. And, apparantly, Jar Jar was supposed to appeal to 13 year old girls.
Thing is though, you can't target market like that when you're also marketing to a broader market. Why? Because when you target that intensely you're going to inherently turn off the rest of your audience. Which is exactly what happened.
Target marketing works fine for commercials and advertisements. It even works fine in TV shows and some movies which are supposed to have a limited appeal. But this was a movie (allegedly) designed for broad appeal to most of the Western world. What on earth were they thinking?
(emphasis mine)
translation:
Yuck yuck yuck! If anyone involved in the conception and realization of JJ Binks ever qualifies him by saying "well, he was designed for kids" again, I am going to move to a different planet.
Just wanted to say that the ships in EB look really great... I've been betatesting the game for a few weeks now... still buggy, but the graphics are really good.
OMG... I have a sig?
It can't be!!!! Its not true!!!!!
I was trying to respond to your statement about the evils of the capitalistic creed but there was a big advertising banner in the way.
He graduated from UCLA Film school a number of years ago (doing Animation?) I thought I'd slip in an a reference to my alma mater :)
I'll tell you what _did_ suck about _The Phantom Menace_.
Try that confused mess of a political subplot, something to do with Naboo and the taxation of trade routes and a Trade Federation that came from God knows where and controls God knows which and wants God knows what from Naboo--hell, does _any_ of that make any sense?
Try Johnny one-note characters like Qui Gon, Obi Wan, and Amidala: Qui Gon hardly utters anything other than gnomic pronouncements about the Force and the prophecy (I know, one can argue that Obi Wan from _Star Wars_ was little better, but Alec Guinness is ten times the actor that Liam Neeson is, and he makes Obi Wan interesting in a way that Neeson, with his monotonous delivery, utterly fails to do with Qui Gon.) Obi Wan has hardly any dialogue of importance at all; he's there to swing a lightsaber. Amidala is the concerned child queen and nothing else, aside from a few lines of painful dialogue (e.g. "My caring for you will remain.")
Try the finale of the climactic battle, which uses the "single ship sneaks in and blows up the great fortress" plot for the _third time in four movies_. That it's done by _accident_, by a character whose most memorable dialogue in the whole sequence is, "Let's try spinning, that's a good trick!", makes it all the more painful.
In comparison to all this, Jar Jar is a positive breath of fresh air. I hate to think of how dreary some of the scenes in _Phantom Menace_ would have been without him--hell, in all those interminable scenes at the beginning of the movie where Qui Gon and Obi Wan are trying to get off Naboo, Jar Jar is the only interesting thing on the screen. He's goofy and silly, yes, but oddly thoughtful at times (such as when he tells Amidala that the Gungans aren't going to give up without a fight--he's still proud of the people who banished him.)
But everyone hates him, of course. At least, everyone _here_ hates him. I guess it's all part of that attitude, so prevalent among fans of things like Star Wars and Babylon 5, that _hates_ children and everything that is perceived as childish or reminding one of childhood. I daresay that, considering that many fans are probably only recently emerged from childhood themselves (or, depending on your point of view, still there), this attitude is understandable. Jar Jar, so the conventional wisdom goes, is for the kids--therefore, the sooner he dies a gruesome death, the better.
hyacinthus.
Mr. Chiang left out one key career tip: if you are looking to break into the 3d animation business, don't forget to GIVE UP. Because the industry is so oversaturated with people they aren't wasting their time with training. You'd better have 5 years of experience or your portfolio is going straight into the shredder before it has a chance to stand out, leaving me search for anew career. Ugh.
So, if you separate the Jar Jar "design" from the actual character (admitted it's very hard), he's a pretty cool looking character.
He might look okay when he's standing still but his movements all seemed very unnatural to me. He almost seems like a rubbery, elastic creature in the movie. His walk is not smooth, his motions are not very crisp. I remember thinking to myself that "that frog-dude must have tendons of steel" to avoid being constantly injured just from everyday motions. Everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed about the fact that Lucas was able to make a 100% computer-animated character fit in with the movie. But for me, it was just one more example why CGI should be limited to non-lifeform effects.
GMD
watch this
This new game is worthless to me. Release games for Mac's and maybe I'll stop bad mouthing the company. First EA drops support for Sega systems after the Genesis, and then they discriminate against Mac's, bastards.
Stars Wars are KIDS movies. Really great kids movies - not high art. Get over it.
Sign Our Petition!
That's right, a petition to Cast Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin in Star Wars ep. 3! Combining the coolness of Star Wars with the great character that is everyone's favorite Australian. Sign the petition and let George Lucas know who you want to see in the final Star Wars Prequel!
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
"... those old enough to remember a time before other types of humor (e.g., irony, wordplay) were invented."
ROTFL!
Irony and wordplay have been around as long as there have been languages. Try reading a Shakespeare comedy rather than Slashdot sometime.
Click here or here.
...is killing the visual effect art form.
m d.html). In nearly every scene, there is something which is obviously computer generated. When movies didn't have much computer visual graphics, the realism of some scenes were high enough that you didn't even think of it being as a visual effect-- it didn't jump out and say, "Hey, I'm fake!". Now, it's easy to spot the computer generated effects. And its overuse is really starting to detract from film.
Not the ones with quality of, say, Final Fantasy or Monsters, Inc., but the other 99% of movies that use computer animation which is used to REPLACE a special effect which could have been more realistic-looking and less intrusive using old-fashioned visual effects wizardry like small scale (yet highly detailed) models.
For example-- The Empire Strikes Back scene with the Millennium Falcon escaping the exploding Death Star. Even using 80's technology, this effect looks more realistic than any of the effects in Episode I (except maybe the Pod Race). The computer generated stuff is obviously fake (more so than in some scenes in the original Star Wars trilogy).
If you're not convinced, look at the latest Episode II trailer (Clone War: http://starwars.apple.com/ep2/clone_war/clonewar_
As much as I think modern (relatively realistic) video games are cool as hell, I don't think computer graphics work as well in film, at least not now. The lighting is too "smooth", objects don't have depth, and motion is jerky. Old-time tech looks like it still is better in some instances.
To put it simply, it stops becoming good visual effects when its realism can be easily discounted and its presence draws attention to itself as an effect (and not the action and drama surrounding it). Episode I demonstrated this to a certain extent, and it looks like the other two will as well. Shame...
I love Jar Jar. He is my hero. Monkey love banana. Me-sa love-sa banana.
If you want to read a really stallar critique of Lucas and the Star Wars movies, check out this Salon article by David Brin. It was written after SW:TPM came out, and I think it does a great job of tearing Lucas apart >:) IMO, Lucas is basically a hack with a really high budget.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Mod the parent up!
OK so my last post was titled.. moderation totals for the post before it... yet this post was given:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=2, Total=2.
hmmm it seems to be right on topic... more proof moderators here are pretty damn stupid...