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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"
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
I'm just stabbing in the dark here, but probably because there's not a single instance of any game selling anywhere near enough units to even dream of making even the most modest profit.
Honestly not trying to be a troll here, but with a sub-1% desktop marketshare, you can't be surprised that expensively produced games aren't being produced for Linux yet.
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.
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
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
Click here or here.
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.
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...