Slashdot Mirror
How Yoda Became an Action Star
fexter writes: "This article at Entertainment Weekly talks about Yoda's transformation from a puppet to a completely-CG character, and talks about the animators' horror at Lucas' transformation of Yoda: 'When Coleman and crew first saw them, they were appalled. They thought it was unseemly and undignified for Yoda to bounce through the fight like a Superball loose in a toy store.'"
A friend of mine said that the fight scene reminded him (sound wise) of a battle involving Miss Piggy. Unfortunately, now I picture her in the fight instead of Yoda.
The dogcow says "Moof!"
From the first paragraph:
We're talking, of course, about the most crowd-pleasing scene in a movie so far this year, wherein the little green Jedi Master summons the Force to bounce and whoop and haiiii-yah!
No... The most crowd pleasing scene in a movie so far this year was Kirsten Dunst giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to Spiderman in the rain with her nipples hard from the cold.
I have been pwned because my
Finally, you understand that Yoda, although frail physically, has the ability to channel the Force in ways that no other Jedi can, at least as far as we have seen.
I don't think that the fight was in any way a detriment to the character, it actually just enhances his mystique. Besides, the irony of him finishing up bouncing off the walls, only to pick up his cane and hobble around again was priceless.
I'm still annoyed at the Yoda fight scene, and I think the animators were right.
Yes, having Yoda kick ass was cool.
But he didn't have to do it by spinning around at 3600RPM.
Yoda is supposed to be relaxed and smug. He should have overwhelmed Dooku with -skill- instead of just being four times faster, with no moment of inertia. That scene would have been twice as good if the big Y had stayed upright, and parried and feinted like a madman. No need for backflips.
Is it me, or were there an awful lot of pages (and ads) in that article?
Fight Club
How Yoda became
click to continue...(page 2/1345)an action star
click to continue...(page 3/1345)With a little help
click to continue...(page 4/1345)from director George Lucas
click to continue...(page 5/1345)" They thought it was unseemly and undignified for Yoda to bounce through the fight like a Superball loose in a toy store. "
Yes, i have to agree with that, Lucas is a complete moron. Always was and always will be.
He completely disregarded all the background the fans had created for the various characters in the movie ( for example Boba Fetts story ) and managed to ruin things once again.
Not to mention the whole film was PACKED with CG. I mean, ok, sure, CG are nice and helpfull, but for god's sake, do use some real actors and scenert at some point. Every signle thing in the movie was CG'ed. I dont know, it just didnt feel like the StarWars people loved and respected anymore.
As for the duel scene, it was a complete disaster IMHO. Many people in the theatre laughed and laughed after it, when Yoda grabbed his stick to help him walk. Sure, Yoda uses the force blah blah blah, but dont make the duel act as a comic relief.
We await for Episode III - Lucas Epic Disaster.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
You know it looked just like the scene from Karate Kid where Mr. Miyagi opens a can of whoop-ass on those punks. If you use photoshop to color Mr Miyagi green you will see a near perfect match.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
In TPM and ATC the jedi fight like samuri. Back with the original trilogy the jedi seemed to me to fight like duelers (mukateers or something), and even then their movements were slower, as if each jedi put a lot of thought into each single move. Watch the new ones, it's a bunch of flashing light and people jumping up and down. The Yoda thing is just the epitome of that. I saw ATM via a download, so maybe someone could clear this up. Did Yoda give Dookie that "bring it on" hand gesture that Neo did in the Matrix? Looked like it to me. It was sad.
-Star Wars: Not the choice of a new generation.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Have you seen the new Denny's TV commercial? She and Kermit are ordering breakfast at Denny's. They order a Grand Slam breakfast and go ape-shit because they are overjoyed to be eating pancakes, sausage, and bacon. Man, there is some sick shit on TV these days...
cpeterso
The animators were right all along, and I had a small piece of my childhood die watching Yoda leap around like a gymnist on crack. Yoda was my favorite character growing up, and that fight scene made no sense. I remember a video I saw of the guy who invented Aikido in the 1900s - I forget his name now. He was a wizened old man in the video, probably pushing ninety years old, his diciples had long-since taken over teaching their own varieties of aikido, and he still showed up in his dojo to train his students and give little demonstrations. What he lacked in mobility and strength he made up for in grace and economy of movement, and I watched as he would toss aside the students with little hand movements or slow sweeping gestures. The students could attack in piles, and still they would be tossed aside like leaves. It was really magical to watch such an old man possessed of such power. Anyway - that's how Yoda should have fought. He should have been slow, graceful and easily dispatched his enemies using only the force. He had no business using a lightsaber, and had no reason to spring about like a ping pong ball. Lastly, the reason Yoda and Boba Fett were awesome characters in the original trilogy was because they were mysterious - unknown pasts, unknown barely hinted-at abilities under the surface. Lucas destroyed their mystique by making them full fleshed-out characters in AOTC.
This Start Wars CG stuff is crap. Did you see some of those graphics? Taking a bite of CG fruit from 3 inches way? Gimme a break.
I say bring back scale models! Watch the old movies. See how the X-Wings look real? That's because they are! How about that AT-AT or "Chicken-Walker"? They looked great, too. They're just small, but hell, WE can't tell.
Yoda as a CG didn't look as real (shaddows and debth looked off), the vehicles, cities, characters, monsters, animals... everything CG looked horrible, except maybe for the light-sabers and lasers.
Wait, I take it back: R2-D2 and C3P0 looked good... oh yeah, they were real! My bad.
I would love it if Lucus, for Epesode III, tossed the CG and brought back the models, rubber masks, and puppets.
If Slashdot is where the spelling-challenged go when they die, I'm in heaven.
...and knights are combatants. It only makes sense for their most respected member to be able dish it out when necessary.
That said, Yoda is more in touch with the light side of the force than all of them. When he is a peace it flows through him and he can do wonders. I personally thought that he should just have "relaxed" and start tossing Doku around like a rag doll when he wipped out the light saber. It is peace that has always been Yoda's ally not violence. I think the Yoda we see in AOTC is more rash and youthful himself. He is arrogant and still has a lesson to learn.
I see the Yoda scene as an expedient solution to problem. I knew Yoda was going to "throw-down" in AOTC, and I wondered how they'd do it. No matter what I pictured in my head it didn't look right, and the animators had to do it on the screen. The solution Lucas came up with seems to be: make him move so fast you can't look at him while he's fighting. Part of me wants to call it it a cop out, but personally I think it works.
It also sort of bothers me when adults complain about Jar-Jar and now CG Yoda. We all saw the original trilogy for the first time when we were younger than we are now. I don't know about you, but I accepted the Ewoks then, and in subsequent viewings I've accepted them (for better or worse) as part of Star Wars package. Attempting impartiality, I don't think they are any better than Jar Jar or CG Yoda.
George Lucas himself, confronted by the fact that the Death Star explosion (and other explosions in a vacuum) shouldn't make a boom said something like: "A lot of people have a lot of money invested in this movie, and when something blows up they expect there to be a boom, so I give them a boom."
Science fiction can be heavy on the science or heavy on the fiction. I think it's clear which side of that fence George Lucas has chosen: you can either go to the show, suspend your disbelief, and be entertained. Or you stay home. But I don't think anyone should expect the prequel movies to become to them now, what the original trilogy was to them starting nearly 25 years ago.
Below is a repreint of a top ten (plus one) list entitled Top 10 Things I learned from Attack of the Clones that circulated around work that was originally compiled by Dan Charlson.
1. There are no police, or more importantly, traffic cops or highway patrol officers, on Coruscant. Endangering pedestrians and other vehicles is just "no big deal."
2. Six-year old Jedi trainees are so capable with their light sabres that you can group them very tightly together -- even wearing "blast shield helmets" -- and have them swing away at training beacons without any concerns for safety.
3. Saruman can wield a mean light sabre -- although thankfully, he hasn't forgotten how to use telekinesis (but why didn't he do some more body-slamming?!? Wait -whaddyou mean this is Star Wars...?)
4. Just because you put a homing device on your opponent's getaway vehicle does NOT mean you shouldn't also follow him or her into a really dangerous asteroid belt instead of just waiting for him or her to come out the other side (you have a tracking device, remember!) -- of course, on the other hand, flying through asteroid belts at high speed is required in the Star Wars universe. [Thanks to JLyle for this one.]
5. The GSO -- Galactic Standards Organization (the future counterpart to the ISO and W3.org) -- has been so successful that not only have ALL major industrial manufacturers adopted the same data access, networking, and transfer protocols throughout the Republic, but so have secret, guerilla arms factories -- and besides, those same factories wouldn't use security software or electronic countermeasures to defend themselves against network intrusions anyway.
6. Even though the Republic has scads of enormous, elongated wedge-shaped Star Destroyers, you should never put them into high orbit around a planet and use them to prevent enemy starships from taking off, let alone using them offensively as long-range artillery weapons against enemy ground forces. Pitting land force against land force is pretty much the best way to go -- you can always make or get more robot or clone soldiers...
7. C3PO is so well-designed that there are power cells in every major constituent of his body -- including his head. [Thanks to JacobJ for this one.]
8. You don't need to wear a helmet or even goggles while you drive hovercraft, land speeders, or other flying vehicles in a desert environment such as Tatooine.
9. Little Boba Fett is so accustomed to seeing his dad's face only behind his cool helmet that it just wouldn't occur to him to lift the visor or remove the helmet to look at his poor dead dad's decapitated visage (try saying that three times fast!).
10. One's reputation, manner, and conduct just can't be guessed by observation alone -- you need to have a name which transparently broadcasts to all but the stupidest that you're not a nice person: Darth Sidious, Lord Tyranno, Count Dooku (?!?) -- not to mention Darth Maul, etc....
11. Who's the biggest, baddest dude of the whole Galaxy? He's short, he's green, he has thinning hair, and nope -- he doesn't _really_ need that walking stick after all...
This was the most interesting part of the article for me:
At first, anxious to demonstrate CG's full photorealistic power, the animators took Yoda far beyond his crude former self, having his mouth form full phonemes and moving his body around faster. They also ironed out all the wrinkles: No more jiggly ears or shaky arms or broadly pantomimed walks. But these initial results ''looked creepy,'' says Coleman. ''It looked like a little green man. It wasn't Yoda.''
So they ''dirtied up'' the animation, aping all of Yoda's limitations. When original puppeteer (and voicer) Frank Oz saw the footage, he freaked. ''He said, 'You're even matching my mistakes! Those ear wiggles -- you've got to get those out!''' But Coleman, and especially Lucas, vetoed Oz's request, arguing that the evident puppet-ness of Yoda is in fact what audiences remember best about him, and they still expect it.
They were right. I was impressed by the fact that Yoda still moved like he used to, and didn't suddenly have overarticulated lips. I also noticed his ears trembling occasionally as his head moved. This was essential to selling us on the CGI.
I much prefer the more organic look of puppetry and stop-motion to some of the poorly done CGI in the last couple SW movies (and the "Special Edition" of the 1st trilogy). Two examples: In Star Wars: SE there was a lot of crap that was supposed to "enhance" Mos Eisley, including a Stormtrooper (I think) falling off of a beast he was riding. It looked stupid and fake. In ATC, there was the Sound of Music scene where CGI Anakin fell off of his giant snail, or whatever the hell that thing was. Also incredibly fake. Clue to Lucas: put REAL people on horses, or even on big stuffed models of the creatures you're portraying (like the Taun-Tauns in Empire), and film them falling off. Looks much better.
I'm starting to wonder if our culture isn't collectively losing its ability to suspend their disbelief. Of course, a diminutive warrior like Yoda suddenly flying through the air is going to be funny on the surface. But if you were lost in the film like I was, really submerged into the world on-screen, not self-consciously fearful of what people might think if you let yourself go and connect with it, then that moment was one of the most startling moments in all the SW films.
One nice touch I noticed is that Yoda grabs his cane afterward and we are left to ponder the fact that this guy just moved like lightning in his fight, but has difficultly with the act of walking. It strikes you that he was exerting the Force on himself to move himself through the air and engage in battle. It makes a definitive statement about his ability.
I didn't have trouble with this. I feel sorry for those who couldn't enter that world and experience it full-force. Pity.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
"the crew... thought it was unseemly and undignified for Yoda to bounce through the fight like a Superball loose in a toy store. ''They thought, My God, this is never going to work."
I admit I thought the same the first time i saw Pat Morita playing ol' Miyagi, but he turned out all right too.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Its alot harder to move Jedi/Sith around with the force than it is mundane objects.
And saying that size doesnt matter is relative: the amount of effort yoda had to put into stopping the attack is commesurate with the amount of energy that dooku put into it, perhaps compounded with the possible death of the jedi beneath it- he was being careful: and perhaps precient:
He may have wanted to let tyrannous get away, knowing that the master was his true quarry, and that dooku was not the master...
Might be the first "scientically accurate" sound fx in the entire Star Wars universe. ;-)
... instead of drawing lightsabers, Yoda (who would be a puppet, because believing a CG image is Yoda is so much harder than believing a wad of latex with Frank Oz's hand up its ass is Yoda) should have fought Dooku by using the Force to summon a clunky ethereal knight (done in cheap front projection of course; matte lines just look more -real-, and matching color palettes are for sissies), who then fight in jerky slow-motion.
During this battle, there is much groaning, pantomiming, and grimacing (except for Yoda, who has only two expressions: "furrow brows" and "lower ears." That's okay though, because PUPPETS GOOD.) Then, at the end, when there is a big flash of light (all done with squibs), Dooku says "You never could beat me, Egg Shen."
Yeah, that totally would have been worth my five bucks.
(Oh, and bring back Mr. Perfect, Irvin "Empire Strikes Back, Robocop II, SeaQuest DSV" Kershner to direct, because that man can do no wrong. Just watch that Amazing Stories episode "Hell Toupee.")
Please, take off the rose-colored glasses. The special effects technology of Star Wars has always, always, always been a work in progress. Watch the difference in space battles, and the lightsaber battles, between Episodes IV-VI. They make a quantum leap in sophistication, complexity, and speed.
That's because FX technology was, and is, always developing. This expectation that CG is somehow infallibe, and all its imagery should somehow be perfect and consistent, is rubbish. There's probably a very good reason there wasn't a CGI Yoda in Episode I -- and he will probably look much better in Episode III -- just like everything else.
Star Wars has always been about pushing the technological envelope as far as it will go. Sometimes it works. Sometimes they drop the ball. This has not changed since 1977. Look at any of the movies and you will find places where the special effects are truly great, and places where they stink on ice. Why all of a sudden this warrants another "George Lucas sucks" troll of a story is beyond me.
I am reminded of a Saturday Night Live sketch starring William Shatner, in which he is pelted with inane questions from feverish trekkies about "What was the combination to the lock in Episode 17?" Shatner tries to explain that it was just a prop, and there wasn't really a lock and therefore no combination at all, and the trekkies just stare without comprehension.
You are those fuckwits now. And yes, that means you too, you butt-munch, who are even now preparing a reply that goes something like "But Ep1 and Ep2 really were betrayals." Yes, you are the fuckwits.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
I think he was straining because Dooku was at that point trying to slam it down. Once Dooku turns and leaves, Yoda just heaves it aside. The problem I have is that none of them use the Force to DO anything. Like in the first movie, at the beginning. Oooh, droids with shields. PICK THEM UP AND POINT THEM AT ONE ANOTHER!
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The truth is that Lucas needed her to have a different job in Episode II so that she could fly around from planet to planet and people could try to kill her and Anakin would be forced to protect her and the two of them could have their cheezy dysfunctional romance.
Lucas made a big deal in Episode II about Amidala being the "former Queen" of Naboo. He rubbed our noses in the fact that she "served her term and then the new queen appointed her to be a senator". No mention of this weird system of government was ever made in Episode I.
Lucas had however received quite a bit of criticism about the morality of the Star Wars universe after Episode I came out. Episode I made things look like the universe was one in which the only way to be great was to be born great. Young girls were born into monarchy and being given authority based on their royal birth alone (not just "Queen Amidala" but also "Princess Leia"). The Jedi were all genetically superior (high midiclorian counts). The Force was only strong for Luke Skywalker because he was the son of Darth Vader, not because he was our lonely hero. And the annoying kid Anakin was born by some kind of Immaculate Conception. Lucas altered things in Episode II deliberately to change those perceptions.
This is all despite the fact that the word "queen" in the English language by definition means a woman who marries a king or a woman who is the daughter of the previous king and inherits the throne.
My other first post is car post.
That's the kind of thing that makes me want to scream! It all happened "a long time ago"---It's supposed to be a fairy tale! And why is it moraly wrong to have a universe in which it is necessary to be born great to be great? I'll tell you why: Because it contradicts the American Dream. And that's the reason that I want to scream out loud. I am NOT american, and to anyone like me it feels like an assault of the mind to be made to believe that americans have seen the light and everyone else has not! (I will now go and eat som fruit to raise my bloodsugar).
/Adam Lett
Also, along the lines of the senator being appointed, that isn't that unusual considering that there was an unexpected vacancy.
Senator Palpatine became Chancelor & was unable to finish his term as Senator for Naboo. The elected government of Naboo would have to appoint a replacement senator until elections could be held. Imagine now that the (democratically elected) queen's term ended before a new senator was appointed & the new queen appointed the old queen to finish out the senator's term.
[aside: I think I should have used "former queen"...I think "old queen" usually means something else]
Even if you assume that the term was less than the 10 years that passed between the Chancelor's election & AoTC, we could just accept that after finishing out the term she was appointed to she was elected to several more terms.
The deleted scene actually continued as follows:
What he lacked in mobility and strength he made up for in grace and economy of movement, and I watched as he would toss aside the students with little hand movements or slow sweeping gestures.
Not quite. What he lacked in mobility and strength, he made up for in being the venerated founder of a school in Japan, where it would be considered appalling behaviour to cast any aspersions on the Venerated One's declining powers.
The students could attack in piles, and still they would be tossed aside like leaves.
More like "the students ran at him in piles and then leapt aside like leaves as he waved a hand at them". Half sub-consciously, the students cooperated in being thrown. The idea that Ueshiba could have done anything remotely similar on a resisting body flies in the face of any non-mystical biomechanics.
It was really magical to watch such an old man possessed of such power.
Alternatively, it was really disgusting to watch an old man posessed of such vanity.
Ueshiba was a genuine fighter as a young man, but during that period, he practiced jujitsu/tai-jutsu. It was only after he founded his own school in 1942 of a state-sponsored, Shinto-flavoured dumbed down taijutsu that he started becoming a cult and staging demonstrations for gullible Westerners.
-- the most controversial site on the Web