Slashdot Mirror
Star Wars Revelations - May the Force Be With You!
n0alpha writes "For all you Star Wars fans out there, if you've been less than satisfied with the last two episodes of Star Wars, fear not. There is a new episode coming out soon -- but I'm not talking about Revenge of the Sith. On April 16th, 2005 the world will be blessed with a brand new episode, Star Wars Revelations. This is an independent film, completely put together by volunteers and organized by Panic Struck Productions, but don't let that fool you into thinking it is sub-par. Visit their website to view a trailer."
i for one welcome our new independent film overlords
..."copyright infringement" written all over it.
After all, I am strangely colored.
That is the first exciting Star Wars news I've heard in a long time! ...and just when I had started to give up.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Since you said it was NOT by George Lucas, I was not tending to think it was sub-par already.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
This is great -- but are they in any danger of copyright infringement?
I checked the site and didn't see anything regarding if they were cleared to use the Star Wars trademark.
Mythos : Logos
Now if only somone would make a fanfilm involving the horrific death of jar-jar...
Behold, another webcomic!
Hope they weren't storing all their footage on the server /. just melted down.
The movie seems to be set after/during Episode 3. How do they know what they are filming will not conflict with the official movie?
It wasn't a Universe-o-crap until Lucas got his hands on it...
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
At first I was taken aback by the cheezy dialog ("she lied to me! She used me!"), adequate acting, and overall look. Then I remembered Jar-Jar. This band of rebel filmmakers may be the galaxy's best last hope.
The movie looks pretty decent. The CGI effects are better than the original movies though the acting could use a little improvement. For an independant film I'm really impressed with it. If they showed it at my local theater I'd be willing to cough up the $9 to see it just for the original content.
Any word on how they are going to release this film? Online? Select theater?
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
Lucas recently said the newest sequel is not for children, and given the quality of the other ones put out since about halfway through Return of the Jedi, it's not for adults, either. Die, midiclorians, die! Die, Ewoks, die! Die, Jar-Jar, die!
lather, rinse, repeat
Dog is my co-pilot.
Okay, the CGI, sound, and effects were outstanding. But the acting and dialogue made me pray I'd be struck by a passing meteorite. Wait a minute, that was a verbatim transcript of my opinions of Ep1 & 2... Maybe these folks are on to something...
Haven't you been reading the slashdot arguments every time someone mentions Kazaa and p2p??? You can't call it copyright infringment. It is "Theft!" now. Just like war is peace and freedo is slavery.
The producers of the film are thieves, as are you if you watch it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"but don't let that fool you into thinking it is sub-par. Visit their website to view a trailer."
I'll save everyone 2 minutes right now. It's craptastic.
if it ever got aired.... that is.... after the angry mobs who come out from watching revenge of the sith maul him to death with plastic light sabers.
Ack! slashdotted, any mirrors?
Massive Spoilers Here. Unzip it then open the html document.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
iam downloading at 300k+, good to see someone knows how to set up a webserver
If you take poor filmmaking and try to imitate it, you get something even worse.
I love Star Wars for the story; not the screenplay that depicts it. By thinking that way I enjoy all the movies.
Oh, and as long as you keep John Williams' brilliant work in there, it can't be all bad.
Seems slashdotted already, at 8 minutes past posting. Anyone manage to save a copy to bittorrent?
What was it before Lucas got his hands on it?
The majority of free content created is, of course, subpar. The tools still need to be wielded by skilled artisans to created above average content. Regardless, as the bar continues to be lowered for entry into the field, more and more people with some degree of talent will find new outlets for their creativity.
I don't see there being any sort of mass uprising anytime soon, as the content cartels still have a lot on the distribution outlets, but the rise of the Internet has changed the playing field dramatically. The major counter-argument has been that the content cartels can merely buy up the few quality titles to maintain their advantage, but my theory is that there is enough latent creativity waiting in the wings they won't be able to stem the tide.
Well... I can dream, can't I?
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Still, telling it to the court won't be particularly fun. =(
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Panic did strike. Their poor little webserver. Down in ruins.
--slashdotted.
Never underestimate the power of the slash.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Hell, he'll win me back if he makes "Sith" nothing more than a 2 hour extremely bloody high body count Gungan snuff flick. The only time the Gungan slaughter stops is when the Ewoks show up and they become the target.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
At least we got some neat videogames out of the Matrix trilogy.
I thought KOTOR was quite good. Without Star Wars, it wouldn't be out.
You know, I'm at the point where I rarely even click on links from /. They are always deader than dead. Why can't we get torrents of stuff like this ready before a story is posted?
As long as Jar-Jar dies a horrible, guesome, and painful death in Episode three, it will be worth watching.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Alas, poor website! I knew it, Horatio: a site of infinite uptime, of most excellent fancy: it hath borne me on its pages a thousand times; and now, how absent in my browser it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those graphics that I have watched I know not how oft. Where be your scripts now? your applets? your stylesheets? your flashes of gif animation, that were wont to set my bandwidth on a groan?
Robert Anton Wilson
A well toasted server
I was raised on the the Original Star wars trilogy and have watched them over and over! But the new star wars prequels are pure junk, when compared to the original three. The original 3 are easy to digest and seem to whisk you away to this fantasy world and the story just flows freely throughout the movies.
The new and improved CG crapfest movies are force fed (go on eat up, it's star wars of course you'll love it) and trudge along with jagged edges.
The new movies also lack patience in its story develop, almost as if Lucas is trying to cram in to much crap. Mark my words, the new star wars trilogy will never become classics. However, the original trilogy is classic cinema. at least will always have those to enjoy.
This isn't about issues of copyright - but a minor rant about the attention paid to every nerd's attempt to craft their own little aside in an established universe.
The production tools the average person can get their hands on today are staggering. And yet we continually praise people for making films that show an absolute dearth of original imagination and inspiration. Yet audiences complain continually about how Hollywood shows no originality itself.
All the time spent on Revelations could've been put into crafting a story that would be infinitely more intelligent and challenging than any large scale expensive production. I want to see handmade films that offer the expansive ideas in real science fiction and fantasy that the expense of large scale moviemaking prohibits.
Shane Carruth spent probably as much money on the film Primer, a completely original and not at all amateurish looking film that fits perfectly into the comprehension and intelligence of the slashdot audience. But instead any time a bunch of uninspired morons use their time to knock off and emulate and continue the tyranny of imagination that a thousand executives push on audiences like Robert McKee or endless abortions engineered from a cursory reading of Joseph Cambpell, nerds freak out.
Own yourselves. Use those tools to make original, inspired, unique works of art. Stop making and continuing dreck based up on dreck, especially when you don't even have the option to afford hairstylists who'd make your film look as good as the original.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
"I see your Shwartz is as big as mine!"
When reached for comment about a new fan-created film, Mr. D. Vader, a spokesperson for LucasFilms released the following statement: "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed, the ability to host a file is no match for the power of the Slashdot force."
Here come da fudge!
It will lead you to being slashdotted
is not with their server... It fell to the dark side.
The only problem is that we'll be getting a lot more crappy movies out there that idiotic people made one groggy saturday morning, thought it would be funny to show it to the whole world, and then post it on their geocities website.
and then there will be the special movies, which people actually plan, work on, fix up, re-film, and add special effects to that end up being better than a lot of the movies in theaters (as in content, not looks. Looks you can buy, but content is priceless). Out of the thousands of movies in the mentioned scenario, only about 4 to 5 will be of this quality, maybe more if people catch on that only the good movies are watched.
-stalefries
Too bad A New Hope is already taken.
This is frickin ridiculous. The post barely gets up and the page is slashdotted without any mirror. This happened yesterday to the Batman/Building Block movie trailer, too. I still can't get that page up, or even the mirror someone made.
I'd rather not hear about this stuff if I can't check it out.
Got a new box, lets see how my Dual Xeon handles.. (be nice)
web_trailer_II_larger.mov
-Mitti
Google Cache: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:OY5Ph7dWELUJ: panicstruckpro.com/revelations/revelations_media.h tml+&hl=en
Trailers (All of them are quicktime trailers):
Large (13 MB)
http://panicstruckpro.com/revelations/video/web_tr ailer_II_larger.mov
Medium (11 MB)
http://panicstruckpro.com/revelations/video/web_tr ailer_II_large.mov
Small (9.16 MB)
http://panicstruckpro.com/revelations/video/web_tr ailer_II_small.mov
"At least we got some neat videogames out of the Matrix trilogy."
We did? I though Enter the Matrix was a piece of crap. Were there others? The MMO hasn't launched yet, and I can't believe there are people interested in playing it.
I won't argue the merits of the Star Wars universe, I admit it's pretty goofy and the last two movies lacked a lot of the fun factor that made the goofiness excusable in the first three. However, as far as games goes, I'd give the nod to Star Wars. Most of them have sucked, but several have been decent:
Battlefront (unbalanced, buggy, but oddly amusing)
Republic Commando
Knights of the Old Republic
the X-Wing and Tie Fighter series
On the other hand, Force Commander was so bad it may just negate any good from other releases.
And of course the MMO HAS launched and I can't believe there are people interested in playing it.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
May the slashdotting be with you.
KKKKAAAAAAAHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!
(fade to black)
KOTOR? Please... Give me old school Return of the Jedi for SNES anyday! Not to mention.. PODRACING! Who didn't waste a couple of bucks in that huge contraption next to the DDR machine?
I would say there website was panicstruck once /. go t the story.
Lord, did I just type that nonsense? ;-)
Have you actually played force commander or did you just read the reviews and take their word for it?
Appropriate name for the site after being slashdotted
Theforce.net has the trailer...it's already a bit clogged. here
...a rumble was heard.
Right after Lucas read about this on Slashdot.
I'd say they were the first two!
This whole reverse-order trilogies thing makes my head hurt...
What we really need is Spaceball 2 to hit the big screens. Of course, some people might be saying, "Oh, no... not again!" :P
Seventeen minutes after the news breaks, and the site goes boom. You gotta love the /. effect...
Anyway, I managed to grab it before it all went kaput, and I can't really say that the villainess strikes fear in me... mostly because she looks like a pug in a hot dog outfit. Oh I get it now, that's why it's called Revelations... we find out why most sith lords wear face masks of some sort!
Great special effects though, especially the ships.
(From the Laws of Japanese Animation) Law of Inherent Combustibility -- Everything explodes. Everything.
KOTOR would still be around without Star Wars. It's just D20 Modern/Future with some arcana thrown in. Not to minimalize the importance of Star Wars, the system had a lot more to with gameplay than you'd expect. Go figure.
Here's a mirror for the home page and the full-sized trailer:
;)
Homepage
Trailer (.mov)
I'd post a torrent but I don't have a tracker... Perhaps Slashdot should run one for things like these
www.mirrordot.com? Check out http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/fe8b6a800eb7b4f95 a558da0372aa63a/index.html
Will take you directly there
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life
againts George Lucas here. Some of you seam to forget that he brought us Star Wars in the first place. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Even better, why doesn't CmdrTaco post torrents of every story link on the front page?
They could be 'webtorrent' links that require a browser plugin to view. It would work like a distributed cache of the page, like torrent does for files. Proxies & caching already exists for webpages but they don't distribute the load like torrent does.
Requiring a plugin sucks but it's better than getting a dead site everytime. Also, if their are any inside deals going in exchange for banner clicks, cmdrtaco probably won't go for it.
Is there such as thing as a 'webtorrent'?
http://www.svsu.edu/~agsharro/web_trailer_II_large r.mov
Let the /.ing begin!
How could you forget jedi knight!!
I like this trailer - it's full of ugly and uncharismatic people . Now that gives a guy like me hope for the future. Perhaps I should sign up for that 'rogue starpilot' evening class after all.
thanks for posting that, it was the only way I could see it. I really appreciate it. Hope you don't have a /. meltdown =)
Oops - I threw in the linkfilter direct link to movie above, but didn't know the actual website didn't want hot-linking. Please mod up menace3society's post below, which will take you to the actual site of Star Wars 3: A Lost Hope.
:)
Thanks
http://www.theforce.net/fanfilms/comingsoon/revela tions/index.asp
Does this look like Wing Commander in 2005 with lightsabers to anyone? The acting is just...superb! They made the same mistake Lucas has been accused of. Hiding bad acting with pretty effects.
me so no think
http://www.ir0x0rz.com/mattias/videos/web_trailer_ II_larger.mov
This is very nice looking for a fan-made movie. It is , however, subpar to a hollywood production (CG, actors, fight scenes...). But even getting to the level to actually be compared to a hollywood movie is a huge achievement so congratulations to the crew.
I'll be sure to check it out when it comes out.
the Kelly Osborne lookalike's "EVIL voice" was especially weak. I won't be bothering with that. You can slop all the CGI you want over something but if the acting is flat and the cast somewhat aesthetically challenged its simply not fixable.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Hey, The make-up work is also great... they were able to make the woman who plays the new bad guy even uglier than Darth Maul in episode I.
I thought it was extremely funny.
I haven't seen this yet. Does it end with wet cats like the original "Wing Commander" did?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Spaceballs 3: The Search for 2
+++ATH0
Looks like straight to video... by the Babylon 5 production team... and Kevin Smith (or a look alike). The special effects look cool enough, but the acting, camera work, needs some serious editing (like... editing out)
The Admin and the Engineer
as
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And their ISPs.
All your
After viewing the trailer and hearing some of the dialog and seeing the effects, im a bit skeptical that this could be more entertaining than the real thing.
n s/video/web_trailer_II_larger.mov
to be honest, the actors sound like they're in a porno, except that instead of seeing naked people, we see lots of CG effects and homegrown lightsaber effects. I'm impressed at the quality they were able to achieve, yet the storyline and acting may prove to be even worse than episodes 1 and 2.
i'm afraid that they will stray down the same path that the first 2 did and be full of neat effects (which seem cooler because they weren't made by ILM) but have no strong points.
check the trailer and decide for yourself:
http://panicstruckpro.com.nyud.net:8090/revelatio
gimme gimme gimme, that I would watch.
For a fan production I'd officially say "not bad." It obviously took a lot of work, and I can't denigrate that.
OTOH, it kinda sucked. I've seen cable access shows with better acting. Not surprisingly given the source material, it's pretty similar to most of the scifi crap Lucas, and Hollywood, churn out these days: blow the budged on special effects, look to Ed Wood for directing inspiration.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
I think this is part of a conspiracy by George Lucas to make the acting and dialogue in Episode III seem a whole lot better.
Right here
or else!
***POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT***
Episode 3 Script
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"I find your lack of faith in the /. Effect disturbing..."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
"Funniest advice ever this is. A heap of molten lava their server will become."--Yoda
My heart goes out to the poor admin--I just hope they don't have any daylies on the same machine.
UGH! Watching that just brings home that no matter how much I might have been disappointed by the plot and dialog in Episode I, it could have been made 100,000 times worse by getting a bunch of fanboys together to make a mediocre video of how they though it SHOULD have been done.
Cheers me up for EpIII, really.
is not strong with this server.
First time hosting a torrent, so here goes: http://68.205.82.17:3001/web_trailer_II_larger.mov .torrent
"Wiser words never spoken have been"
no text
...the acting in that movie looks incredibad. I mean, every character looks more annoying than Jar Jar.
or else!
First off, the CGI, while not to the level as the 'AAA' modern day films, is still quite amazing. Ships, exploding stuff, robotic limbs... Very nicely done. There were a few scenes in the trailer where the CGI looked blurry compared to the rest of the shot, but that could be fixed up before release.
I don't really follow the Star Wars universe as a whole, so all I can say about the plot is that it is interesting.
However, as many people have already pointed out, the acting is sub-par. The lead evil actress tries to have some sort of menacing voice, but just sounds like her mouth is packed with something. (acorns?) The acting of other parts (such as the confrontation on the 'good guy' ship) seems forced, with delayed reaction time. The lightsaber scene between the two lead females just didn't feel right.
There were also some parts of the trailer that just didn't fit in with the pace of it. The one main example that I saw was the girl dancing in a futuristic version of those hanging cages (I have no idea what they are called.) The pace of her body threw off the suspense that was (supposedly) building, and conflicted with the (then) slow music. It also had no real purpose that I could tell.
Hopefully the acting throughout the entire movie averages better than the trailer, but I wouldn't be surprised if the opposite were true.
It's probably good for them that they can't charge money for it.
I am not a film critic, obsessive Star Wars fan, or acting buff, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.
Looks like a very ambitious project... I'm sure if they do some of the dialogue in studio and have the actors try some of those lines again, it will be much more polished.
The action scenes even look half decent! Great job guys. I'll definitely get the DVD if I don't see it in theatres.
I find it a bit foolish to insult actors in fanfilms. I doubt the maker of the movie had an unlimited budget and could hire actors fresh out of Hollywood. Give the guy a break, he's trying.
Another bantha poo star wars flick...
Insert something witty here...
Some fanbois thought it would be cool to have two 'hot chix' as jedi's, cause that would be hot.
But once you view the trailer you can see they failed miserably to deliver the hotness.
So there really is no point in watching it.
Now I've seen Everything
A million geeks cheering in joy and were suddenly silenced. By a million lawyers.
Okay the effects are quite good. I may even be willing to give the story a chance. But the acting is wretched. The actors were chewing the scenery the entire trailer. This strikes me as fanboys/fangirls who couldnt pass up the opportunity to make themselves part of the story, whether they could act or not. And in most cases, it appears they could not. Its probably too soon to pass judgement based on a trailer alone, but what I saw wasnt promising.
But you have to respect the effort. They've made it this far. I doubt I could have.
Played it. Err, tried to play it. I don't know how it was for you, but for me it was very buggy, crash prone and had an extremely odd to use interface.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I've got a bad feeling about this.
Some people are like slinkys. They're useless, but it puts a smile on your face to push them down the stairs.
Posting anonymously this time, so no karma whoring...
s /web_trailer_II_larger.mov
s /web_trailer_II_large.mov
s /web_trailer_II_small.mov
High quality (13 MB) at http://200.17.94.190/~felipe/star_wars_revolution
Medium quality (11 MB) at http://200.17.94.190/~felipe/star_wars_revolution
Low quality (9.2 MB) at http://200.17.94.190/~felipe/star_wars_revolution
It didn't suck. Some of the effects shots were downright stunning -- if they were in an actual hollywood movie I'd be impressed.
The problem with fan productions always seems to be the acting; it reminds me of how the problem with open source GUI apps is always the GUI. It's the human part that the geeks have trouble getting right.
In the case of this trailer: the actors just don't look right for the parts, and their acting isn't very convincing. It's not horrible, just not good enough. There's a reason directors insist on take after take; a lot of the time it's so there is enough footage to piece together a decent scene.
Outside of the actual acted scenes, everything else looked superb and downright amazing -- including the live shots with the stormtroopers etc.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Star Wars had a stellar cast, all proven professionals...well, mostly.
It certainly has some very good actors apperaing in even the prequels: Ewen McGregor, Liam Neeson, and Natalie Portman among others. What it also had was some very very poor actors in some critical roles: Jake Lloyd, and Hayden Christiansen. Then there were those weird choices for minor roles: Ahmed Best? I think we could have done better for a character with as much screen time as Jar Jar in Ep I (though the director is surely to blame for some of that). Temuera Morrison? You're not in Guatemala now Dr. Ropata. Has Martin Henderson somehow scored himself a role for Ep III?
I agree though, despite some good actors, there's only so much you can do with a script and director who are apparently working against you. Most of the blame really has to fall squarely at Lucas' feet here.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Worked fine for me!
the site was slashdoted so quick I was reminded of the kessel run and 12 parsects.
I thought all people in space were british? WHAT HAPPENED! Probably some stupid civil war on a planet far far away between a colony and these british space people, I suppose.
the problem with star wars fan films is that they have star wars fans in them.
pity there's no "+5, Groovy" available in this instance...
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
I'm in luck!!! -Matt
mirrordot is great stuff.
redundant? sure.
helpful? likely.
Looks like a Kernel "Panic Struck" the server! I hope George Lucas doesn't feel this infringes upon his Star Wars franchise and decide to send the lawyers to them. You have to admit Star Wars is a huge money maker for him and the studio, and anybody trying to make some money off of it better have some good lawyers.
That was some awesome CGI interspersed with some of the funniest jokes I've seen in a while. If this was supposed to be serious I am worried.
The new movies also lack patience in its story develop, almost as if Lucas is trying to cram in to much crap. Mark my words, the new star wars trilogy will never become classics. However, the original trilogy is classic cinema. at least will always have those to enjoy.
I agree with you 100%. What's even worse is all the changes Lucas made to the origional trilogy when they re-released it on DVD.
However, nothing compares to the bad acting I just witnessed in today's independantly produced trailer. Computer actors or not, at least the Lucas films have paid actors... that really adds a lot. I'm sure their story line is a million times better than Lucas's Ep 1 and Ep 2, but I don't think I'd be able to sit through enough to find out.
I think in many ways, you're right. When the day comes when we can easily download internet video content to our TVs at home, indie films will be much more able to compete with DVDs from the major studios, and we'll see a lot more great content that finds an audience this way.
But good work takes money. And more importantly, don't most of us *want* to help out the people who make the things we like?
Take Chris Tallman's Time Belt, for instance. I loved this little show, and I know a lot of others did too. I would gladly have paid a few bucks a month if I knew there were a thousand other people doing the same thing, and that doing so would get us all a new episode of Time Belt each month.
I don't know Tallman, so I can't say whether or not a deal like this would've interested him. But I suspect it might have.
There is a ton of free content out there, and there always will be, but when it comes to art, sometimes there are no substitutions. And I'm glad to pay when I like the person or what they make. So I guess my point here is that rather than describing things in terms of free vs. pay, it seems more productive to me to frame it in terms of opening the market to everyone rather than the virtues of destroying the market alltogether. Don't you think?
Hope that made sense.
I was just waiting for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to make a cameo. If you haven't seen the clip where he is harassing the dorks in the Star Wars Episode Garbage line, see it. See the full version. It is a riot.
Yes, for an indy film this looks pretty good. But normally you put the best parts in a trailer. This looked like impressive tripe.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I was mistaken. Your swartz are not as big as mine.
I don't know why else you'd be so anal retentive about a one-line comment. The comment's soul purpose was to give a body to the text. It was filler, nothing more. The subject line said all that needed to be said.
Parent is the same crap people say on slashdot everytime a Star Wars topic comes up and it gets modded as insightful. Please explain.
Concept = great
CG = great
Director of Photography = very good (composition of scenes and such is not half bad!)
Acting = apalling
A lot of the little oddities would be helped if they convert it over to 24fps, that would make it feel much more film like instead of someone's garage project... even though it IS someone's garage project. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I think it's completely awesome that they've put this much effort into it.
Question
Is Lucas aware of your film and isn't he going to sue the hell out of you?
Answer: .To answer, I doubt if Lucas himself has seen "Revelations". However ,Lucas is a large supporter for fan films,and is very kind enough to let other inspiring artists play in his backyard, as long as you don't try and make money from his hard work, and respectfully so.
For most people who do not understand fan films we get this question often
"Revelations" is a non-profit film and everyone who worked on the film was a volunteer (no one was paid). The film itself will be availible free to download from TheForce.net and the "Revelations" website to anyone who wishes to watch it.
A great article put out by "Wired" covers some good ground about fan films and here is what Steve Sansweet (Lucasfilm's head of Fan Relations) had to say:
I thought the preview looked okay, but I think I'd be a lot more interested if the actors didn't actually look like star wars fans... they seriously look like they could have made the movie while waiting in line for Episode III.
Ha! A fellow Kiwi! (It never occurred to me to look at your website link)
:)
Nobody else is going to get the Guatemala joke
The thought of Lucas replacing all the storm trooper voices with Tem Morrison's strong Kiwi accent is what has kept me from getting the Star Wars Trilogy - it might be cultural cringe, but even though I'm a born-and-bred New Zealander, I hate New Zealand accents!
(It was also difficult to stay immersed in the LotR movies at times - everytime someone from Shortland Street popped up it was a little too much to take seriously)
sorry...couldn't resist. the one chick toward the end looks like the Predator.
That of course was a cheap wow to suck you in, justas this film will be. Traiers always look good. That's their job. Mediocre acting and bad fight choreography won't make this even hold up.
Fact is, all the Star Wars films have been, in their own way, deliciously bad. Harrison Ford is a block of wood, Hamill just plain is no actor...
It's all about the story- Star`Wars succeeded because there was never anything like it before- when it hit, no one knew. That Episode Four was a better picture was no surprise. By the time Six cam around, it was time to tie it up in a neat little basket.
The true test will come when we look at this films in story order and see how the whole thing holds up- were te first three exposition adn therefore tedious as hell? Likely so. Revenge of the Sith just might be the tie that binds the exposition to the action. Too damn bad we'll never see the actual climax and resolution of the story.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
Quoting the wikipedia link on computer generated imagery:
Quoting the wikipedia link on common gateway interface:
I hope that clears things up!
a few minor quibbles about it and a few big ones too...
a few of the ships didn't look quite like star wars like ships. mostly the ship that we see taking off from the ground. just didn't ring true as a star wars ship and instead looked like something they were giong to use in another project and used it in this one instead.
the bigger issue though is that for what seemed like a good production, for the most part, it fell apart as soon as the 'actors' started talking. the main girls voice is kind of annoying and the other girl sounds whiny, like this was the oc, not star wars (or like young anakin). the dialog is about on par with jarjar's lines. had they gotten a group of real actors that were interested in this and not just the nerd collective, i think this would have been really great.
as it is though it is a great looking work that is marred by the acting and held up by the visuals. on that note, it is fairly similar to episode i, and to a lesser extent, episode ii...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
This came out right after Chapter 4 and was histerical. I think it was produced by some college kids with a budget less than a week end beer party at a frat house. I still recall parts of it and remember the picture of a cartoon tractor that was the controller for The Tractor Beam. I wish I had a copy of it now.
Too lazy to create a sig...
I hate it when the film makers cast thier ugly
girlfriends in the movie. The acting is horrible
also.
Great writing, too!
- George Lucas
Alas, poor website! I knew it, Horatio: a site of infinite uptime, of most excellent fancy:
..now an object, not found but for memory's sad repair.
It hath borne me on its frames a thousand times; and now, how absent from my screen it is!
Here hung those gifs that I have watched,
Here, the scrolling Navbar of delight,
now gone.
Once a friendly searchbox, in quiet rectagonal rectitude,
floated here, an iframe in a sea of harsh reflection,
Where now your scripts? your applets? your stylesheets?
Your flashes of gif animation, that were wont to set my bandwidth on a groan?
Oh, I am doomed to go a googleing once more.
I'll be definitely modded down as a flamebait, but I haven't heard any meaningful explanation why Episodes I&II suck. Any insights? They have at least some eye candy. I find older episodes extremely boring. That is probably a good idea for 'Ask slashdot' theme: why do you love (or hate) StarTrek/StarWars/Babylon5/XFiles/Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy (I listed iconoclastic books/movies that make me yawn).
my sstream of consciousness
It's amazing how you can put John Williams' score and Ben Burtt's sound effects on any piece of garbage and make it give you the chills. Therein lies the true genius of SW.
Yeah, I agree. The voice acting was right up there with B-List porn. Add some chickabowwow guitar riffs to that dual-saber fight and you'd have the perfect lead-in to the obligatory girl-on-girl scene.
Oh come on! Tell me you weren't thinking the same thing. You're a perverted bastard and you know it.
And the Slashdot effect does not fail. The website is completely dead. Mirrors anyone?
Thank you /. nazi.
Did someone run over your dog today? I happened to think grandparent's post was amusing.
Half the links on SLASHDOT never work
The site seems to have been Slashdotted. Mined a link from Archive.org to it --> Here.
a**hole. Don't be that guy man. Too late.
Why you gotta ruin something?? I bet I can trace hundreds of things you've screwed up for the silent minorty over the years...
It's out on DVD, seems like it was about 15 bucks or so. I know Netflix has it. :)
....in a galaxy far far away.
Karen Hammang is just laughable. They'd have done better with Anna Nicole Smith... she's a better actress than Hammang (and looks the same, too, with that pouty thrust-out chin).
If your gonna link might was well use the proper one...
a sp ects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction#Legal_
Showed it to my co-worker. It started cool and then went corny very fast. As he said, the last line on the screen be "And yes we are hiring"
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
Look at Panic Struck's Mastercard bill:
* CGI animation: $16,000
* Hair & Makeup: $2500
* Costumes: $5000
* Good actors: PRICELESS
So, getting a refund on those actors then, huh?
(Incidentally, this is very similar to George Lucas' Mastercard bill.)
Imagine, just for a second, how much fun it would be working on this movie.
I'd throw in my nine bucks just to support such a tremendous labor of love and nerd fantasy made real. Well, real as in movie real. Not real as in "don't cut your fingers off with the lightsaber."
Forget SETI@Home, how about RenderFanFilms@Home? I'd be in for that. I imagine quite a few of you would, too!
-Ta0
Fear my exceedingly low UID, and my exceedingly low post count. Yes, I am the longest-running lurker on Slashdot.
> So "CG" is an adjective, not a noun like CGI is.
:(
D'oh! Except when it stands for "computer graphics." My bad.
I feel sorry for whoever is running the site. It's already been shut down.
Vote Democrat: The ass you save may be your own.
Just figured out how to bring back Enterprise for a 5th season.
Well, it can't possibly suck MORE, can it?!
eMule / eDonkey link
r %2 0II.mov|13635737|FF034C13DA9830A5B29881511447159C| h=QOIX3LQF3PDWCQBF3MI4TG5N3JGFZE4B|/
ed2k://|file|Star%20Wars%20Revelations%20traile
They are doing very very well in most of the technical aspects, but they forgot the guy with the directional boom mike. And when you do that, no matter how good the movie it sounds like a porno. And when it sounds like a porno, everyone thinks the actors act like they are in a porno and start bagging on the acting.
Much of the bad acting are the vocals not being recorded and compressed properly. Hopefully a decent sound guy will step up and help them fix it!
The first three star wars films were 2 and a 1/2 films of a classic trilogy. The rest was crap for kids which continued into episode 1. Ewoks should have been wookies not cute dolls.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
that don't compare to natalie! that ho ugly!
I remember when this first came out. Histerical.
e _wars
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/hardwar
May the Farce be with You...
*ahem*
"zomg. torrent plz"
They SAID they're not making any money off it, and we go and quintuple their bandwidth charges anyway.
Anyone got a mirror for the trailer?
In the far distant galaxy mankind has the technology to make virtually anything fly. Whether it be spaceships the size of states or tiny little orbs.
And yet they continue to make robots of all shapes and sizes that roll on wheels, walk or stumble around trying to get up stairs.
evil is as evil does
I guess... void ? ;)
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
TIE Fighter was one of the best SC sims I ever played...I still play it to this day (thus why my windows partition is still Win98 instead of 2K).
After all these years, the gag still gets a laugh from me!
You know, if there really was a god, Tem would have had some cool throwaway line as Jango Fett in Ep 2. Maybe a "You're not on Coruscant any more, Jedi" or something like that.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Old fashioned catfights between women!
That light saber fight looked like they were drying their nails on the heat from each others' lightsabers....
Gah.
Although the special effects are pretty good, I don't think I'd be able to get over the high school acting. They should have taken their rescources and made an adult movie.
Just shoot me off an e-mail next time you want one of your posts modded down. Ill be glad to help! :)
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
Never have I seen computer animation so human mixed with human actors so mechanical.
...En að Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað Er Nýr Dagur
Frankly when people speaks of woodfen-acting, did they even saw SW 4-6 or SW 1-2 ? Also the problem might be that the actor "sound" like if what they told has not be worked over by a sound engineer, which can change a slighty ton, pitch and so on and make up a lot. The trailer at least interrested me.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Oh, never mind.
Tag lost or not installed.
Geez... the actors in that trailer almost made me appreciate hayden christensen.... no wait i won't go that far but they were baaaaad
well, I almost let the description fool me into thinking it was sub-par, but thankfully I viewed the trailer - not I'm not fooled, I'm utterly convinced. We're talking like quadrple boogey sub-par.
I'm betting that every special effect in the movie is right there in that trailer - watching the film would only mean more dialog by that jut-jawed goth chick. I can only imagine how painful this would be.
Only one good thing could possibly come of this, and it involves a comic insult dog.
ôó
Amazing 3D and effects!
Amazingly bad acting!
Amazingly bad lighting of the live action!
Revelations = Trekkies now doing Star Wars
Good animation and effects + bad story + bad acting = total flop
God bless fan films and fat guys with beards!
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Star Wars fans have finally sunken as low as Star Trek fans. It's going to be a battle for the bottom.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Who shot first - the fat guy or goth chick?
"Reading you should practice, getting it right you will some day." ;)
The Force has you.
I know they put alot of time into it, yadda yadda, but when the poster for the movie says "panic struck presemts star wars revelations" :)
:)
I'm a little weary.
If you need a photoshop guy, I'm here for you, and I'll fix your poster
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Not only do the actresses sound annoying they are fugly as well...I can't imagine hearing and seeing them for an hour and a half (or however long it may be).
May the pork be with you...
sheesh...
yeek...
scared.
and calling it revelations?
I have festering boils that are more creative than that title.
die die die fan freaks.
garrrrr.....
I studied and trained performing arts, have a diploma in that and I also consider myself somewhat firm at general visual/fine arts.
:-) )
The thing hat occured to me about watching and noticing the bad acting , as a lot of people here allready have done, is I thought that I would have done it better. Yet the other part of that is that it also occured to me how extremly difficult it would be to get it just right. For novices aswell as for me.
I've long considered starting a little independent film project and I think I would be the type of guy to a) not consider a fan project like this 'below' me and b) actually be able to aply my skills in such a way that everybody would profit from it. Like for instance the mentioned bad acting. There are a few extremly simple rules of acting that just sink in with the years that these people could have followed to greatly enhance even that short trailer. Very much like the simple rules you just know when to apply as an experienced programmer.
Some must-have basics:
If you want to sound fierce, loud and evil, tone down on the vowels and emphasise the consonants. Do speech training. Do speech training with your lines.
The moment you know your lines is the moment you START practicing them, you don't stop it there. (That's what differs a school play from professional acting btw)
When you act, your head and facial expression leads your motion, when you dance your body leads your motion and facial expression. For dancing: On at least one part of your body at a time the musical beat should be visible. (Cue stupid dirty jokes below
And finally, my performing arts process I've refined over 10 years of professional work -
practice an act in this order (and in this order ONLY):
1) Learn to know the play and learn your lines by heart. Nothing else. Don't dare try to act at this stage. NEVER try to act at this stage. If you do, you WILL suck on stage/film. Trust me. I've studied with to many third class perfomers, the world has enough of them. In fact, you shouldn't even move very much when reciting your lines at this stage.
2) Give your lines flow and vividness by supporting each one with an inner picture and vision. EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE. Give the string of visions a storytelling consistency. It's at this stage perfomers notice wether they've understood the playwrite or wether they have to correct their povs at some place or other. This is the stage at which storyboarders, and directors of photography double check their plans for shooting. Again: don't act yet. Do more of a reciting or storytelling thing. Good RPG Gamemasters enter this stage frequently for instance.
3) Forget your lines for this stage. Think of that other person whos lines you happen to know by heart and what kind of a character he might be. Pratice stances, poses and gestures emphasising basic emotions with the impitus of that character. Don't do that with the lines. Don't act the play! Do that with differen't things. Lines you make up. Best is to make up a little play by itself. You're on the safe side if you take - for instance - the tragic Anakin Skywalker (well he was a tragic character and the acting wasn't bad at all for such a 5th grade script) and try to play him as if he were a part in a comedy. Don't speak to early. Practice the stances, poses and gestures. Learn the difference between movement leading to pose and pose leading to movement.
4) Now practive stances, poses, gestures and movement of the play. Use the visions of 2). Don't speak your lines to much. Whisper them or speak them toneless. You want to concentrate on the moving part. You practice that seperately from speaking at first.
5) Add you lines and and your adversaries in play. Get in sync. If your coplayers are good, you won't even need a director. Do the stuff. The thing. In one word: Act.
HERE is where the acting kicks in. And once again: Anybody who starts earlier in the process WILL suck in performance. When you
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
and hot grits. How could you??
just like the humble blood clot... turboporsche@telus.net
The acting in the trailer was on par with *shrudder* a Xena episode. The CG was good but the live action sucked. This was most definitely not recorded on film. It looks like a TV news report.
I really have to wonder how come Lucas started his first movie (i.e. "A New Hope") with the specific subtitle of "Episode IV".
Did he actually plan on making the "prequels" later on, or was it simply that "incomplete" feel that made (ultimately) the OT so fun to watch ?
So, about the "sense of grandeur" - couldn't agree more, with regards to the OT. I couldn't say that the prequels lacked a "grand design", but I could say that it was too "forced".
I don't know why... lazyness to come up with not-so-straightforward developements, need to "cram in" as much possible, desire to explain everything that wasn't explained in the OT (when I say "midichloreans", I guess many *will* cringe and cover their ears going "la-la-la-la").
You know, some things SHOULD remain unexplained, or at least not so "thoroughly" explained.
The secondary characters... again a jackpot. I think you can see a clear pattern of "in-depth" to "comic relief" secondary characters emerging from the "episodes 4,5,6,1,2" timeline. I truly hope we see no references to either Jar-Jar nor ewoks in "episode 3". Please.
While under a "Republic", one would expect numerous (and pretty powerfull) interest groups to develop and manifest themselves. True, there was almost no political backdrop (except the rebels and isolated passive resistance pockets) in the OT... but at least you weren't spoon-fed a snapshot of a pseudo-political war between "used puppets".
Also, for an "evil genius" that Sidious/Palpatine is supposed to be, I guess he could have worked out a better plan than "create sympathy for me by placing homeworld under wrongfull siege so I can then use some obedient army I just created to destroy the obedient armies of my probably not so obedient puppets so I can rule the galaxy, while trying to corrupt a young but powerful twerp I just met mid-plan by sacrificing some of my more experienced underlings" scenario.
What I mean, the OT was (even if sometimes only barely) PLAUSIBLE. The prequels just take a "stop point" in Ep.4, add into the story some "milestones" set there by years of respectable books and maybe not so respectable fanfics, pour in some "forced enlightenment" and expect us to buy it.
Err... sorry, when faced with a "continuity with all SW universe but hair-pulled events" vs. "some very well tied things in slight contradiction with the non-movie OT universe", I'd rather pick the latter.
But I guess I'm part of a minority when it comes to "paying customers", so nobody'll listen to me... right?
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
Do you feel that the characters in the prequels have anything behind the actor? No, there is nothing, even the parts of these movies which are "real" lack soul.
On the other hand, if you watch Finding Nemo, everything feels real, even though it's just CG fish in a CG ocean. What's the difference? Writing, story, acting, perhaps.
The idea that the problem is CG is just absurd. People said the same thing about color movies when they were first released. The problem isn't that you loose something when you use CG for effects, the problem is that you don't gain anything. You can't expect a movie to be good just because it has good special effects.
Go and watch the original movies, the special effects weren't anymore believable. The might have looked more real, but all that means is that Yoda looked like a real puppet, and Jabba the Hut looked like a real bunch of plastic with real people inside. They weren't any more convincing in the roles they were supposed to play. And don't even talk about space scenes, there's no way the space scenes look more realistic in the original movies. The only difference is that they couldn't do as much because of the limitations of using "real" models instead of CG models.
It's been on slashdot for several hours, yet still I'm able to download the trailer at 150KB/s!
I think there it is a crime against humanity that people are not free to make their own Star Wars movie (or any other derivative work based on any other mythology). I'm not going near the copyright issue really: if you produce you a unique film perhaps you should have the right to profit off of it for a period of time. But you shouldn't have the right to own characters or universes and anyone should be able to make their own unique film (book, etc.) similar to it.
haha this must be a joke... ive seen better choreography in a WALKER, TEXAS RANGER episode! :)
And to be blunt I don't think George Lucas knows how to direct actors. Sorry but just a cursory glance at Jake Lloyd's performances screams out "RETAKE!"
Ciao
Is it that this is a non Lucas Star Wars movie or that someone else will release a Star Wars film that they will continue to revise, edit, and tweak over time always moving closer to their "original vision"?
It looks like daytime tv soap opera with a futuristic touch.........
...Is that portly Jedi in the field contemplating his next snack?
Ambition and effort, A+
Dialog recording, audio, D
Effects, B
Casting, D
Dancing, D
A low point:
(Nasal-whine) "Do you have it?"
But I'm sure the ones behind this are quoting their own creation:
"I really don't care what you want!"
I quite enjoyed episode 1 and 2. I always kept Darth Vader in the back of my mind, and I could gradually see Anakin change - I could understand how he might end up on the dark side of the Force. And the NT constantly foreshadows what inevitably will happen in episode 3.
I think you are too caught up in the fact that the NT is not made the same way the OT is. It's not supposed to! The NT is telling a completely different story on a completely different level.
There was a discussion about Star Wars the other day, and amidst all the +5 insightful "SW used to rock, but now it sucks" comments, I found this gem, where the poster explains how things fit together, and why it's done this way. It makes a lot of sense!
The OT could be watched separately, but the NT is a real trilogy, where you won't get the whole picture, or indeed appreciate it all, until you actually see all the movies.
Presumably :)
Clever signature text goes here.
What does "anal retentive" actually mean?
That was classic intercourse!
"Good animation and effects + bad story + bad acting = total flop"
Are you sure that's right? Lucas himself has been using precisely this formula for deacades with amazing success, and he's not the only one either.
That was classic intercourse!
I think it was E E 'Doc' Smith's "Lord Tedric and the Balck Knight oif the Iron Sphere".
And that was shit too.
That was classic intercourse!
A-fuckin-men, brother, a-fuckin-men!
May the Acting Class be with you ...
I understand CGI are important, but who will give $9 to John "Jedi Wanabe" Doe?
I picked up the director's cut of THX 1138 a few weeks ago. I hadn't seen the film in a number of years and I was blown away.
It's actually quite remarkable how well it has aged. While other "dystopian-vision" sci-fi films from the 1970s look dated to the point of being almost laughable now (Logan's Run, A Clockwork Orange, Soylent Green), THX 1138 looks as if it could have been made yesterday.
Robert Duvall's performance was understated and brilliant. Walter Murch's sound design was hypnotic and unyielding. The screenplay didn't get in the way by awkwardly offering too much exposition (as is often the case in sci-fi films). And every shot was framed with obvious deliberation.
I'm going to make a few enemies here, but the experience left me wondering how such a talented filmmaker managed to produce Star Wars, an abomination of poor-acting and screenwriting rescued only through its sheer campiness.
And why do you people fixate on it?
-- "The reward of suffering is experience." - Aeschylus
Keanu. Reeves.
(Actually I think the fat-I-really-don't-care-what-you-want-guy delivers his lines pretty decently. Those two "chick"s, however, looks like they come from the "Power Rangers School Of Acting".)
If you need another mirror, you can try my site.
A bunch of goth chicks make a star wars movie. At least it proves that George Lucas isn't the only one who hires actors that cannot act. Of course, for an amateur production, they did an amazing job.
When the very first page of their site reads "Emperor Palpatine declares marshall law on Corsucant" you know you're in trouble already.
I just downloaded the trailer - boy, the effects look good!
Pity the acting SUCKS ASS. Those nomarks couldn't act their way out of a paper bag.
And yes, IAAA.
5) Before trying to use words like "juxtaposition" be sure you're at least smart enough to spell words like "reference" properly.
ass
60 min had an interview with George Lucas last weekend. Leslie Stahl asked him about critics and his response was to compare it to an analogy about painting houses. Paraphrased he basically said "Just because somebody else wants your house green when you paint it white does not mean you should paint it green. Now in fact..maybe it SHOULD be green. But Green is not what I wanted, I wanted white so I painted it white"
I also agree with the reporter who pointed out the fact that he financed all three films with his own money. His money = his film. He can do whatever he wants.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
intended - Star Wars would be public domain this year (1977 + 14, plus another 14 assuming renewal).
Instead Star Wars is slated to be public domain in the year 2071 (I read last night that copyright is 94 years).
Sometimes we focus so much on the bad of patents that we can tend to forget the loss to our culture that now stems from insane copyright law.
The numbers come from my reading of Larry Lessig's book (which you get for free, btw, when you become an associate member of the FSF). Imagine how many wonderful movies could be made if things were as they were originally inteded!
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
It reminds me of another fan project I ran across a while back. Lots of work done on the set, effects, everything technical looks great...but the acting and script are...well, kinda painful, to be blunt. Someone else mentioned lighting and makeup as being a bit weak; I imagine some sound work would go a fair ways too.
Yeah, I know Exeter and Revelations are done by amateur volunteers, and from that perspective they're both impressive. But I'm still somewhat struck by the apparant imbalance of effort in both cases. Really, they're both cool projects and hope they continue their work, I just hope they focus on the weak bits and keep improving.
-U
Only anon 'cause I never made an account.
The special effects are nice, but, lets face it, the acting makes the acting from the other movies look good.
I do security
It sucks.
Leslie Stall interviewed George Lucas last Sunday. They must have shown about ten ten-second clips from episode three. Among there were wookies, the climatic battle scene on the volcanic planet, whoi the Sith leader really was (as we didn't now), Hayden Christian turning haggard and zombie-like, the new & improved digital yoda, and son on.
Other tidbits include ILM impeding move to S.F. Presido (too bad Star Fleet HQ), Lucas's three children as teenagers, and news about SW VII.
Have you even played Star Wars: Galaxies?? The latest expansion pack is going to include the wookiee planet, and everyone and all wookie buildings are on the ground!
Lucas, et all, are completely unconcerned about about cannon. Lucas just wants to have final say on his play in his toy room.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
And I'll bet it will kick Episodes I, II and possibly III if GL does not do something.
the future is but past forgotten
Between the pompous didactic lecturing and the look-how-smart-I-am-asshole sig, this guy's a loser. One part of your body should show the beat at all times? Let me call up my local ballet ensemble and show them how they've been fucking up. "Your music has no beat, people! The internet says you're wrong!"
In accordance with your sig: "Don't speak to early." is wrong; you may or may not be missing an o. In my original mode: lemme see your pastiche, buddy; you sound like every high school drama teacher I've ever met. The last thing anyone needs is your advice -- and I use the term advice loosely, because this seems to be a prepared speech that you just paste from clip at every opportunity.
Ignore this retard, folks. He's just another one of those who can't.
Their site said that the trailer was on theforce.net so I hunted down the link. Here it is:
e la tions/index.asp
http://www.theforce.net/fanfilms/comingsoon/rev
Go Gusties
All the CGI talent in the world... all the carefully choreographed sabre battles... the bad-assness of a 2-chick 1-dude 3-way (sabre fight, you perv)... the originality of the idea...
It all goes for not if your dialogue and acting isn't even up to Lucas-standard.
Nobody's expecting Patrick Stewart doing Shakespeare quality here, folks; but seriously-- geeks are not generally the best actors, and it really shows. And the dialgoue sounds like it was ripped off from writers who were creating a Desperate Housewives knockoff.
Now I know what people do between Dragoncons! Note to self: Don't cast girlfriend in movie.
-_-
whether Lucas has any talent at getting performances out of actors
According to interviews with actors Lucas's directing style consists solely of saying, "Let's do it again - this time faster - and with more feeling," supposedly to the point where they want to jab pencils in their heads after hearing it for the 2000th time.
I thought Lucas did a great job of porting Jungian/Campbellian archetypes to SciFi and pulling together a terrific SFX operation. It's just that directing and screenwriting aren't his best strengths and his works really shines when he effectively delegates.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Compare the last Star Wars with Cast Away for CGI mastery. All the scenes on the deserted island were filmed in Southern California and all the visual artifacts of civilization were removed post-production.
I saw the last Star Wars in a bar-theater and the whole audience was stunned at the banality of the story. The CGI was impressive, especially after watching lots of rubber-mask SciFi on television (Star Trek Voyager).
But the story sucked. The first twenty minutes of the film was a flying car chase lifted directly from The Fifth Element that had been released five years earlier. There was another scene later where the young princess falls off a land cruiser going about 100 MPH. She just jumps up and starts chasing after it. The whole audience howled! The film was bad and only seemed reasonable when compared to its "competition" like that excreteable Planet of the Apes remake.
Methinks Mr. Lucas has simply run out of ideas and is getting deeply tired in his soul about having to be remembered in film history by this over-blown series of light pop space fantasy.
Star Wars was just supposed to be a step for Mr. Lucas. A project that provided finance and credibility for other projects that let him become the next Kurosawa. Instead it's become an albatross around his neck, an anchor that prevents him from doing mature work.
Gosh! You can! I have the Especial Edition LD rips encoded to DVD. That was the OT as it was supposed to be seen, in great quality and without any CG crap artificialy inserted in.
I got it from ed2k... cant find the right links now but search for it, shouldn't be a big of a problem. The biggest problem here is being sued by the RIAA
Take the asteroid sequence in ESB -- fabulous! You get a sense of real depth and motion, to the point of tipping back and forth in your seat and feeling your stomach drop at times, like watching those roller coaster films on an IMAX screen. That was all done with models and real cameras.
Take the asteroid/ring belt scene in Clones. Visually, it's a nice piece of eye candy, to be sure. But I was immediately struck by how flat and/or soulless it felt as compared to the ESB scene. There was no spacial impact, if you get my meaning.
I don't know if it's a fundamental flaw in CG vs real models and cameras, but until it's solved, I really think models are better in some cases.
However, the creature CG effects can be done pretty well. I think the CG Yoda in Clones was 95% there. I'm really hoping the latest movie will have it nailed.
Method of processing duck feet
lets see: 1. unattractive females 2. horrible dialogue (from what i can tell in the trailer) 3. overall lackluster special effects 1 + 2 + 3 = 0 = this movie is crap, period... George Lucas began to stray from the path with ep.6 (Jedi) in my opinion. The first two movies have a Tim Burtonesque look and feel, dark and foreboding with characters that you loved and characters that were intimidating; these first two films had a much more mature/realistic flavor. Starting with Jedi, Lucas seems to be custom-cutting his script/characters to kids, and takes away from the overall believability of the film and its impact on an adult audience. To be quite honest, watching ANY film (by Lucas or not) after Empire is like a kick in the nuts.
Will he be on that?
He is listed in the film credits now at the official lucas website.
Yes, it was. Several times, actually. Do you require proof, or will you take a geek's word for it?
They should at least have a text page with a torrent link available so they do not overload the server.
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
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Really. So... what's the weather like your planet?
Not bad. Just not bad. Wow, I would really like to see some of the stuff that amateurs and fans are churning out on the planet you live on! This project, "for a fan production", is down right phenomenal. Trust me, I've seen Caribou Moving Pictures' Planet of the Killer Robots.
Yes, the lighting could have been better (and how much of it was the conversion? You can have problems just going from miniDV to VHS). And yes, the audio needs work. And yes, the woman in the red dress is an unconvincing actress. It happens. The trick is not to make the same mistakes again. For every local independent production I'm involved with (whether I'm directing or just crew), I learn more about what works and what doesn't. I know a hell of a lot more about filmmaking now than when I started. And I'm learning more each day.
As a fellow indie filmmaker, I think that everyone at Panic Struck Productions should be damn proud of what they have accomplished.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
More mature work like Howard the Duck...
Its not Eastenders, its not even supposed to even nod at being realistic. Star Wars is ersatz mythology. Its incongruous within that for the characters not to be handsome/beautiful or where ugly, hideously so. These are average joes on the whole. I know it sounds harsh (and frankly I'm not exactly a candidate for the next James Bond role myself) but it goes with the territory.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Star Wars: The Evil Within
http://www.theevilwithin.com/
A fan film shot in the Great White North. Winnipeg, specifically. It premiers soon, with proceeds donated to the local humane society.
Dear God man- are you a prancing fairy or what?! I've acted, stage managed, and directed from high school to regional theatre and you just sound like a prat from Juliard who has about zip talent and all the "theory".
Mentioning that you are trying to win an award is about as bad as it get (your international multimedia award). Until you get it, do not speak about it, because I am working on an Emmy, even though I am not attractive, can't act well, but I took an acting class! And hell almighty- you think yogup.com is the "cream of the crop"? It's freakin' the sim "Life" with penis looking animations.
I just checked your comments to stories, and I see that you were a teacher. I guess that explains most of your leanings.
I'm sure you are a nice guy and all, but you do come off as very pretentious.
Cheers!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Compared to the care that went into the rest of the FX scenes, why would they screw up the lightsabres like that? The time consuming part of those FX is in the rotoscoping, not the design and rendering of the blades, yet they've rendered the blades as a crisp-edged 2" fat white cylinder + glow effect, which looks nothing like a lightsabre blade, and a lot like a glowing foam bat. I wasn't even looking at the blades the first time I watched the trailer (looking at the actors) and white-foam-baseball-bat design bizzareness of the blades still made me go "WTF?"
Judging by the rest, it can't possibly be a lack of technical ability. I'm wondering if their prop master made the blades too thick (perhaps due to an SCA background) and the SFX people were forced to use a big white cylinder to cover up the fat prop blades.
Hats off to the production. I have criticisms, but they all fall into the category of being very justifiable for this kind of production. Those nerf-sabres, however, seem to be an unnecessary screwup.
If Freedo was a bounter hunter, then why didn't he turn Aragorn over to the orcs?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
reading should you practice; get it right someday, you will.
It can't be far off that the actors get replaced by finely tuned CG characters. Then directing will be a lot easier for geeks like us.
So if good acting and direction is all this film lacks, WE'RE SO CLOSE TO SAYING GOODBYE TO THE FILM STUDIOS!
Retired from software... maybe. Sort of.
I prefer Ep1 to Ep2, even though Ep2 has some really kickass action in it, and the CGI is pretty good as well. There's a lot of people bitching about CGI - it was pretty good. I think a lot of people got turned off by the CGI cos of Jar Jar. I actually enjoyed Jar Jar and his slapstick humour. That's all it was intended to be, it's a shame that those adults that saw the OT as children have grown up and fail to see that. But then, maybe there's still some child in myself, and maybe that's why I see Jar Jar like I do. Now - the musical score for the NT has been fine. Nothing super gripping, but it's been fine - I feel that it's successfully conveyed the emotions of the characters at the appropriate times. The actors - they are fine actors. Even the synopsis story is fine. The sets and costumes have been fine imho. So - what has let the NT down? I firmly believe it's several things. 1. screenplay/dialogue. The dialogue has been awful Truly. Lucas' forte is not in writing. He can do a rough synopsis with a original idea pretty damn good, but when it comes to fleshing it out, he's not the man. He really should have deferred to a professional screenwriter. Honestly. The quality of a screenplay really limits how the actors can determine their characters, and that, in turn, makes them less believable. There's a reason why TESB was the best movie of the original trilogy, and that's cos Leigh Brackett wrote the script. She did a damn well fine job. Brilliant. I don't think too many Star Wars fans will disagree with me here. 2. Direction. Sorry, but Lucas is a 2nd rate director. That said, he's a better director than he is a writer :-) A directors job is to create the vision, transfer the actors, the script writer, the music, the sfx into a film. He directs the composer, the sfx guys, the film editors, the sound recordists, the sound editors, the set design to an extent, the mood of the film.
Sadly, EP 1 and EP 2 lack mood. Characterisation. There are brief periods where you see it. Padmes impassioned speech to the senate in EP 1. Qui Gons quite reflection about Anakin on Tatooine when he realises who he is. Anakin when he impatiently rushes to take on Count Dooku, rather than take him on 2 on 1 with Obi Wans help. Mace Windu in Ep 2 - who can forget who kickass he is when he's pissed off! The seething menace in Palpatines voice in the trailer for EP 3 when he says "are you threatening me?". The menace is simply dripping, and his face. You can see the hatred. Obi Wan in the trailer for Ep 3 when he says "you were the chosen one" - the anguish, the pain. It's in his voice. The emotion. Even the look on his face, says it all.
Ep 1 & Ep 2 could have been better - by simply a better script and better directing. But - they weren't bad films. People like to bash things i'm afraid. It's fashionable these days. Sad, very sad.
Dave
Slashdot can go and get fucked.
> So, about the "sense of grandeur" - couldn't agree more, with regards to the OT. I couldn't say that the prequels lacked a "grand design", but I could say that it was too "forced". I don't know why... lazyness to come up with not-so-straightforward developements, need to "cram in" as much possible, desire to explain everything that wasn't explained in the OT (when I say "midichloreans", I guess many *will* cringe and cover their ears going "la-la-la-la"). You know, some things SHOULD remain unexplained, or at least not so "thoroughly" explained.
While I don't harbor any feeling that he's likely to do this, I thought that the idea of midichloreans was a good one, in the idea of the intelligencia "overexplaining" the world. In the Middle Ages, the concept that the world was built of four elements was done to death, and grandiose and very "intelligent" explanations were derived for observation that fit this concept, but turned out entirely wrong when the underlying premise fell to pieces. For example, scientists thought that drilling a cannon released the fire element from the metal, and this is why it heated up. It was perfectly sensible for the premise, and completely wrong. In the same way, I always wanted midichloreans to be exposed as the "right answer given the wrong premise" in episode three, wherein Obi-Wan discovers that the vast knowledge of the Jedi had been based on some mistaken assumptions, driving him "back to the drawing board" and off to Tatooine to reflect and learn again.
It'd be a great subplot, but I'm not betting the moisture farm on it.
> Also, for an "evil genius" that Sidious/Palpatine is supposed to be, I guess he could have worked out a better plan than "create sympathy for me by placing homeworld under wrongfull siege so I can then use some obedient army I just created to destroy the obedient armies of my probably not so obedient puppets so I can rule the galaxy, while trying to corrupt a young but powerful twerp I just met mid-plan by sacrificing some of my more experienced underlings" scenario.
Not fair. Even if the premise is so strongly based on Hitler's rise that I had trouble with some of the actors not speaking German, Palpatine's plan was more than what you describe. The idea behind it was that he wanted to be chancellor of the Senate. To that end, he engineered a blockade of Naboo, the queen of which was the current chancellor's strongest supporter. She went to the Senate (and to him) for help that he was unable to provide, due to Palpatine's machinations with the trade guilds. By getting her to turn against him and call for a vote of no confidence, he was able to drive out the sitting chancellor at a time when he was a literal shoo-in for the seat. The fall of Darth Maul was unintended, and the discovery of Anakin Skywalker was marked by both Palpatine and by Qui-Gon Jinn, because the force was so strong with him that both sides took notice and began courting him.
Episode two finds this plan well underway, with the discovery that the Senate and chancellor have commissioned a clone army "for the defense of the Republic" against forces that can see Palpatine's power grab. Count Dooku and his cohorts are made out to be rebels, and even though they're the bad guys they realize that Palpatine's consolidation of power is a bad thing. In return, he uses the clone army (notice how much like the stormtroopers we know and love they are) to beat down the insurgents. Meanwhile, he passes resolutions that give him ever more power to do stuff without seeking Senate approval, and uses the insurgents as his reason.
Virg
> I think that's where the Lord of the rings films fell down: there was no universe like in the books, they only ever went to the places that had something important to do with the script. There were no farmlands, no houses and villages, hardly any roads, it was as if the entire middle-earth consisted of a bunch of fortresses connected by plains.
By the time of the Second Ring War, that's really all there was left. The fall of the nation of men (Numenor) had left behind a bunch of disjointed and bickering factions (of which Rohan and Gondor were the most pivotal in the war, but which included places like Angmar which simply didn't figure strongly in the war due to geography). The whole reason for the rise of Sauron's power was the fracturing of the nation of men when Isildur was corrupted by the Ring, and the resultant abandoning of ties with the other races. By the time Bilbo recovered the Ring, Middle Earth was compartmentalized into little more than fortresses connected by plains (or mountains), and the reuniting of the peoples of Middle Earth by the king of Gondor (that being Aragorn) was integral to the story.
Virg
A few friendly notes here to some of the curious out there:
No one is saying that this work is perfect. It has its flaws, as most project do, but I read some of the post some people were putting out yesterday and while Shane has decided not to address any of that at this point, (partly because he's so busy trying to get the film through post production, and manage the premiere, and partly because he's on the verge of nervous exhaustion) I feel I must step up and set a few things straight.
First of all Gina and I did not really know Shane and the crew of Panic Struck prior to this, except as competitors. Shane thought Gina would be good for the role after seeing some of her work. While it is true I rode Gina's coattails into the project, once Shane saw a little more of what I could do, he asked the writers to write a little more into the script for me. I am grateful and I will let those scenes speak for themselves. The point is no one cast their girlfriend in this thing! Furthermore all this talk of the girls being ugly is just stupid and petty. All of the girls are quite simply, stunningly attractive if you meet them in person. Of course the fact that I'm married to one does mean that I am a bit biased.
A lot of people have come out saying the acting is poor. This is simply and completely unfair. You can not and should not try to judge the acting of an entire production based on a trailer, especially with a fan film. For one thing the takes that were used in the trailer may not be the same takes as what you see in the final movie, this happens even in professional movies. Furthermore you're seeing, what you are seeing completely out of context. For example; the scene with Taryn (Gina) saying "she lied to me" "she used me" is cut with scenes of characters fighting. That's for the trailer. That's not the way you are going it see it in the movie. In the actual film this is part of a highly emotionally charged scene. So why then did they use it in the trailer? They used it in the trailer because it's what was available at the time. This is the same reason Shane used the music from the actual Star Wars movies in the trailer. The plan had always been to have an original score but it wasn't done at that point.
With respect to the fighting, we did in fact have a dedicated fight coordinator and he did a splendid job. Here again it's a matter of context and available footage. When you actually see the finished fights in context, not only do they look good, but they actually help carry the story along.
As to the trailer itself, while we have all had the experience of going to a movie and realizing that all the best parts were in the trailer, this I assure you is not the case here. With a low budget fan film, trailers and teasers are released, not after the project is done to show of the best of what has been done, they are released to coincide with local conventions using what is available. Shane had a lot of tough decisions to make about the trailer and he decided to be deliberately vague as to story details, character motivations and so on. He didn't want to give too much away and whether I agreed with everything he did or not at the time, I want to make it clear that I stand by his work now.
Rest assured that the finished project is far more polished than the trailer. We went back into the studio and did a lot of voiceover work to get rid of any of the ambient background sounds that you can clearly hear in the trailer.
The CG in the trailer, while stunning, is in many cases just not finished. I clearly remember Shane saying that some of it was just above video game level in his opinion and that he was going to go back and rework it. Now when I watch some of the more finished stuff I am truly amazed. In some cases I was there, in the shot, and I can't tell you what was real and what was added later.
This movie was shot over a long period of time; sometimes on a location, like the quarry, the caves or the bar, sometimes in the studio (green screen and all), sometimes on a set that we built. This was done to
> Look at Minas Tirith, for example. The books describe the gardens, the busy roads, everything. The movie has a city surrounded by empty boring plains.
While I agree that it was more spartan than one would expect, the only difference I'd find rational is that of having more houses and fields, but not much more traffic. Remember that the parts of the movie that took place around Minas Tirith were in the days directly preceding the fall of Osgiliath and the assault on Minas Tirith itself, so it's reasonable to assume that the inhabitants of the surrounding lands would have moved into the walls for safety by the time we as viewers arrived.
Remember, the books mentioned a lot of stuff that wasn't part of the present story, and some of what was present-day was left out of the movie for time reasons. While I agree that the terrain was plainer than it could have been, I'm not quite as comfortable saying it was plainer than is should have been.
Virg
I thought that Ep 1 and 2 were good. A few things could def. be improved in Ep 1, but what can beat the awesome saber fight with Qui Gonn, Obi Wan, and Maul? Definitly a great. One thing i didn't quite like in Ep 2 was the unoriginal score- with the reuse of the great duel music (although the death march is great at the end). I really am hoping that Ep 3 comes through. Jon
"Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who I
Sure those guys are good but they can only do so much with a shoddy script and sub standard directing. Good ingredients and a bad cook still make a bad meal.
>> "May the Force be with you!" was never said in any of the movies! That's a revelation.
> Yes, it was. Several times, actually. Do you require proof, or will you take a geek's word for it?
I think he's confused - actually Obi-Wan never said "may the Force be with you" in the movies.
If it is non-abrasive it is OK? I suppose you are first in line at Care Bears and "Hello Kitty" movies!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.