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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."
..."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.
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?
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...
Lucas endorses fan films - I was trying to find more detail, but all i found was here:p ect/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction#Legal_as
Seems slashdotted already, at 8 minutes past posting. Anyone manage to save a copy to bittorrent?
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.
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.
You like Star Wars for the story? That's like watching pr0n for the plot.
It's your basic cheeze story set somewhere cool with fancy swords and lasers.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
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
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!
is not with their server... It fell to the dark side.
Got a new box, lets see how my Dual Xeon handles.. (be nice)
web_trailer_II_larger.mov
-Mitti
how to make a parody of a Star Wars film:
1. Make a film in the Star Wars universe.
2. Hire good actors, and give them good direction.
3. Profit. Fear no copyright infringement.
-matt.
"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.
What we really need is Spaceball 2 to hit the big screens. Of course, some people might be saying, "Oh, no... not again!" :P
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
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
Spaceballs 3: The Search for 2
+++ATH0
as
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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!
"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.
First time hosting a torrent, so here goes: http://68.205.82.17:3001/web_trailer_II_larger.mov .torrent
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.
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.
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.
I mean, those guys freaking suck!
(See what I did there?)
I'm in luck!!! -Matt
Natalie Portman sucks? Wow! Now that's 'News For Nerds'!
"Your admirers in the street
Got to hoot and stamp their feet
in the heat from your physique" -King Crimson
I just wish they'd pick a good hairdresser.
... but wait ... all the male actors have hair right out of the local teen boy-band concert! Gah!
This has bugged me ever since the first Star Wars film. They're flying around in spaceships, wearing funky clothing, fighting light-saber duels, etc., and I'll be suspending my disbelief just fine,
C'mon guys, either make the hair (1) really weird (the female actors seem to have this down), or (2) mind-bendingly conservative (pick something that hasn't changed in 1500 years, like shaving it all off). At least stop using Tiger Teen Beat as your model.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
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.
The site's Slashdotted at the moment, so I can't comment on the quality of the acting in the fanflick.
But come on - George Lucas has managed to coax utterly craptacular performances out of good actors and actresses like Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor.
Every time I even think of the scene where Queen Amidala is speaking to the leader of the Naboo amphibians, I just cringe. "Please I ask you no I beg you . . . " Ack.
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:
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
Mark Hamil: Shouldn't my hair be, like, all messed up after being in that trash compactor?
Harrison Ford: I don't think it's that kind of movie, kid.
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.
Have you seen George Lucas's hair? Is it any wonder they all look like Jack from Three's Company?
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
You should get dog, you could use a friend.
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.
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!
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 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
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.
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.
"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!
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
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.
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