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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!
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
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.
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.
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!
The majority of free content created is, of course, subpar.
So what? The majority of non-free content is total crap too. Look how many terrible big-budget movies Hollywood has put out.
is not with their server... It fell to the dark side.
like the plot is any big secret?
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
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
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."
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.
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.
Keep practicing your reading, you'll get it right some day.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
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....
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:
By using an established genre, they get more media coverage and potential viewers. This increases the chance that the director, special effects guy, or one of the actors will be noticed by a big name to work on something more substantial. And then they will be able to do their own thing.
I believe that in university-level art classes, you need to turn in paintings in realistic, impressionist, post-modern styles, etc, to pass the course, to show that you have more depth than just one artistic style. Even if you never paint another da Vinci in your life, you still have to prove that you can.
Consider this movie the answer to a film student's exam question: "Create a film in the style of Lucas".
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
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!
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!