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The New Force at Lucasfilm
conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interview with the heads of George Lucas' gaming and movie divisions, and discusses with them how they are getting closer and closer to integration. From the article: 'Pre-visualization, which is a big thing that George has been pushing lately. It's a tool that directors would use to quickly mock up the ideas of a story and see what's going to work. It's really like building up a preview of a movie in a video game world. Instead of using static story boards, you can really just get in and create 3D content and camera moves directly. It's the best example of the kind of collaboration we've got going on.'"
Definitely seems useful for making movies, but I don't see how George Lucas could use this. Isn't he in the business of shattering childhood memories??
It helps tremendously. Just look at how Episode I, II and III turned out.
Everytime they asked me to do something I didn't want to, I'd be unable to resist saying "But I wanted to go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters."
I have fond memories of the LucasArt game Full Throttle , which has one badass protagonist, some hilarious music, and a couple of amusing references to that film franchise Lucas is known for. Anyone know if a sequel is in the works?
You mean, there was actually a vision? With the Star Wars prequels?
Where?
Come on, it was bad enough Han Fired Second but to make Yoda into Hong Kong Phooey and Darth Vader into a whiny teen... puhleeze.
Worst Use of Natalie Portman Eva.
Some actual visualisation would be nice.
I am a leaf on the wind
They could (if they haven't already) hook up actors with mocap suits or whatever devices needed to translate live actor movements instantly onto the 3D avatars on the virtual stage to really speed things up.
Runesabre
Enspira Online
For anyone interested in the Lucasarts story, including the kickass games, I heartily suggest the book Droidmaker. I got it and it was an awesome read. Lucas was involved in a helluva lot of stuff.
Let me pre-visualize the next George Lucas project for everyone:
.--o
o
|
|.-
^ ^
George -> Us
How hard is it to visualize a shot?
#1. If it is real life with real actors, you already have years and years of experience looking at it in 3D. It's called "life".
#2. If it's computer animation, it's fake so it doesn't matter. They create what you want them to.
This is where "art" comes in. It's not just directing, it's lighting and cinematography. Playing with a toy isn't going to make your movies any better.
I hated Episodes I & II and still haven't seen Episode III.
But, look at each still shot. They look good. The characterization sucks. The plot sucks. The dialog sucks. The timing sucks. The motivation sucks. None of it has any logical flow behind it.
But the still pictures are very nice.
LucasArts fires the actors and takes on the FF7: AC route. Why pay for actors when you already have graphics artists?
Guess all these people must be mediocre.
But yes. Those all pretty much suck. Oh sure, it looks nice, but so does coprolite.
The series on Total War on the History Channel, where they use game engines to recreate epic battles. This seems to be a similar idea, except they're turning the mock ups into actual development scenes (before shooting them, redigitizing, and adding super special effects.) and not really using the engine for any sort of finished project.
I hope ideas like that start becoming more commonplace. I like the idea of using 3-D digital storyboarding in realtime, it sounds pretty awesome. It'll be exciting to see if this turns into more of a production tool that ends up getting used in movie and not just in the development process.
hi mom!
I heard somewhere that Lucas doesn't like directing actors because the actors may not act in the way he wants them to, and he prefers CG because the actors do exactly what you want them to do.
God spoke to me.
Peter Jackson and WETA started using pre-vis before production began on LOTR.
Other firms may have used it even earlier.
Just imagine how awesome this first post would have been if rendered in a 3D environment!
> The dialog sucks
Worse than sucks; it's unnecessary. If you eliminate the dialogue entirely, not much changes. It's that visual. The dialogue adds ... not much positive.
Every word after Obi-Wan cuts off Skywalker's legs is a negative, e.g. "I loved you man!" is something no actor needs to say; it's evident from the acting. The worst lines in all six movies is when the dying Portman (shades of "Love Story") says, "I think I'll spoil one of the plots points of the next movie by telling the audience that Luke has a sister named Leia on Alderan."
The series is a lot of fun and makes "Lord of the Rings" look pretentious, but really: didn't Lucas ever watch Star Wars?
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
I don't know why he feels that way. If you watch his movies, the human actors can suck just as badly as the CG ones.
Vista!!
The line is "You were the chosen one" and it is one of the best lines in the moive.
80-year old Hans Solo: What happen?
Yoda: The bomb has somebody set up us, hmmm...
A marketable purple gay alien chipmunk: We get signal!
Reincarnated Darth Vader: AYBABTU.
Actually, the charaterization and plot were far beyond what Lucas did in the Original Trilogy. It's just that whiney, disgruntled "George Lucas Raped My Childhood" fanboys can't reconcile these facts when faced with a minor character like Jar Jar and five minutes of difficult "love" dialog.
I think I speak for the entire Star Wars fan community when I say, with all candor, "quit your fucking bitching already".
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
How else can he ensure the next Jar-Jar is going to do the proper amount of damage?
$30 Off All Plans: Use code TRIPLESAWBUCK
Of course, the very worst dialogue was between Anakin and Padme. Episode II was so painful.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Sorry but the results are in, the SW prequels suck. The only reason the "first three" were any good was that Lucas as a budding writer actually listened to advice from other, more skilled writers, not so in the prequels.
George Lucas paints pictures with a baseball bat. The dialogue in all three prequels is downright painful if you have even a passing interest in writing.
I saw that and for a split second I thought I would be seeing more from the old company that brought us Zak McKracken and Maniac Mansion. Some of us still fondly remember the old adventure games.
I'm sick and tired of their recent obsession with 3d, it just doesn't look as good. I would love to see a 2d adventure game from them that would run natively at 1600x1200 and scale down to lower resolutions.
Can anyone honestly look and tell me that this 3d Sam & Max has more artistic style than this 2d Sam & Max??
Or this is better than this?
I'm not opposed to 3d games mind you, lord knows I didn't buy this Nvidia board for running OO.org faster and Grim Fandango was utterly phenomenal. I'd just like to see Lucasfilm games, lucasarts, whatever, spend more time in making a well written, well crafted worlds and games, rather than just "Wow, it's an adventure title, but in 3d!"
Wait Mr. Lucas, you mean you're just now hearing about Machinima? We've been doing it for 10 years now! Well, with Lucas on board maybe the market for niche pre-vis real time 3D tools will kick up finally. All I can say is, open source Lucas, OPEN SOURCE!
-Buddy of DoQ
This sounds like Machinima to me.
because, Peter Jackson sure knows how to turn previsualization into a well-formed, well-paced movie, and not just 4 hours of flickering lights . . . /don't on this article-- old news. Lucasfilm used 3D pre-vis on Episode One production in '97. The real story is that 9 years later this is the new innovation.
Don't get me wrong, I think Peter Jackson is a hack, that's the real point of this post.
wouldn't the two cancel each other out, resulting in proper grammar?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
No it's absolute sh*t. And that is not an understatement. The old star wars movies had grit, interesting characters and honesty. The prequels, particularly the second and third ones had trailer trash lines and sick, sick, sick characterisation. That goes for Qui Gon and Obi-Wan played by Ewan Mcgregor. In almost every shot Ewan looks like he got up off a couch after dining and put on some makeshift star wars clothes and reads the lines. He has no muscle tone and stands like you would stand in a queue at a bank. Grown up Anakin is a teenager chosen for his looks. Unfortunately he's reed thin and looks as though he's walked off an stage at an amateur theater, at a rehearsal. Can you imagine Conan the Destroyer being played by a Chuck Norris? In the original films, Hans Solo played by Harrison actually looks convincing and actually acts the part. Same for the prodigy Luke, who is a perfect counterweight in character to H.Solo and yet compliments as well. Young, somewhat naive,empathic sensitivity.Alec Guinness is a billion times better actor than Neeson, who looks like he's also come from a costume party also.
Maybe you do. I used to be a huge Star Wars geek. I read all the novels, bought the "reference books", absolutely loved the X-Wing games, etc. I quit when Episode I came out. I don't see how you can even compare the quality of the prequels with the incredible stories that other authors have written. Not just Zahn, but nearly every writer has come up with far better material than Lucas. The stories suck. The dialogue sucks, and not just the abysmal Anakin/Padme crap.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LucasFilm should hack into some RP gaming on the various games such as Starcraft, Warcraft and other game that supports custom maps. This would definitely give thme a head-start on the stories people would like because that's the roleplaying that occurs in the game.
On another note, this is a very good way to start out a video game version of the movie as I'm sure we have all seen how that has been happening lately. Lucas strikes again!
The first thought about this is: What happened to imagination?
The tools we use (like language) influence us in our choices and views. While greater tools can allow greater accomplishments, their purpose is should be to allow a complex process to be addressed simply, not to allow a simple process to be more complex.
In computers, one of the best ways to get a real understanding of computer programming is to debug a program without a debugger. At most, using a couple of print statements to allow some additional helpful information. The advantage to a lack of information is that it requires A) truly understanding how the mechanism works which leads to B) attempting to keep the code human-readable.
In places where a debugger is available, I have seen too often that the tool is use to simply find the problem and move on. After all, if I know that the loop is crashing, break the loop before the end of the run and see why it went too far. This is great for catching simple errors, and I do not knock the debugger for helping me realize that I accidentally incremented the wrong variable. What I do like is that people raised on debuggers generally cannot see anything other than simple operations. It will not explain why mutex is not being freed or many systemic problems; however, because he or she was never forced to think through his or her problems, the symptom of the problem (not the problem itself) is coded around at the location where the problem shows up in the debugger.
I cannot help but think that while this tool will be used to model some nice things, but I think a lot producers fail to realize that most people will happily take some good acting, a reasonable plot line, and intriguing dialog over wiz-bang camera zooms. Thank God for Battlestar Galactic.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
how about you spend some of that money on actual writers.......
Hasn't Lucas always done pre-visualization? I remember the making-of documentary of Return of the Jedi, and they used Star Wars action figures to create the speeder chase scene. I would think the only difference between then and now is that they are doing everything in the computers.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Careful how you throw this word about. While I agree with you in this case, I have to state that most people who use the term and its various forms are not uncommonly the most whiny and irritating individuals themselves. Not only that, but they often mislabel anything and everything as "whiny".
I think that whoever directs the next one (in 2020 or whatever), or even if someone could re-cut the current film, needs to crop out all the superflous dialog. A deeply pained expression, a furtive glance, a slight nod; these are the things that I saw that could have replaced the pre-teen bor-a-thon dialogs. Just think if Lucas and Co. realized that! You would have the first ever DVD directors cut which is actually shorter than the original.
For example, here's a cut from the (from script. I'll bold things that seem unneeded, and italicize anything I might add:
226 INT. POLIS MASSA-MEDICAL CENTER-NIGHT
POLIS MEDICS work, on PADME in an operating theater. OBI-WAN and one of the MEDICAL DROIDS enter an observation room where BAIL and YODA are waiting.
MEDICAL DROID: Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her.
OBI-WAN: She's dying?
MEDICAL DROID: {PAUSE }... We don't know why. She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies. twins.
BAIL ORGANA: Babies??!! {Give happy yet sad and shocked look}
MEDICAL DROID: She's carrying twins.
YODA: Save them, we must. They are our last hope.
The MEDICAL DROID rushes back to the operating room. ARTOO and THREEPIO watch, greatly puzzled. ARTOO BEEPS.
C-3PO: It s some kind of reproductive process, I think.
227 INT. CORUSCANT-IMPERIAL REHAB CENTER-DAY
ANAKIN, in the medical capsule, is lifted onto a table in the Rehab Center. DROIDS go to work on him. ANAKIN has new legs and a new arm.
228 INT. POLIS MASSA-MEDICAL CENTER-NIGHT
The TWINS are being delivered as BAIL ORGANA, YODA, ARTOO, and THREEPIO watch. OBI-WAN is in the operating theater with PADME. He takes her hand. // Nice! That's all! Shut up Ewan!
OBI-WAN: Don't give up, Padme.
PADME winces from the pain. The MEDICAL DROID is holding the BABY.
MEDICAL DROID: It's a boy.
PADME: Luke . . .
PADME can only offer up a faint smile. She struggles to touch the baby on the forehead.
MEDICAL DROID: ... and a girl.
PADME: . . . Leia.
R2-D2, THREEPIO and BAIL ORGANA watch from an adjoining space.
229 INT. CORUSCANT-IMPERIAL REHAB CENTER-DAY
VADER, dressed in his black body armor, lies on the table. Nose plugs are inserted and the mask drops from above, sealing tightly. The helmet is fitted and VADER begins breathing.
230 INT. POLIS MASSA-MEDICAL CENTER-NIGHT
OBI WAN leans over PADME and softly speaks to her.
OBI-WAN: You have twins, Padme They need you . . . hang on.
PADME: I can't . . .
PADME winces again and takes OBI-WAN's hand. She is holding Anakin's japor snippet.
OBI-WAN: Save your energy. {Give calm yet pleading look instead}
PADME: Obi-Wan . . . there . . . is good in him. I know there is ... still . . .
A last gasp, and she dies. Obi-Wan studies the necklace.
;)
------
I think that would have been better, although I just cut 90% of Ewan's lines. Oh well. Do that to the entire movie, remove some of those 20+ second long CGbation scenes whenever we enter a new planet (6 seconds max is all need).... I'd buy that for a dollar!
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
You consider Darksaber better than Episode I?
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The prequels are utter trash. The original films are as close to perfection as you can get, not just in subjective terms, but the cast of actors are superb, even down to James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. Everything about the original films is believable. You can't even question that. They are legendary as per history has written. Now for you to have the arrogance and presumption to say a legendary film has a worse plot and characterization than something widely held to be trash is unbelievable. Even if I hated a classic film I would recognize its place in history and the hearts of the people. The love scene you mentioned was F-grade that uncannily resembles the shallowest examples of romance literature.
Now they just need some snap in objects to pre-visualize character development. If these guys could make Natalie Portman look boring, imagine what they could do with animated actors (Jar Jar roles in his grave). -- Royal with cheese!
No, the all the characters from the original trilogy (with the possible exception of Luke, at times) were very well characterized, well acted. The prequels, on the other hand, regularly make people visibly cringe--Jar Jar, whiney teen Anakin shouting "it's not fair!", Dax the four-armed alien who swoops and soars over his lines so badly I'm nearly positive the voice actor was stoned out of his head, bad romance, Vader's "Nooooooooooooooooooooooo"--so retarded it puts Luke's "Nooooooooooooo" to shame...
That said, the plot doesn't really suck (though the pacing and focus does, at least in places) and some of the allegory and pivotal scenes are very, very good indeed, especially in episode 3. Anakin's fall to the dark side was handled nearly perfectly, as was the parallel to today's pathetic "freedom fries" society, and I think it's too bad that people choose to ignore this and bring up only Vader's Noooooooooooooooo and Anakin/Padme's very short sequence of nausiating dialog.
As someone else said, I don't think you can speak for all of us--plenty of Star Wars geeks think that the prequels suck... usually it's those of us who have an ounce of objectivity. This isn't just rose-colored glasses. In the original trilogy, I think that Luke was sometimes badly acted and the Ewoks were over the top (and a rather transparent marketing ploy.) But this simply doesn't compare to the horrible new characters from the prequels and their insipid dialog...
The correct spelling of "first post" was awesome enough as it is. If it were in 3D my head would explode.
But we're talking about movies where millions of dollars were spent creating the CGI effects. I expect they could have at least hired an editor to clean up the dialogue, you know?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Let me give you a good example of the "integration" of the movie and gaming divisions of Lucasfilm. I remmeber when I saw phantom menace there was a half an hour part of the movie that had nothing to do with the rest of the plot or the development of the characters.
... "and why in the world do they spend so much time introducing various racer characters which are obviously completely unrelated to the plot" ... "and why are the big jedi who are supposedly on an important mission waiting for this kid to race around" ... but then the pod race started looking familiar to me... it reminded me of a lame PS1 racing game called wipeout (i think). And then I thought wow ... they have this whole thing in the movie only so that they can sell a lame clone of a PS1 game.
It was the pod race. I kept thinking "why is this in the movie"
Sure enough a day or so after i saw people playing a wipeout clone which features the phantom menace pod race.
I guess this is what they call synergy in the movie business.
I'm worried about a few things that the article discusses. Yes, it sounds exciting that LucasArts and ILM are doing collaborating in the future. What I'm afraid of however, is that in the CG industry, there seems to be a technological 'progression' that trivializes the purpose of the traditional (ie. concept artists, storyboard artists, etc.)
Sullivan discusses that pre-viz is a good and modern solution, but he doesn't mention that pre-viz can also be slower and less fine tuned than the work of a storyboard artist. Illustrators can offer style, better/faster continuity, and the ability to develop an entire shot rather than developing rough 3D-geometry. If it were up to me, I'd keep both around.
So sure, the technology and tools get better, but it doesn't necessarily make a better film.
Disney made that mistake with their cel animation department, and they all got laid off (thank god for Lassater).
Square did it with Final Fantasy and threw away the storyline.
ILM seems to be a very traditional studio in the sense that they follow a typical pipeline for production. I just hope they clearly understand the benefits of keeping these illustrators around.
That's nice. I've been researching repurposed game engines and there are some very interesting things out there. From architecture and geovisualization to interface with libraries. Even the blind are being helped
While we are on the topic of George Lucas, let me be on the record as saying that Lucas is going to pull a Kerry and decide to go ahead and produce Star Wars 7 8 and 9. 3 was just too much of a downer to to be the last one made. You can tell me how right I am later.
Actually, the charaterization and plot were far beyond what Lucas did in the Original Trilogy.
That's only because Lucas didn't direct Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. The reason he did more for the prequels was because he wrote and directed all three of them--the quality of this increased contribution is debatable.
I love Star Wars, and even if the prequels were complete insults to cinema (which I don't think they are) that's not going to change. However, I do think that JarJar added nothing to the story and that the relationship between Anakin and Padme was portrayed and written poorly. I've heard better romantic dialog out of my high school classmates than the sappy, uninspired dialog in episodes II and III.
Fortunately, Lucas is amazing with the his visuals, and always has been--any movie he's involved in is worth seeing once for all of the eye candy. Sadly, that's where Lucas' creativity ends, leaving plot and character to suffer as a lower priority than the little creatures that are crawling around in the background.
Bottom line: The prequel trilogy is basically a fireworks display. You watch the movies for brilliant colors and explosions--if you're looking for philosophical statements, characters you can relate to, or a convoluted plot, you're going to walk away displeased or quite possibly enraged.
Is it also whining when we complain about the suckage known as the matrix sequels, or are you going to defend those turds too.
All of these sequels should never have been made, because they have the effect of diminishing the original, all for the sake of more money. Lucas is especially culpable in that he rewrites the original. It is not just Jar Jar and badly acted love scenes (I almost said Jar Jar in badly acted love scenes, hopefully Lucas doesn't read this and get ideas for 7).
It is inconceivable for a writer to rewrite his/her fiction novels, why do you praise Lucas for doing the same? Can you imagine multiple versions of any classic fiction?
Three words for you, pal. "Bull fucking shit".
If you pick up a copy of "The Hobbit", you will find that there are some glaring differences when compared to the first printing of the story. In the original When Gollum lost the riddle game, he was a good sport - showing Bilbo to the door and letting him keep the Ring . Read that again, slowly, and imagine how pointless the Lord of the Rings would have been if Tolkien *hadn't* revised his story to fit in with his grander vision.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Actually, the charaterization and plot were far beyond what Lucas did in the Original Trilogy. Uh, no.
But, look at each still shot. They look good.
Really? I thought it looked like one huge computer game. Is this what passes for special effects these days? 2001 had more realistic looking space ships and that's ancient.
"quit your fucking bitching already".
... and slashdot posters become a bigger bunch of whiney anakins evey day ..
oh yeah - thats what im talkin about
not a star wars fanboy - just reakon the films are a blast
With all respect, "Bah!" Objectivity has baptkus to do with it. I claim that all the GLRMC haters out there suffer from "Boba Fett Underoos Syndrome". You all have a preconception of the original films from when you were young, impressionable, easily impressed, and loved playing in your Boba Fett Underoos. You had over 20 years to fill in your own backstory of Anakin, the Jedi Order, and the Old Republic. When Lucas gets around to finishing the story, the characters and plot are *nothing* like you imagined. You simultaniously cry "foul" and collectively develop false memories of "Uncle George" raping you in your sleep. How *dare* he mess with the story you've been brewing in your head since childhood!!
In all honesty, It took me a *long* time to accept Phantom Menace. So many of the concepts and ideas introduced were nothing like what I had imagined. "Virgin Birth? Distant, uncaring Jedi? Trade Federation? midi-fucking-chlorians??? What the hell?" But as the pieces fell into place, and I gave up my 20 year preconceptions of the story, I came to understand what the story was trying to say, and the direction Lucas was taking with it. And when all was said and done, the dichotomy of Anakin's fall, the irony of his 'birth', and the subtle political manipulations of the Sith *more* than made up for a few awkward moments concerning Anakin's dislike for sand.
In the original trilogy, I think that Luke was sometimes badly acted and the Ewoks were over the top (and a rather transparent marketing ploy.) But this simply doesn't compare to the horrible new characters from the prequels and their insipid dialog...
LOL! You bitch about the characters of the prequels but forgive the Ewoks? Come on. Licensing whoring aside, how can you reconcile the fact that the best legion of the most powerful Empire the galaxy had ever known was done in by a bunch of Teddy Bears with spears!?! Sorry bub, be an OT apologist all you want, but I'll take the Battle of Geonosis, Kashyyyk, or Utupau *any day* over the Battle of Endor.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Nnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrddddddddd!
Thank you! Its about time there was some sense in the Star Wars community. The movies, despite their problems, weren't THAT bad.
Sure, Anakin Skywalker went to the darkside because he was desperate to prevent his visions of his wife's death from coming true. No one would ever be tempted by the devil to save the woman (or man) they love from death?
And yeah, that love dialog from Episodes II and III sounded like it came from two socially inept, isolated teenagers who had never been encouraged to explore their feelings.
The Prequels really stood out in some areas, but were disappointing in others. Yes, the dialogue could have used work in most cases. Kevin Smith should have been brought in to ghostwrite on the project. Sometimes, the characters would have been better off saying nothing at all.
That isn't to say that the dialogue was all bad. In Episode III, I thought some of the interactions between Obi-Wan and Anakin were pretty good. The dialogue of the other Jedi, while dry in some spots, really wasn't terrible.
I think the biggest reason why a lot of people didn't like the prequels is that it is hard to live up to the originals. In some ways, Lucas had to fit certain characters into a mold so they would develop into the ones we see in the original trilogy. I'm no author, but I suspect that it would be very hard to do and could cause problems. And yes, the acting was a bit wooden, and that is clearly Lucas's fault. He isn't an experienced director, and he didn't know how to handle his characters.
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I think I read it somewhere in an interview in a Playboy article. "A Star Wars movie wouldn't be a Star Wars movie if it had good dialogue."
Quit your whining already. I actually enjoyed Episode II and III's stories.
Wipeout was not lame. Wipeout 3 in particular is IMO the best racing game ever.
:) It really shows up how utterly tedious all those essentially 2D psuedo-realistic car racers are.
A racing game with mines, missiles and exotic weapons like the earthquake gun, an incredible sense of speed, where you have to control the up/down angle of the nose of your craft to get extra speed on the jumps and you have left and right air braking. You can overtake by jumping right over people if you do it right. Then drop mines on them
Star Wars Episode 1 Pod Racer... well, maybe it was good, but I have a DC and I never even bothered to pirate it, let alone buy it for $5. The power of Episode 1's branding!
"FIRST POST"
In the original version, I posted first!!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I consider the Star Wars Christmas Special better than Episode 1...
I used to be a huge Star Wars fan back in the day, played all the games, read most of the books, watched all the movies to exhaustion, yada yada yada.
Then Episode I came out. I cringed. Then I watched passively as Lucasarts plunged into the murky depths of mediocrity as they pumped crappy game after crappy game based on the now defunct and utterly raped Star Wars universe.
There was a glimmer of hope when Knights of the Old Republic came out. But what turned out to be one of the best (if not THE best) forays into the universe I remembered was quickly put down by an awful sequel.
Then I saw Serenity. And as someone here remarked when it came out: Mal is like Han Solo. Only he shoots first.
Goodbye Star Wars, it was nice while it lasted, but you've changed.
F.O.R.C.E. == Flexible Optical Recreation [of] Cenematic Environments
F.O.R.C.E. == Film Origination Realized [through] Computer Enhancement
(in all seriousness though - this is what the Presidio was designed for - was to facilitate extremely high collaboration between the groups developing digital media. I think that (someone) will be successful (moreso than now) with this, I can only hope though that as this tech matures the "plastic-ness" of the generated movies will dissapear (e.g. King Kong)
They should have hired Bioware to completely rewrite them...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Anakin's fall to the dark side was handled nearly perfectly
I guess I can only talk about what biases and observations I would have included had I told Anakin's story. Essentially, Anakin's fall to the dark side is about whether the ends justify the means -- whether we can do bad things with te justification of good intent. Anakin, without even having taken The Trials, is groomed to lie to the Jedi Council and to protect his family. Nowhere does he appear to stop and give this issue of ends-versus-means time for consideration appropriate to our present societal state: political interests in foreign countries and at home causing conflicts with our commitment to Human Rights and freedom. Is it right to do bad things to safeguard that freedom?
Whn it comes to stupid noises at times of strife, shouting "Nooooo!" must run in the family. I think that Luke's story needs more to be told of how Darth Vader is the bogeyman and represents to Luke what pure evil is (perhaps with his friends suffering at the hands of the Empire to motivate Luke to take up arms against the Empire) so that his existence as the son of Anakin can justify such shock and horror.
And obviously your character is completely ruined by the change!
Lots of authors do that. One major (in SF terms anyway) is Michael Moorcock. Many who later become more famous can republish their earlier works and take the opportunity to revise or restore cuts. But sometimes, like Lucas, it proves to be an ill-advised ego-trip. Heinlein, for instance, released versions of his novels with cuts restored, eg Red Planet with an additional lecture about gun rights; proving only the wisdom of his original editors. But even when the new version is actually an improvement, as a reader I'd prefer they got on with new stuff rather than polishing up an old work. Life is too short to spend on reruns.
A Long time ago, in a back yard not so far far away
* Let's play Starwars. I'll be Han. You can be Luke.
* Luke's a dork, I wanna be Han.
* No you were Han last time.
* Was not
* Was too
I'd say the people who complain endlessly and needlessly about 1-3 have simply forgotten how to be a child.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
What a comparison! 2001 is hard sci-fi, Star Wars is a space opera.
I'd say the people who complain endlessly and needlessly about 1-3 have simply forgotten how to be a child.
That's probably closer to the truth than you realise. Most of those people will have first seen (and fallen in love with) 4-6 as a child, and as such they have a special signifigance to them.
They've seen 1-3 as adults, with an adult's view of things, and they simply can't compare to their childish recollection of 4-6. Sure, they've seen 4-6 as adults too, but you know the old saying, "first impressions last".
I didn't think 1-3 sucked that badly, but then neither did I consider them awesome. On the other hand, while I certainly enjoy the originals, I didn't consider them to be life-altering either.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
why the hell do you have to keep reminding me of the WORST PARTS>. if we stop discussing it, we can FORGET ABOUT IT PEOPLE...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
But the still pictures are very nice.
Yes, but it is their aggregate that makes the films. And they suck.
What these films lack is charisma. (I haven't seen III yet, and my brother tells me it's the most SW-type of film. But it definitely goes for I and II.)
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Absolutely. Some memories will never have their equivalents. Many modern first-person shooters are much better than Doom. Will Doom ever lose its glory in my mind? Never! You can't replace the first time you see a Cyberdemon or play a deathmatch game. That said, you can be objective about it and enjoy more recent titles.
I never understood how some people somehow take things personal when they don't like the direction something has taken and act all offended about it.
It's the best example of the kind of collaboration we've got going on.
I think the collaboration would be better, if it was simply someone with enough balls to say "Hey, George, an Amos and Andy alien is a titanically stupid idea. You should rethink that."
Oh, and listening to him would be a good idea too.
More technical gizmos don't make a basically bad idea any less bad.
-Styopa
I think I speak for the entire Star Wars fan community when I say, with all candor, "quit your fucking bitching already".
eheh! gotta love those logical fallacies
It's a tool that directors would use to quickly mock up the ideas of a story and see what's going to work.
Yeah, sure, because when I think of good, well thought and well written stories, I think of that wonderful second trilogy.
Unless those films were meant to mock the fans, in which case they very well lived to their expectations!
sigh... since when do pretty graphics make the story? Seems the gaming industry's been stuck with this too...
-----
Born stupid? Try again.
Yep, I agree as well, which is why when i went to see Ep. 1-3 I put myself in the mindset from when I was little and I loved it. I still do that to this day when I watch my DVD's of all 6 movies. Now, are Ep. 4-6 better than 1-3? Hell yes they are. But some of you who complain that 1-3 are horrible, re-watch Ep. 4 with the mindset of an adult....that movie wasn't all that great in the dialogue nor the acting. But we still loved it didn't we??
George Lucas is an idiot. He bitched for years that the original trilogy wasn't what he wanted, they weren't his real vision, etc. And they were fantastic. With the prequels, he was promoting how his vision could finally be realized - and it sucked. He got what he wanted, and the movies were terrible. They were annoying and trivial, the ONLY redeeming quality about them was that we knew where there story was going. If these movies had come out in order at Lucas' hands, the series would have died. The only reason the originals were good was because Lucas wasn't as involved with them. The more he got involved, the more the movies went downhill. You can pick them apart and analyze them, but in essence, they were just mediocre movies that capitalized on their legacy.
I have to say that I haven't seen Episode III yet, but I really have no desire to see it. This isn't about Lucas ruining my childhood or anything that tragic - it's just that he makes terrible movies. No computer-generated anything is going to help him with that. He is a talentless hack who got lucky long long ago, in a galaxy far far away.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
First, drop the Star Wars franchise, at least for a decade. You have exhausted any creativity or appeal to this tired concept and ideas like television shows and new games will fall flat.
Second, Lucas, the future of movies isn't in making everything a special effect. I am sure if George had his way he would have preferred making the last Star Wars film entirely digital, including the actors. For God's sake, there was more emotion and conviction in digital Yoda's performance then ALL the live actors combined (largely because Lucas can't direct, period). As much as computer special effects and 3D rendering is growing in leaps and bounds, it is a fad that will wain. The goal of 3D effects is to make it look realistic, to integrate it into live action to a point where you can no longer tell the difference, not to simply cheap out on set design by having actors jump around in front of green screens.
Lucasarts/film need a new muse, a new product that ISN'T Star Wars or even Indiana Jones to concentrate on. I mean, literally, Lucas is on-hit-wonder, stretching out Star Wars: A new hope over the last 30+ years.
I would love to see Lucasarts concentrate on new ideas, start making movies or games with other themes or offering their skills to other movies. Instead, Lucasarts is just some ego stroking ulterior entity of George Lucas filled with people that need to learn to say "No George, I don't want to ruin creativity and innovation just because you want Yoda spinning around like a Tasmanian devil". Lucas needs to retire and let his enterprises spread innovation around in Hollywood rather then working on yet another Star Wars spin off product.
Honestly, Lucas needs to see a shrink because I think he has escaped to a galaxy far far away and long ago and can't let go of it. Time for a new thought Lucas, 30+ years is enough obsessing about Leia.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
All of these sequels should never have been made, because they have the effect of diminishing the original, all for the sake of more money.
The Matrix was ripped off from a science fiction writer who submitted her script to the Wachowski Brothers in the 1980's. An FBI investigation and court proceedings decided that they had indeed stolen her work and awarded her damages. In fact, thirty minutes of footage was edited out of the original because these segments were verbatim plagiarism of the original work. It's no wonder the sequels were crap- the brothers actually wrote the scripts themselves.
> If George Lucas had any ability in writing dialogue, this is the point at which Anakin would have said that he did bring balance to the Force... the Light side of the Force was too dominant before Anakin came around. Think about it, you had hundreds of Jedi on the light side and 2 Sith on the dark side. Not balanced. Then after Anakin, it had 2 Jedi and 2 Sith. When Obi-Wan died, Luke took his place, leaving the force with 2 Jedi and 2 Sith. The force was imbalanced again after the end of RotJ, with both of the Sith dead, but since the only Jedi left at that point was Luke and he's a pussy like his dad, chances are it's a wash.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
I think I speak for the entire Star Wars fan community when I say, with all candor, "quit your fucking bitching already".
All the ones that are left anyway. The rest of the fan community isn't anymore, after the prequels. If you're left, then yeah, you probably have drunk the Kool Aid.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Actually, yeah. Maybe not better then Episode III, but a dog could crap a better movie then Episode I.
OTOH, Episode I was better then another movie I saw recently, "Ultraviolet". That's neither here nor there tho.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
I for one, welcome our Howard the Duck II overlords. This will surely make reality the Radioland Murders, the Decomposing Years. And of course, the next ONE HUNDRED EPISODES OF STAR WARS, THE SERIES. Imagine, a hundred episodes where George Lucas's ferbid imagination is brought to crystal life. Yes, the medoclorians are strong in that one.
There's so many basic 3-D apps out there, with support for lighting, animation, cameras, etc., I'm suprised this is news, today. Maybe 10 years ago. Or are movie people behind the times?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Its just a tool! A pen is a tool. A computer is a tool! YOU ARE A TOOL!!! (for all the whiney people here)
Absolutely, and that's the point that people on Slashdot always forget. They canonize the original trilogy, and the Prequels get shit on when really it's the same kind of stories with the same kinds of plot holes, dialogue, etc. Somehow they either don't or choose not to see all the problems in the OT, mostly likely because they prefer the actors or whatever. You're either a Star Wars fan or you're not, and the Prequels is what separates the two. It's Lucas' story to tell, however he wants to tell it.
Once again, a thread dealing with Lucas turns into the usual Star Wars bashfest. Deal with it people. Get over it already. Grow the fuck up.
I've heard better romantic dialog out of my high school classmates than the sappy, uninspired dialog in episodes II and III.
And I think that is part of the problem with the perception of the prequel trilogy. No one takes a moment to understand the characters for what they are.
Who is Anakin Skywalker? He is a boy who was torn away from his mother, the only person who really cared for him, told that he was the Chosen One who had this great destiny, and then trained not to have any feelings. At some point, he discovers that he loves/lusts after Padme Amidala and encouters feelings he's never had explained to him or was told to repress. Has he had the benefit of normal social interaction with kids his own age? For a while, but then he was thrust into Jedi training.
Who is Amidala? She's the girl who was Queen. As a teenager, she had the burden of ruling a planet, a position she was most likely groomed for from birth. That hardly leaves room for her to have a normal childhood that would lead to a well-adjusted adult.
Both characters are isolated and lonely. Heck, Anakin is still probably that 7 year old boy on some levels.
Everyone likes to criticize the writing of the prequels and claim that the romance dialogue was mishandled without ever stopping to look at it from the perspective of the characters. They're not normal teenagers. They've never had the benefit of going to a school or having "normal" social interactions. And despite all this, Anakin is somehow supposed to become Casanova or Don Juan.
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When Steven King republished the Stand, he added over 300 pages to his novel.
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Devil bunnies! I snort the nose! Lucifer! Banana! Banana!
> balance to the Force
With respect, I don't think the balance is one of numbers, or of power. What this 'balance' is, is not clearly stated in the movies. Ignoring any official backstory as developed in the books, comics and games (....on the grounds that I haven't read or played them) it seems clear from the movies is that the imbalance is caused by a because feature of the Jedi order: A Jedi Is Forbidden To Love An Individual.
This feature stunts the emotional development, in humans at least. Look at the "Wise" Mace Windu --- he has no idea that he is driving young skywalker to homicidal revolt. Even Yoda, when taken into Skywalkers, partial confidence, can't figure out that the basic problem is that the power and fear of love is wracking young Skywalker, something that any high school guidance counselor would instantly understand.
The Jedi may be swordsmasters, in turn with life and the universe, and generically in love with everything, but they don't understand the love of individuals built into each of us.
This imbalance that has an important 2ndary effect: it's breeding power over the force OUT of the Jedi line. At the end of the series, balance has been replaced as the surviving Jeni Leia is deeply in love Hans and the future Jedi order will have to give up on celebacy. Definitely an improvement, and all due to Anakim's homices.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Exactly! The love dialog was contrived, painful, and embarassing. Which, is arguably exactly what an obsessed 20 year old virgin would sound like when the object of his lust is within his reach.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
> Every word after Obi-Wan cuts off Skywalker's legs is a negative, e.g. "I loved you man!" is something no actor needs to say; it's evident from the acting. The worst lines in all six movies is when the dying Portman (shades of "Love Story") says, "I think I'll spoil one of the plots points of the next movie by telling the audience that Luke has a sister named Leia on Alderan."
You note that he shouldn't have had to say the lines, and you're entirely correct, but that was one case in the movies that I felt that these actors, good elsewhere but terrible under the thumb of Lucas, actually showed some chops.
Alas, it misled me in the trailer, with that little clip of it that made me sit up and go "hey, maybe the characterization and acting will actually be good in this one!" Oh, foolish optimism. See, seeing one bit of that outburst out of context had an impact, as Obi-Wan's pure emotion was palpable; having to watch that scene and hear every bland iteration of redundant dialogue was painful, and I felt a sympathy for what amounted to torture of the actors.
Not to say that I didn't rather enjoy the film. But I only saw it once, and admittedly the bad parts of the first bit of the film were glossed over by a brilliant suggestion by one of my friends: in order to survive the dialogue and acting, she suggested beforehand that we pop into the nearby pub. So that was kindof cheating.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
What do I need to do this? I used to play them on my P800, but I switched to a Treo and they run too slow to be playable. I own a DS and would love to play these games on it.
The Ewoks at least had some casualties in their fight - compare v. the Gungans in Ep1.
Heheh, Forever War has a similar "author restores a cut that was a good idea" - second chapter shows the world has turned into something between inner city LA and a third world country warzone - it was rather over-the-top. The original version that the editor had insisted on was a F451-esque brainwashed world. The problem is that he left in dialogue referring back to the F451-world when he restored his original chapter, so there is comments complaining about how brainwashed people were in the 21st century, when the chapter that took place in that time shows a 3rd world hellhole.
Ep III is _not_ "the most SW-type film". Ep III is just more of the same as ep 1 and 2, but then done over-the-top. More chaos, more ships, more explosions. Then make it dark and violent.
The dialogue is still painful. The cameos are still pointless. The action is still flat. But there's so much more going on it manages to be fun anyways.
Your last piece about Luke was...a joke. Bogeyman and Pure evil in the same breath? Lookup your definitions (no human is *truly* evil and bogeyman is a children's term for a strange, scary figure, more or less).
And stop trying to make everything into a perfect cliche. It is a terrible goal. Luke was fine shouting "Nooo!". It was entirely appropriate. I can't recall precisely, but to Luke (as part of the rebels), Vader was a ruthless tyrant. Now, coming so far to actually find yourself fighting the tyrant and holding the fate of rebels existence within your to find out Vader was the father was a f***ing shock. I mean, that is freak-out material. It would shatter your entire world and make you feel like your in a surreal dream. Luke was finely played as an actor and his character is maligned because it is simply misunderstood. Audiences identify(ied) with Hans Solo in the traditional masculine mold. Luke (to me, anyway) has empathy and is somewhat of a prodigy, although with the ordianry weaknesses and failings of the average person. It's a very rich and great character. Hans Solo is a very rich and great character, for different reasons.
In trying to paint everything with the strokes of shallow and stereotypes, you fail as do most in recognizing every fine detail of the original films.
About Anakin. Anakin didn't need a reason to turn to the dark side. Everyone acts like he was 'made' to (ie its not his fault..insert tear-jerker cliches here) as if he were a pawn. While no doubt in part true, I see Anakin choosing the dark side. Forget the bs about Padme's child. Every heart-bleeding moment has to have a child/baby or protecting the innocent Mary-wife (oh please *roll eyes*). That is a fake device implanted into the story to twist it into an insane kind of plot-narcissism and incestuous reuse of characters in the plot line. The characters lose their reality by becoming the gods that define the destiny of the entire universe...what a sorry excuse for a film.
Ewan McGregor looked wooden and struggled to give expression to his lines, almost like he had constipation. He looked like he had never lifted one barbell in his life let alone fight with quickness and strength to fight swathes of soldiers. If you like endeavours sportsmen and athletes, this much would be obvious at least. What happened was they met on a round table with couches surrounding it in front of the set. Drank their mugs of coffee. Lucas gave them a sheet of white, photocopied paper with their lines on it, gave them a high five and they stood up changed into their costume, scratched their nuts and delivered, all the while thinking about what they would do afterward. That's how it looks, with a slight exagerration.
Padme is in her 20s during Episodes II and III, but that's just a technicality. :P
I understand what you mean with the perception problem surrounding the characters. Unfortunately, I suspect actors did not understand the point about their characters that you just raised. Why? Because Lucas isn't an acting director. These people aren't paid to think--they're paid to act. Sad truth, I suppose.
I maintain my positon that the writing is mediocre. Not shitty, not offensive, just mediocre and a bit unpolished. Example: I think Padme, in her 20s, would be capable of better self-expression than shrieking "YOU'RE BREAKING MY HEART!!!1!!1" like a middle schooler.
If you want awkward and embarrassing teenage romance that's more authentic than anything you'll find in Star Wars, you need to watch Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Never read / seen LOTR, but looked thru the Wikipedia entry for Tolkein, it sounds as this might not be the same type of thing - he altered the original work that had made him a success, in order to construct a framework for a larger fiction world and subsequent novel.
Furthermore, revision seems to be a SF only thing. Perhaps from the scientific method?
Seriously, if you're OK with all these alterations, you'll find it's really going to suck 20 years from now when the LOTR you love and treasure is altered to fit whatever profit / PC / whim of the time.