"Kazaa has loads of videos where people get hurt in real life and descriptions such as 'Pizza guy gets hit by a car! FUNNY! FUNNY!'. Sick! So sick!"
If you believe this video is the real deal, you're pretty gullible. Wow, the camera person is SO GOOD, they actually anticipated how far the body would go, and kept it in frame the entire time, and with perfect focus!
George Lucas quote from Premiere magazine, May 1999, page 72:
"But after every movie, ILM would come back and say, 'Make another Star Wars movie because we need the money."
Draw your own conclusions.
You give the entire company 36 months to make a profit?
First of all, ILM makes a profit. It's not a huge profit, but the computer effects industry is so competitive that not many do, and if they do, it's not much. In the area of 2% or so.
Secondly, ILM operated for YEARS without profit. In fact, after every film, they came back to Lucas and said, "Look, we need another Star Wars film!" because they really needed the money. Lucas had faith in the company that it would eventually make money, and it did. In the lean years his executives begged him to shut it down, but he wouldn't.
Also, Frankenstein failed for several reasons, one of which may have been the writing, but this wasn't ILM's fault. ILM wasn't writing the script. Cost overruns were the big problem.
Yet another boneheaded move by Mr. Gates. Charge me updates for your crappy software? I don't think so.
Complexity be damned, I think I'm going to be dancing with Tux soon.
James Randi, the famous skeptic, has this to say about this subject (http://www.randi.org/jr/060702.html):
"Go take a look at http://www.americanantigravity.com/index.html and see very interesting videos of what the supporters seem to believe is a breakthrough in science. If this device is "antigravity," then a pogo stick and a crow are both antigravity items, as well.
I saw a similar demo at the University of Toronto back in 1946. That demo used a flat circular coil of wire; I believe this is the same thing, but a triangular form leads one away from the "induction" conclusion. It's a matter of high-voltage electrical fields generated by something that you don't see in the videos; there's always a source of high voltage present, a CRT (computer monitor or TV receiver) or a HV power supply, just out of camera view. What's also not obvious here is that the triangular frame -- which weighs only a few grams -- is tethered down by very fine invisible threads, a fact which when known, makes the apparent "maneuvering" appearance less mysterious by far."
I disagree that this is strictly a cash grab. Lucas, Spielberg and Harrison have all said for years that they'd love to do another Indiana Jones film, because they have so much fun filming them. This is the one thing that I hear consistently when they talk about doing another movie, that they really enjoy making them. That, and they don't want to do it unless they have a really good script.
As for the two filmmakers going downhill since the late 80's....well, although I agree with you when it comes to Lucas, I'd say Spielberg has done some of his finest work in the last ten years. What about "Schindler's List", "Saving Private Ryan" and, to a lesser extent, "Minority Report"? Those were all wonderful films.
"It's easier, faster and cheaper to blow up something in a computer than to actually rig explosives..."
This statement reveals your ignorance about the effects industry. It's the other way around. Explosions are almost always made by rigging up explosives on a model or against bluescreen, then digitally compositing it into the final shot. Explosions and fire are two things that GCI does not yet do very well, and it is MUCH easier, faster and cheaper to blow it up for real, than to try and simulate it with a computer.
Exactly. All of the telecommunication giants had business plans that were based on the assumption that everyone and his dog would want unlimited bandwidth.
What they failed to take into account is that the amount of information a person can actually handle at any one time is quite limited, and can be calculated.
The following example applies to a calculation I've seen that demonstrates this for my country (Canada).
What would demonstrate a high rate of information download? What about an HDTV signal? If we assume every person in Canada (some 33 million people, give or take) wanted to view an HDTV signal at the exact same time, the bandwidth for this amount of information required can be handled by a single fibre optic cable.
Sorry I don't have the actual numbers, but the point is that a single fibre can carry A LOT of information.
1. The problem was, they didn't have clean interpositives. From page 288 from "Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm":
'"The original negative is the best, which was Lucas's whole scheme: to make it look as good as it possibly could," noted Pacific Title optical supervisor Chris Bushman.
"We could only go back to the original negative," summed up Rick McCallum. "It's our source, the only life force we have."
and later...
"For parts of the film that were too damaged we went back to the interpositive struck from the original negative, which was the closest we could get to the original negative."'
So they did use the negative as much as possible, and only utilized the IP when they had to. Remember, if you say, "Nobody prints directly from a negative master", ya gotta remember this is Lucas we're talking about, and he doesn't follow the crowd!
2. I never said the primary reason to release the Special Editions was as an R&D effort, I only said it was ONE of the reasons. Lucas knew 20th Century Fox was going to foot the bill, so he saw an excellent chance to have them fund his research.
3. Of course Lucas enjoys the money he makes from his movies. He deserves to have a good life. Yes, he has a private Ranch, a jet, and his own cook (and if I were as rich as he were, I would definitely have those things, especially a private cook, seeing as how he is a diabetic). So he takes a chunk of his income to enjoy the finer things in life. Who wouldn't? That doesn't make his greedy.
But personally (outside of the Ranch, and the rest of his businesses), he is not known to live excessively. And the point I guess I'm trying to make is that he doesn't work to make money to live a lavish lifestyle; he works because it's what he enjoys, but he also works to make his work and the process of making his art (movies) more enjoyable! Hence the Ranch. Hence his wanting to control everything, so that he can avoid the Hollywood system as much as possible.
Lucas refers to what he does as "art". Your personal feelings about the quality of that art aside, he sees himself as an artist first, and a businessman second, or third, or fourth. He wants to perfect, streamline, and economize the making of that art, which is why he puts most of his money back into his businesses.
Does that make him "greedy?" In the sense that he wants to keep acquiring "things" to make his work life easier, maybe. But he doesn't get greedy in the sense that "I'm going to bleed my fans dry of all their money!"
Another poster said that he may be perceived as being greedy from those who work for him (he doesn't micromanage every single things that goes on in his business; that would be impossible), and it is these "suits" who are willing to squeeze the fans dry, but personally, he isn't like that.
Perhaps what you define as crap is just the kind of thing he likes.
His goal was to fix those things which HE THOUGHT WERE BAD, not what you thought, and to add some things which HE THOUGHT ADDED to the movies, not what you thought.
Lucas: "Well, I fixed some things, and added some things. Now, I'm happy to bring the films closer to my original vision."
You: "He didn't fix anything, and those added scenes are garbage! He must be in it for the money!"
That's quite a logic flaw.
Yes, there are other problems in the trilogy that could have been fixed (for instance, in the fixed up Star Wars, there was STILL a scene where Vader's lightsabre was white, instead of red...why the hell didn't he fix that?), but apparently Lucas didn't agree with you that the Tauntaun scene was bad. I happen to think it looks pretty good, considering the technology they had available at the time.
The Greedo modification scene was a travesty, I agree, but Lucas is free to change things however he wishes.
Just because you think Lucas didn't fix ENOUGH flaws doesn't mean he was out to make a quick buck. At first, he just wanted to fix up the first movie. He overhauled Empire and Jedi much later in the production schedule, therefore he had much less time to work on those films.
As for the money issue, look at my second posting. Lucas just isn't the money grubbing evil man people make him out to be.
No bullcookies.
1. The original negatives are always the preferred stock to use when restoring films, and in this case they were in terrible shape. They had been stored under the ground in Kansas, and everyone involved was shocked by how poorly they had withstood the test of time.
From Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm:
"The color had faded away by about 10-15% (this according to Leon Briggs, a former veteran of the Disney lab who had worked on such restoration projects as Fantasia and Snow White, who was called in to help). There was dirt embedded in the six reels of negatives, and pit marks as well.
The film stock used was Color Reversal Intermediate (CRI) #5249, and it was so prone to fading that Kodak discontinued making it in the early 80s.
Although a master interpositive had been made in 1985 for the purpose of video releases, making prints entirely off IPs wouldn't provide the highest generation release print. No pristine prints benefitting a grand anniversary release existed either - any available prints had suffered their own scratches and general damage from the wear and tear of shipping and exhibition." (page 288)
It actually took 3 and a half years to restore the film, which was 6 months longer than it took to make the original.
2. Yes, he was interested in accomplishing things he was unable to accomplish in the original. I left that part out. However, he also uses every film he produces as an R&D opportunity, and in this case, 20th Century Fox was footing the bill (between about 11 million and 15 million, depending on different sources). So he fixed up some things he didn't like, AND used the experience to advance the tricks ILM could use in the new films.
3. Lucas DIDN'T know that the new Star Wars films would be the biggest box office ever. He wasn't even sure the re-releases would make much money. Remember, the last Star Wars movie was Jedi, way back in 1983. That is a lot of years in between films. Who could predict what would happen? Many people thought "More American Grafitti" would make tons of money, but it was a bomb, big time. Who knew? Lucas himself has said how easy it is to screw up sequels. That's part of the reason why he re-released the films, to see if people were still interested!
Doesn't it make sense that if George was all that greedy, that he would have made 20 Star Wars films, and just as many Indianda Jones films? And yes, he acted as director for Episodes I and II (and he will for III) because he wanted complete control over the films. Does that make hime egotistical? Not necessarily. It makes him controlling, maybe, but not egotistical. There's a difference.
And Lucas shouldn't apologize for trying to make money off the merchandising. He has a huge empire to run, often at a loss (ILM ran at a loss for many years, and still just squeaks by; the visual effects industry is very competitive), and needs the income to keep everything going. The income he gets is poured right back into his businesses; he has no interests in fancy yachts and villas in Europe. That doesn't make him greedy, it makes him a smart business man. Jim Henson was the same way. He had said that he wished he didn't need to go into merchandising, but it was necessary to keep his business afloat.
And while I think the prequels are not really very good, I have no problem with Lucas trying to do everything himself to maintain control. And I also see no problem with the merchandising. It brings joy to many children. Just don't make the mistake of calling him greedy. He just isn't like that.
For him, it's never been about the money. If it were, he would be cranking out Star Wars movies like James Bond films, and there would be 20 of them by now.
The re-release of the films in 1997 was done not for money, but for several other key reasons:
1) to restore the film, because the negative was badly deteriorated (if it hadn't been done at that time, the original negative would not have lasted another few years) 2) to use the trilogy as a test bed for some new effects that he would need to have ready for Episode I 3) as a kind of litmus test, to see if the public was still receptive to the aging franchise (which of course, it was)
The merchandising is an important aspect of the films, as it allows Lucas to stay an independent producer. The money generated from it subsidizes Lucasfilm, ILM, THX, LucasArts, Skywalker Sound, the Ranch, etc...
Hmmm, so the actors in the Star Wars films are responding to something isn't there, and that makes them bad actors?
I guess there are no good stage actors then?
...just flood the theatres with high intensity infra-red lights. They're invisible to the eye, but camcorders pick them up like daylight. All the camcorders will record is a big white mess. And the soundtrack.
Why do they need to throw gobs of money at this problem?
fpp
Slashdot Mirror
"Kazaa has loads of videos where people get hurt in real life and descriptions such as 'Pizza guy gets hit by a car! FUNNY! FUNNY!'. Sick! So sick!"
If you believe this video is the real deal, you're pretty gullible. Wow, the camera person is SO GOOD, they actually anticipated how far the body would go, and kept it in frame the entire time, and with perfect focus!
George Lucas quote from Premiere magazine, May 1999, page 72: "But after every movie, ILM would come back and say, 'Make another Star Wars movie because we need the money." Draw your own conclusions.
You give the entire company 36 months to make a profit? First of all, ILM makes a profit. It's not a huge profit, but the computer effects industry is so competitive that not many do, and if they do, it's not much. In the area of 2% or so. Secondly, ILM operated for YEARS without profit. In fact, after every film, they came back to Lucas and said, "Look, we need another Star Wars film!" because they really needed the money. Lucas had faith in the company that it would eventually make money, and it did. In the lean years his executives begged him to shut it down, but he wouldn't. Also, Frankenstein failed for several reasons, one of which may have been the writing, but this wasn't ILM's fault. ILM wasn't writing the script. Cost overruns were the big problem.
Yet another boneheaded move by Mr. Gates. Charge me updates for your crappy software? I don't think so. Complexity be damned, I think I'm going to be dancing with Tux soon.
It's actually not Lucas who names the ships, it's his designers. So it's actually his designers who are hacks.
...still surfing the internet with their Commodore 64s and 300 baud modems!
I'd rather infuriate them illegally.
James Randi, the famous skeptic, has this to say about this subject (http://www.randi.org/jr/060702.html):
"Go take a look at http://www.americanantigravity.com/index.html and see very interesting videos of what the supporters seem to believe is a breakthrough in science. If this device is "antigravity," then a pogo stick and a crow are both antigravity items, as well.
I saw a similar demo at the University of Toronto back in 1946. That demo used a flat circular coil of wire; I believe this is the same thing, but a triangular form leads one away from the "induction" conclusion. It's a matter of high-voltage electrical fields generated by something that you don't see in the videos; there's always a source of high voltage present, a CRT (computer monitor or TV receiver) or a HV power supply, just out of camera view. What's also not obvious here is that the triangular frame -- which weighs only a few grams -- is tethered down by very fine invisible threads, a fact which when known, makes the apparent "maneuvering" appearance less mysterious by far."
I disagree that this is strictly a cash grab. Lucas, Spielberg and Harrison have all said for years that they'd love to do another Indiana Jones film, because they have so much fun filming them. This is the one thing that I hear consistently when they talk about doing another movie, that they really enjoy making them. That, and they don't want to do it unless they have a really good script.
As for the two filmmakers going downhill since the late 80's....well, although I agree with you when it comes to Lucas, I'd say Spielberg has done some of his finest work in the last ten years. What about "Schindler's List", "Saving Private Ryan" and, to a lesser extent, "Minority Report"? Those were all wonderful films.
...now I'll finally be able to solve the Rubik's cube I got for Christmas in 1983.
The difference is that Star Wars never pretended to be real, which is more than I can say about pro wrestling.
...a robot that mows the lawn?
"It's easier, faster and cheaper to blow up something in a computer than to actually rig explosives..."
This statement reveals your ignorance about the effects industry. It's the other way around. Explosions are almost always made by rigging up explosives on a model or against bluescreen, then digitally compositing it into the final shot. Explosions and fire are two things that GCI does not yet do very well, and it is MUCH easier, faster and cheaper to blow it up for real, than to try and simulate it with a computer.
"Twenty minutes of sheer joy, a lifetime of regret."
Kinda like how it was with me and my kids, only it was about two minutes of sheer joy...
Exactly. All of the telecommunication giants had business plans that were based on the assumption that everyone and his dog would want unlimited bandwidth.
What they failed to take into account is that the amount of information a person can actually handle at any one time is quite limited, and can be calculated.
The following example applies to a calculation I've seen that demonstrates this for my country (Canada).
What would demonstrate a high rate of information download? What about an HDTV signal? If we assume every person in Canada (some 33 million people, give or take) wanted to view an HDTV signal at the exact same time, the bandwidth for this amount of information required can be handled by a single fibre optic cable.
Sorry I don't have the actual numbers, but the point is that a single fibre can carry A LOT of information.
1. The problem was, they didn't have clean interpositives. From page 288 from "Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm":
'"The original negative is the best, which was Lucas's whole scheme: to make it look as good as it possibly could," noted Pacific Title optical supervisor Chris Bushman.
"We could only go back to the original negative," summed up Rick McCallum. "It's our source, the only life force we have."
and later...
"For parts of the film that were too damaged we went back to the interpositive struck from the original negative, which was the closest we could get to the original negative."'
So they did use the negative as much as possible, and only utilized the IP when they had to. Remember, if you say, "Nobody prints directly from a negative master", ya gotta remember this is Lucas we're talking about, and he doesn't follow the crowd!
2. I never said the primary reason to release the Special Editions was as an R&D effort, I only said it was ONE of the reasons. Lucas knew 20th Century Fox was going to foot the bill, so he saw an excellent chance to have them fund his research.
3. Of course Lucas enjoys the money he makes from his movies. He deserves to have a good life. Yes, he has a private Ranch, a jet, and his own cook (and if I were as rich as he were, I would definitely have those things, especially a private cook, seeing as how he is a diabetic). So he takes a chunk of his income to enjoy the finer things in life. Who wouldn't? That doesn't make his greedy.
But personally (outside of the Ranch, and the rest of his businesses), he is not known to live excessively. And the point I guess I'm trying to make is that he doesn't work to make money to live a lavish lifestyle; he works because it's what he enjoys, but he also works to make his work and the process of making his art (movies) more enjoyable! Hence the Ranch. Hence his wanting to control everything, so that he can avoid the Hollywood system as much as possible.
Lucas refers to what he does as "art". Your personal feelings about the quality of that art aside, he sees himself as an artist first, and a businessman second, or third, or fourth. He wants to perfect, streamline, and economize the making of that art, which is why he puts most of his money back into his businesses.
Does that make him "greedy?" In the sense that he wants to keep acquiring "things" to make his work life easier, maybe. But he doesn't get greedy in the sense that "I'm going to bleed my fans dry of all their money!"
Another poster said that he may be perceived as being greedy from those who work for him (he doesn't micromanage every single things that goes on in his business; that would be impossible), and it is these "suits" who are willing to squeeze the fans dry, but personally, he isn't like that.
Cheers,
fpp
Perhaps what you define as crap is just the kind of thing he likes. His goal was to fix those things which HE THOUGHT WERE BAD, not what you thought, and to add some things which HE THOUGHT ADDED to the movies, not what you thought. Lucas: "Well, I fixed some things, and added some things. Now, I'm happy to bring the films closer to my original vision." You: "He didn't fix anything, and those added scenes are garbage! He must be in it for the money!" That's quite a logic flaw.
I'm quite serious.
Yes, there are other problems in the trilogy that could have been fixed (for instance, in the fixed up Star Wars, there was STILL a scene where Vader's lightsabre was white, instead of red...why the hell didn't he fix that?), but apparently Lucas didn't agree with you that the Tauntaun scene was bad. I happen to think it looks pretty good, considering the technology they had available at the time.
The Greedo modification scene was a travesty, I agree, but Lucas is free to change things however he wishes.
Just because you think Lucas didn't fix ENOUGH flaws doesn't mean he was out to make a quick buck. At first, he just wanted to fix up the first movie. He overhauled Empire and Jedi much later in the production schedule, therefore he had much less time to work on those films.
As for the money issue, look at my second posting. Lucas just isn't the money grubbing evil man people make him out to be.
Oops, I guess I should have previewed this. Sorry folks.
No bullcookies. 1. The original negatives are always the preferred stock to use when restoring films, and in this case they were in terrible shape. They had been stored under the ground in Kansas, and everyone involved was shocked by how poorly they had withstood the test of time. From Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm: "The color had faded away by about 10-15% (this according to Leon Briggs, a former veteran of the Disney lab who had worked on such restoration projects as Fantasia and Snow White, who was called in to help). There was dirt embedded in the six reels of negatives, and pit marks as well. The film stock used was Color Reversal Intermediate (CRI) #5249, and it was so prone to fading that Kodak discontinued making it in the early 80s. Although a master interpositive had been made in 1985 for the purpose of video releases, making prints entirely off IPs wouldn't provide the highest generation release print. No pristine prints benefitting a grand anniversary release existed either - any available prints had suffered their own scratches and general damage from the wear and tear of shipping and exhibition." (page 288) It actually took 3 and a half years to restore the film, which was 6 months longer than it took to make the original. 2. Yes, he was interested in accomplishing things he was unable to accomplish in the original. I left that part out. However, he also uses every film he produces as an R&D opportunity, and in this case, 20th Century Fox was footing the bill (between about 11 million and 15 million, depending on different sources). So he fixed up some things he didn't like, AND used the experience to advance the tricks ILM could use in the new films. 3. Lucas DIDN'T know that the new Star Wars films would be the biggest box office ever. He wasn't even sure the re-releases would make much money. Remember, the last Star Wars movie was Jedi, way back in 1983. That is a lot of years in between films. Who could predict what would happen? Many people thought "More American Grafitti" would make tons of money, but it was a bomb, big time. Who knew? Lucas himself has said how easy it is to screw up sequels. That's part of the reason why he re-released the films, to see if people were still interested! Doesn't it make sense that if George was all that greedy, that he would have made 20 Star Wars films, and just as many Indianda Jones films? And yes, he acted as director for Episodes I and II (and he will for III) because he wanted complete control over the films. Does that make hime egotistical? Not necessarily. It makes him controlling, maybe, but not egotistical. There's a difference. And Lucas shouldn't apologize for trying to make money off the merchandising. He has a huge empire to run, often at a loss (ILM ran at a loss for many years, and still just squeaks by; the visual effects industry is very competitive), and needs the income to keep everything going. The income he gets is poured right back into his businesses; he has no interests in fancy yachts and villas in Europe. That doesn't make him greedy, it makes him a smart business man. Jim Henson was the same way. He had said that he wished he didn't need to go into merchandising, but it was necessary to keep his business afloat. And while I think the prequels are not really very good, I have no problem with Lucas trying to do everything himself to maintain control. And I also see no problem with the merchandising. It brings joy to many children. Just don't make the mistake of calling him greedy. He just isn't like that.
Wow, you really don't know Lucas at all...
For him, it's never been about the money. If it were, he would be cranking out Star Wars movies like James Bond films, and there would be 20 of them by now.
The re-release of the films in 1997 was done not for money, but for several other key reasons:
1) to restore the film, because the negative was badly deteriorated (if it hadn't been done at that time, the original negative would not have lasted another few years)
2) to use the trilogy as a test bed for some new effects that he would need to have ready for Episode I
3) as a kind of litmus test, to see if the public was still receptive to the aging franchise (which of course, it was)
The merchandising is an important aspect of the films, as it allows Lucas to stay an independent producer. The money generated from it subsidizes Lucasfilm, ILM, THX, LucasArts, Skywalker Sound, the Ranch, etc...
Hmmm, so the actors in the Star Wars films are responding to something isn't there, and that makes them bad actors? I guess there are no good stage actors then?
...just flood the theatres with high intensity infra-red lights. They're invisible to the eye, but camcorders pick them up like daylight. All the camcorders will record is a big white mess. And the soundtrack. Why do they need to throw gobs of money at this problem? fpp