From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga - Part 6 of 7

[toxboxic]

In the prequels even the Clone troopers are CGI. That takes out the whole making of a movie. CGI is a sad excuse for making lazy films. There is just no creativity working with computer images. I think creating an amazing enviornment in three to six months is better than creating one in ten minutes using CGI and computers.

[DBNIGHT]

nothing better than real models and sets - just say no to CGI

[Nonamearisto]

If there is anything they should should digitally change, it is the Ewoks. Replace them with wookies and Return of the Jedi is much, much better. Wookies with laser blasters.

[Bernler75]

I love these 'making off' videos.

Man, I wish I was an actor, they seem like they're having lots of fun :)

[CanalTal]

I really think the today´s George Lucas should listen more to his own interviews of the past, because it kinda looks like he forgot all the beautiful things he used to think, say and do.

[Skull10]

@CanalTal I know, it seems odd that George has grown less wise with age.

[Jasandia]

i hate ewoks as much as i hate jar jar binks

[gaozhi2007]

Bullshit. You changed them to ewoks so you could see your toys, bitch.

[10laughungtears]

CGI really makes it look silly, I mean theres new technology - use it to make even better puppets! Computer generated characters are not that good if you ask me. Take a look what they did to make Jabba. They were making him so long, I couldnt believe. Now, they could make something like that in a matter of weeks.

[godstomper]

Geezuz , I wouldn't want to be in Richard Marquands shoes , with Lucas not giving you that freedom to do as you want without him agreeing or disagreeing on your ideas . I mean I know its Lucas's story , but I also know he doesn't like to direct.

[SolidSnake032486]

People say George created the Ewoks so that he could sell teddy bear like dolls. But he would have sold them and they would have sold just as well no matter what they looked like. He made them cute so that the audience instantly sympathizes with them plus they need to look like the underdog. They look like teddy bears so that they look familiar.

[ShaolinViolin]

i always wanted to be an ewok when i was like 8

[Mikeus2006]

the time will come again when special effects are done with old school technology. models, artwork and puppets ect...

[25Robbo25]

@Mikeus2006 Yeah Chris Nolan in Inception used old school fx for a lot of their filming... nothing beats the old skool effects

[quiktymevideo]

I used to tease my dog with words like "wookie" and "ewok" for whenever I was about to take him for a walk.

[ducktapelover1]

finaly a good audio

[ejcstudios]

those ewalks are funny

[ejcstudios]

star wars looks like a piece of junk with computers the computer jabba the hut looked bad compared to the puppet one

[Eldeecue]

The models and puppets look much more believable....you _know_ when you're seeing CGI. Always. It looks too clean, sterile it lacks grit and weight.

Not to mention it makes the actors lose the visual sensation of interacting with a physical form.

[andif8]

live the Harrison/Marc-Moment at 2:40 :-)

[jazcutie567]

haha, me too- I love it. then Carrie: "oh, can I do it too?" Marc: "no" lol

[WingsMarioDS]

@jazcutie567 Hahahaa

[doro626]

I love the real look of the forest instead of cgi trees. A nice mix of CGi and real world props is my personal favorite.

[edlichanimation]

I love CG, but i love models more.. CG is "to easy".. many films look like crap with CG..

[El135o]

Wow, Ford is really impatient on the set, but he's a seasoned pro whereas Hamill is still a kid. Plus, he simply knows what he's doing!

[danxtur]

CGI is just easy monye

[ravennome]

Lucas and ILM were so jazzed that they could create all this stuff they never stopped to think should we. I mean Gollumn is one hero character played and voiced by Andy Serkis (thats key), he's used throughout the films but not excessively. In the prequels non of the scenes are left untouched in someone way, and when you're making that many characters and relying on animators not actors to bring them to life you're gonna have some less than real performances.

[ravennome]

CG doesn't kill the magic, what kills the magic is that now you can do whatever you want and therefore you have not filter on what is a good idea and what is a bad idea. When you are limited by practecle effects you have to think creatively and outside the box to make things work and it can make it amazing. If you think like that when working with CG you'll retain that magic. Gratuateous us of effects is what kills the magic. Also its interesting that Ben Burtt new how language worked in the...

[ravennome]

saga. The new films don't use alien speak except for the hutts, and it somewhat cheapens and duls the films. I remember how it was sort of a bonding thing when my mom had to read to me what they were saying in the original trilogy. I miss that. Not to mention that adding a quasi-racial stereotypical accent to english as they do in 1-3 is bad form. Also, Love or hate the Ewoks, lets face it, Wookies would have been AWESOME! And you can still downsize em' into cute plush toy for the kiddies.

[blaydrunner]

Yes...but the actor's are acting with PEOPLE in those suits that ARE real. Not a tennis ball with shiny tape on it...they can PRETEND to act with and then a character will be added later with CGI.

Watch Liam Neeson in The Phantom Menace "acting" with Jar Jar Binks. He's staring right through him at something 10 feet away.

I watched the new Batman movie...there WAS CGI in it...but it was used so well you didn't really notice it. THAT'S the way to use it properly.

[GUNTH6969]

Is it me or is the sound and the video on this not in sink?

[Exciter1000]

Hmmm..I was just thinking about how everything in hollywood runs around in a kind of "cycle" in terms of satisfying the movie going publics visual needs when it comes to S/FX. Once it was the old technique of stop-motion animating until everyone got sick of that,then with the advent of CGI it blew the minds of all but now we are jack of that cause its starting to look to fake.And now we want a return you to stop-animation.Just can't please some people eh?!

[blaydrunner]

Yeah it's tough to compare Phil Tippet's creations to someone sitting in front of a computer. But when my 6 and 9 year old Nieces like the ORIGINAL trilogy better than the last ones because..."stuff looks fake in the NEW ones"...that tells me alot.

[CultureJudge]

blaydrunner. CG is just being used badly and lazily. Everyone should remember the first CG appearance of the T-Rex in Jurassic; it clearly triumphed over stop-motion, but then ILM worked damn hard to pull that off - it's still about the best CG creature ever done. Since then ILM themselves have tended to drop the ball along with everyone else... For Jurassic, old stopmo experts like Tippet were on hand to advise re animal motion and weight. And it shows!

[blaydrunner]

I agree....badly...lazily...and too damn much! Did you see the horror show they made of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull????? Bloody TERRIBLE!! Way to ruin a great series of Movies.

[CultureJudge]

No, I didn't see it, because I predicted exactly the kind of disappointment you report! Yet the potential for CG remains incredible - it's a shame the only people with the dough to use it are, or have become, Hollywood hacks... I'd like to see some real artists wield that technology... I'd like to see CG make a total breakout from the crippling formulaic uses of Hollywood. But Hollywood's the only place with the money for it, sadly.

[blaydrunner]

Amen.

[ReaLDvnTSh1T]

CG now days is creatd on pretty mch the exact same progrms that people run on their computers at home ( bar a massive pool of servers and grading equipment). The only real differnce is tht you have a massve team of pple all doing 1 specific job each. So on a gfx intense project what would take someone a month to do in their bedroom would only take a crew, one day to do, givng u more time to adjust ideas or come up with new ideas/concepts. I guess dont be disheartend, alot of gr8 stuff out there

[o7levi]

Very true. So many of the people on the digital end of the process have no formal experience with traditional photography. Instead you end up with someone who's only worked in the digital realm; they may have technical knowledge to draw from, but practical experience and working knowledge of how things should appear on film is the other missing 50% in the equation. I think a mix of both techniques is the best way to go, unfortunately CG is much cheaper and much faster and does "well enough".

[o7levi]

I saw a video of Tippet with what looked like a real-live puppet feeding motion-captured animation directly into a computer. While the digital models looked excellent, I think the animations of the dinos employed mocap. I could be wrong though.

[CultureJudge]

07levi, Some animation on JP was done using computer-connected puppets - 'dinosaur digital input device' I think they called them! This was just so the keyboard-allergic Tippet and his team could do some animation. Other shots were done by the new generation of cg artists using keyboards, such as the shot of the T-Rex chasing the jeep. But their work was quality-controlled by the expert eye of Tippet's crew; the gorgeous weight of the raptors in the kitchen is is very ILM stopmo.

[radiofriendly]

It is SO sad that all of this magic was lost in the recent star wars movies.

[blaydrunner]

CG kills the magic. I don't care that it's a rubber puppet or a midget in a suit...it's a REAL character...and a real actor making that creature REAL.

[Ayavaron]

CG doesn't have to kill the magic but it certainly can. Artistry is artistry, we just have a lot fewer good artists working on movies these days. Instead of attracting the sculptors and painters, we're getting computer nerds to do the effects and they just don't know how to bring the human touch to anything.

[Righton2000]

I can understand that you would think that because there are puppets and costumes around that it gives it a more "real" feeling because those are things that you can see, touch, taste, feel etc. But despite that, all you see (Jabba, his entourage, etc) AREN'T real, cause there is nothing real about them.

[ravennome]

Well when you really try to make CG work it can. When you do practical effects you get a lot for free. Lighting, texture, actor contact, ect. In CG you need to compensate for that, and I think a lot of current directors don't think about that, unless they really know FX intimately. So you can't take things for granted. I hate to pull LOTR out but the FX in that trilogy are SOLID and almost all CG except for where practical was possible. Gollumn is still the best effect to date CG or otherwise.

[CultureJudge]

ravennome. You're right about Gollum. But I'm afraid LOTR's cg is in other areas a classic case of the naff cg problems you're talking about. E.g: the weightless, jerking cave troll in Moria; the weightless jerking dog-monsters or whatever they were; the terrible mtv zooming aound cg environments such as Isengard, which reduced said environments to obvious,scale-less videogame cg models. There's a lot of great fx in LOTR, but it's by no means all as solid as you make out.

[o7levi]

There was something very organic and real world about the old films. The new films were nothing short of digital blasphemy. Leave the digital stuff to matte paintings, crowd simulations, lasers and digital touch-ups. For the rest, you can't beat filming real props in real or simulated lighting conditions. The old films will always be the real Star Wars to me.

[CultureJudge]

07levi,'Organic and real world', yes... but just to bang on again about the glories of Jurassic Park CG - I'm an FX head, but when I first saw that film I thought the shots of the T-Rex at the end with the raptor had been done with some sort of perfect full-size walking robot - even though I knew earlier shots had been CG! Why? Because it just looked too organic and real world for CG. I repeat: In the hands of geniuses, CG remains capable of beating hell out of stop motion and everything else.

[Randomness099]

I completely agree.

[NIN1024]

@o7levi I wouldn't mind all the lasers, lightsabers, matte background paintings, and spaceships to be computer generated, but for all the characters I prefer real props.

[cassius969]

@radiofriendly Well they are prequels they set up the story.