Andy Serkis's Star Wars Character Gets a Name

[StewShearerOld]

Andy Serkis's Star Wars Character Gets a Name

To the surprise of everyone everywhere, Andy Serkis will be playing a motion-captured character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

When Andy Serkis was announced as a part of the cast of <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/star%20wars%20the%20force%20awakens?os=star+wars+the+force+awakens>Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first thing that most people probably asked was "I wonder what motion-capture character he'll be playing this time?" Few will likely be surprised, in turn, to learn that Lucasfilm has announced who Serkis's character will be and revealed that he will, in fact, be working with motion-capture.

The news debuted today at the official Star Wars website where it was confirmed that Serkis would be playing the character Supreme Commander Snoke. The announcement was accompanied by a photo of Serkis decked out in motion capture gear. The picture had apparently been intended for the most recent issue of Vanity Fair where a slew of other Force Awakens photos, including a similar motion capture image of actor Lupita Nyong'o, were published. That gallery <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140693-Star-Wars-The-Force-Awakens-Photos-Show-Chrometrooper-and-Villian-Kylo-Ren>can be found here.

Sadly, the reveal didn't include much else in the way of details pertaining to who Snoke will actually be. That said, we're willing to go on a limb and say that he's probably one of the bad guys. Maybe we're wrong, but there's just something about having "Supreme Commander" in front of your name that screams "I'm a villain."

Star Wars: The Force Awakens will hit theaters later this year on December 18th.

Source: <a href=http://www.starwars.com/news/capturing-a-galaxy-an-interview-with-annie-leibovitz-exclusive>Star Wars



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[Soviet Heavy]

Possible reference to Thrawn becoming a high commander in the usually Human centric Empire?

 

[fix-the-spade]

Snoke?

So, do I say it like Smoke or like Smokey or like Snookie? I wonder how many out takes there will be of actors trying to say it in a deadly serious scene and corpsing into fits of laughter.

Remember everyone you're frightened on Snoke (camera pans to Serkis in a body condom, gurning).

Then again, Lucas made a badass out of a character called Bobba that speaks once twice and dies an idiot's death, stranger things could happen.

 

[Covarr]

You know what would be cool? If they combined motion capture with animatronics instead of CGI. But there's no way they're gonna bother with that.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Ukomba]

I'm getting a lot of dissonance from this movie. Some things look bad ass, but that droid, the lightsaber, and now Commander Snork? I'm not sure if this is an adult movie or if this is more of Disney's aiming at 4-12 year olds.

 

[NLS]

I'm getting a lot of dissonance from this movie. Some things look bad ass, but that droid, the lightsaber, and now Commander Snork? I'm not sure if this is an adult movie or if this is more of Disney's aiming at 4-12 year olds.

Right, because names like Bobba Fett or Jabba the Hutt totally didn't sound ridiculous the first time at all. Don't judge a character by it's name until you've seen it acted out.

You know what would be cool? If they combined motion capture with animatronics instead of CGI. But there's no way they're gonna bother with that.

P.S. Thanks

Like, the animation is recorded as mo-cap, and then transferred to an animatronic figure? That would require a lot of work that could probably be easier achieved by CGI, but it would be an awesome landmark for animatronics. But yeah, technologically it wouldn't be too far off from things like robotic arms and such, the hardest bit would be facial expressions.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I'd find it funny if that picture of Serkis in mocap gear is what this Snoke guy looks like.

You know what would be cool? If they combined motion capture with animatronics instead of CGI. But there's no way they're gonna bother with that.

Color me curious. How the hell would that even work?

 

[Li Mu]

I'm getting a lot of dissonance from this movie. Some things look bad ass, but that droid, the lightsaber, and now Commander Snork? I'm not sure if this is an adult movie or if this is more of Disney's aiming at 4-12 year olds.

The films have always been kids films. I mean, Jedi was full of walking teddy bears! It's just that the kids grew up and expected the films to become adult too. The first Star Wars film was a PG certificate. It meant that even kids under the age of 12 could see it if their parents gave the OK. So yes, they probably are aiming at 4-12 year olds, which is pretty much what Star Wars always has been aiming for. 4-12 year olds by lots of toys and we all know that Star Wars is a walking toy factory!

Anyway, the name sucks. What next? Evil Poopooman? Lord Smellysocks?

 

[Ukomba]

I'm getting a lot of dissonance from this movie. Some things look bad ass, but that droid, the lightsaber, and now Commander Snork? I'm not sure if this is an adult movie or if this is more of Disney's aiming at 4-12 year olds.

Right, because names like Bobba Fett or Jabba the Hutt totally didn't sound ridiculous the first time at all. Don't judge a character by it's name until you've seen it acted out.

You know what would be cool? If they combined motion capture with animatronics instead of CGI. But there's no way they're gonna bother with that.

P.S. Thanks

Like, the animation is recorded as mo-cap, and then transferred to an animatronic figure? That would require a lot of work that could probably be easier achieved by CGI, but it would be an awesome landmark for animatronics. But yeah, technologically it wouldn't be too far off from things like robotic arms and such, the hardest bit would be facial expressions.

Bobba does sound ridiculous on it's own, and I disliked every time they called him that in Ep 2. I think using only Bobba was a it was a mistake.

Jabba is just fine and fits the character design.

Jar Jar Binks was and is silly.

Padme wasn't and isn't very good.

Qui-Gon Jinn was and is a mouthful and a bit silly in spite of Neeson.

Ephant Mon, Jiz, Elan Sel'Sabagno, Rellao, ext all bad.

Snork is bad. As much as I like Andy Serkis, I refuse to be a JJ apologist. I suspect, though, this was a Disney decision.

 

[Ukomba]

I'm getting a lot of dissonance from this movie. Some things look bad ass, but that droid, the lightsaber, and now Commander Snork? I'm not sure if this is an adult movie or if this is more of Disney's aiming at 4-12 year olds.

The films have always been kids films. I mean, Jedi was full of walking teddy bears! It's just that the kids grew up and expected the films to become adult too. The first Star Wars film was a PG certificate. It meant that even kids under the age of 12 could see it if their parents gave the OK. So yes, they probably are aiming at 4-12 year olds, which is pretty much what Star Wars always has been aiming for. 4-12 year olds by lots of toys and we all know that Star Wars is a walking toy factory!

Anyway, the name sucks. What next? Evil Poopooman? Lord Smellysocks?

The original trilogy was rather dark. You see the charred skeletons of the Lars', Arms get cut off with blood, charred Gredo, Luke gets beaten bloody and had body parts cut off, and as Kiddie Lucas was getting by ROTJ, You see Ewolks die there. Kids liked it, but they weren't kids movies.

It's the difference between 'Never Ending Story 1' and 'Never Ending Story 3'.

It's not like this is going unnoticed either:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/monikabartyzel/2015/05/13/disney-spent-15-billion-to-limit-their-audience/

 

[Covarr]

Color me curious. How the hell would that even work?

As it is, CG character animation is typically based on a series of "bones". They're not the same as human bones, as they serve a combination purpose of what bones and muscles achieve in a person, but my thought is that anything that can be represented in bones in a character animation can be translated to robotics or animatronics. As it is, we've got fully animatronic characters in movies already, such as Hoggle in Labyrinth, but this is not controlled via mocap, and pretty rare because CG is so cheap and easy these days. My thought is to make a fully animatronic character (probably with a humanoid shape), but base his movement on motion capture instead of manual controls. This would achieve a performance less like puppeteering and more like traditional acting.

The problem? The only filmmaker I can think of who would ever consider even trying something so outlandish is James Cameron, and the tech isn't where it needs to be to make something like what he'd probably want.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Callate]

He isn't always a mo-cap character. Anyone notice he was in Age of Ultron?

Still, yeah, no huge surprise.

 

[Oroboros]

Supreme Commander Snoke? Wow, that sounds worse than Count Dooku even...

Gotta say, a lot of things so far about this movie have me worried. (I'm really hoping that the plot synopsis I have read so far turns out to be mostly wrong at this point)

 

[TrevHead]

Loved Andy Serkis parts in Enslaved, if Disney make any decent Star Wars TFA games hopefully they'll use him in them too.

 

[happyninja42]

Anyway, the name sucks. What next? Evil Poopooman?

That would be Count Dookoo

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

You had one fucking job, guy-that-makes-up-the-names. You had one job.

 

[Shiftygiant]

Maybe he's a hologram? There are photo's of actors floating around in the white dot face stuff, so maybe it's for a holographic display? I mean creatures more likely but still.

Also, Snoke could be pronounced with emphasis on the 'N'. Sounds close to smoke. Maybe he dies in a ball of fire.