Star Wars: Episode VII Will Balance CGI and Practical Effects

[Pinkamena]

when it come to practical effects in film, Guillermo Del-Toro would be the best for the alien designs. what he has done with Pans Labyrinth and Hell Boy (with Hell Boy combining both digital and practical effects) I think he would have been best for Star Wars.

I wouldn't want him to be the director, as I don't think his style fits the grand scope of Star Wars movies. It would be awesome if he was a special effects and makeup/alien design supervisor, though.

 

[Pyramid Head]

While that does sound like good news, i'm not going to be seeing this new Star Wars in theaters. I never was particularly nostalgic for Star Wars, my childhood was Silent Hill and Ocarina of Time. Without the nostalgia when i did watch Star Wars with an adult mind and no rose tinted glasses, i found it to be too fucking goofy. Maybe i'm committing a nerd sin by saying this, but i don't like Star Wars as much as i liked the Mass Effect series and think that the franchise should just be allowed to die.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Practical effects will always trump CG in my opinion.

[snip]

I'll take bad practical effects over awesome CG any day.

You think so? Watch this, then go see actual Pacific Rim. Granted, this is meant to look cheap and silly, and it achieves that in spades, but compared directly with its progenitor, there is simply no comparison.
Incidentally, also directed by Guillermo del Toro.

...also "go go power rangers". heh.

I actually saw it, and I stand by my statement. I completely checked out during most of the action scenes. The character scenes were also weak. I am one of the few people who just didn't care for the movie. It was very mediocre and not nearly as great as everyone said.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Practical effects will always trump CG in my opinion. However, I am very old school when it comes to films. It is part of why I can barely stomach anything in theaters nowadays. If my brain detects CG, I am often completely taken out of the scene and I just lose all interest.
I'll take bad practical effects over awesome CG any day. I am in the minority I know. I just love knowing that what I am seeing exists in some form. I can also sit there and appreciate the work that went into making a shot work via a combination of camera tricks, miniatures, puppets, etc. It all makes me appreciate a movie so much more. A little bit of CG to clean things up isn't the end of the world, but I feel no matter how good it is. It won't ever compete with filming on location, and the construction of elaborate sets.
You also get a much better performance from the actors. If they can see something, it really helps. This is true of filming on location too, actors look hot as hell in a desert environment? Well, they probably are! It just helps my immersion into the film. Therefore, I hope they stick to this. Even if the prequels were a mastery of storytelling(They aren't.) I would never be able to get into them because the entire thing looks like a video game cutscene.
Rant over.




Also, no jedi please.

... No Jedi in a Star Wars movie?

I liked the series a lot more before it became one note. Before it became about nothing but Jedi vs Sith and everyone and their mother had force powers. Force powers also suffered from more and more power creep. We have to trump the last guy who used force powers, so now this new guy can just blink universes out of existence. Its like watching a DBZ series.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Also, no jedi please.

Ooh ffs, They have Mark Hamil reprising Luke Skywalker. Sorry but there is Jedi in this film, Their always will be! Saying you don't want Jedi is like saying saying you don't want Autobots and Decepticons in a Transformers Film, or Pirates other than Jack Sparrow in a Pirates of the Caribbean film. Like seriously how can you not want Jedi in a Starwars film?! In a game or comic fair enough but not a friggin film!

Right if you are bringing back Luke, that is fine. I mostly meant I liked the series a lot more before it became one note. Back before it was all about Jedi vs Sith and everyone, everywhere was Jedi or a Sith.

 

[Abomination]

The whole idea that "animatronics were better!" is a load of garbage. Rose Coloured glasses much?

Well done animatronics can be absolutely better. Just compare John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) to the recent prequel. The original wins hands down.

And yet we've had such CGI stunners as District 9, Pacific Rim, Avatar, The Matrix, and Tron - just off the top of my head.

A combination of the two is the best thing to hope for, but I despise the idea that seems to be going around that set pieces are "better". They're not "better", they just should be used when appropriate.

 

[OctoberFox]

Why? It's not 1999 anymore and it's not like CGI can't look manifestly real with the enormous budget we know this going to have. The only reason the lack of practical effects in Episode I detracted was the CGI wasn't very good back then - to use those concernes to make business decisions a decade and a half later seems a bit clueless to me at least.

It can still look too pristine, soulless, and so on. Sometimes the little details make a big difference, and with real objects, puppets, droids, and so on you can sense the reality in their presence so much more. I've always thought CGI should be a garnish and not a centerpiece, not because of it's quality, but because it's tangibility is dissimilar from real objects. I also feel it's less about the tech and more about the animators too. They can't get everything perfect, but with a good puppeteer they don't have to because puppets have their skin or fur oe feathers or whatever acting naturally on their own. Those things in CGI must usually be very deliberate, and therefore very much out of place with what otherwise feels more natural.

 

[Keiichi Morisato]

[quote="Pinkamena" post="7.823475.19940999"
I wouldn't want him to be the director, as I don't think his style fits the grand scope of Star Wars movies. It would be awesome if he was a special effects and makeup/alien design supervisor, though.[/quote]
yeah, that is kinda what I was getting at.

 

[faefrost]

Actors count as practical effects... right?

According to most directors Actors are best categorized as either "Impractical Effects" or more often "Livestock and large smelly animal handling"

 

[Marowit]

i really don't understand why film studios hate using quality special effects over CGI so much. It has to be a money thing, but jees it's not the 90's anymore we're over the use of computers to make CGI. I think most of us would just rather it look better which real-life special effects seem to always have.

 

[Buizel91]

Also, no jedi please.

Ooh ffs, They have Mark Hamil reprising Luke Skywalker. Sorry but there is Jedi in this film, Their always will be! Saying you don't want Jedi is like saying saying you don't want Autobots and Decepticons in a Transformers Film, or Pirates other than Jack Sparrow in a Pirates of the Caribbean film. Like seriously how can you not want Jedi in a Starwars film?! In a game or comic fair enough but not a friggin film!

Right if you are bringing back Luke, that is fine. I mostly meant I liked the series a lot more before it became one note. Back before it was all about Jedi vs Sith and everyone, everywhere was Jedi or a Sith.

It was always about Jedi and Sith! Luke training in Episode 4 and 5, and becoming a jedi in the 6th, and finally destroying Darth Sidious and Vader!

Admittedly, there are more Jedi in the prequel Trilogy but that was obvious, it was said there was in episode 4 even before Lucas re-mastered them, but there was only one more Sith in the prequel than the original trilogy. While the original had 2, the prequel only had 3 (Sidious, Dooku and Maul)

This new trilogy will obviously show how Luke (and possibly Leia) have re-built the order, while there may be more Jedi in this trilogy, i doubt they will have any sith unless it follows the story of how Sidious came back as a clone (I hope not... ) If they follow the time line with Grand Admiral Thrawn, there will be no Sith.

 

[Buizel91]

I hope for the best but i fear that this movie will be a lot more actionpacked that something i would want to see in a Star Wars movie. Just look at what he did to Star Trek... I have my fingers crossed that the action set pieces will be sparse and effective like in the old movies, but i kinda expect something with lots of explosions and people running around.

Tension, atmosphere and build up? PAH! Who needs it?

To be fair, Star Wars has always had more action than Star Trek (The Battle of Endor, Hoth, Geonosis, the fight scene on Mustafar and the space battle above Corasaunt springs to mind) which is why i think Abrams is perfect for this, who wants to sit in a theatre for 3 hours listening to all the talking that Star Trek had? He had to change it up there was never a doubt he would have to.

 

[DaWaffledude]

Practical effects will always trump CG in my opinion. However, I am very old school when it comes to films. It is part of why I can barely stomach anything in theaters nowadays. If my brain detects CG, I am often completely taken out of the scene and I just lose all interest.
I'll take bad practical effects over awesome CG any day. I am in the minority I know. I just love knowing that what I am seeing exists in some form. I can also sit there and appreciate the work that went into making a shot work via a combination of camera tricks, miniatures, puppets, etc. It all makes me appreciate a movie so much more. A little bit of CG to clean things up isn't the end of the world, but I feel no matter how good it is. It won't ever compete with filming on location, and the construction of elaborate sets.
You also get a much better performance from the actors. If they can see something, it really helps. This is true of filming on location too, actors look hot as hell in a desert environment? Well, they probably are! It just helps my immersion into the film. Therefore, I hope they stick to this. Even if the prequels were a mastery of storytelling(They aren't.) I would never be able to get into them because the entire thing looks like a video game cutscene.
Rant over.




Also, no jedi please.

... No Jedi in a Star Wars movie?

I liked the series a lot more before it became one note. Before it became about nothing but Jedi vs Sith and everyone and their mother had force powers. Force powers also suffered from more and more power creep. We have to trump the last guy who used force powers, so now this new guy can just blink universes out of existence. Its like watching a DBZ series.

The prequels were really less about Jedi vs Sith and more about the main characters vs... Stuff. If anything they suffered from a lack of a clear conflict. Though I do agree they need a more varied cast, going from "mostly Jedi" to "no Jedi" doesn't really strike me as the way to go.

In regards to the force powers thing, the most that ever got was with Force Lightning, and that was in ep 6. Unless you're talking about the EU, in which case I completely agree.