Star Wars Anthology shit talk (Rogue One, Young Solo, TBD)

another, newer hope

I liked this more than they did, but I generally agree with their points. I don't agree though that this proves that you can't try something new with Star Wars films.

In general I like those guys, or their observations, but I think they were pretty inconsistent about what was good and bad based on whether it was new or redundant. Because this takes place literally right before A New Hope, of course there is going to be a ton of familiar stuff. Lack of Vader, or Cushing, or even R2D2/C3PO/Leah would be conspicuous, as would lack of giant laser ships and Death Star, etc. I do agree they could have done more with characters, given them some more depth, but I'm not sure how much depth Luke or Han or Leah had to begin with, they're just iconic roles reenforced by decades of fandom (in the proud tradition of b-movies). But, like, neither Fisher nor Hamill were particularly charismatic or good actors. They're carried by Ford, who *is* charismatic and a good (especially comedic) actor.

Lack of Vader, or Cushing, or even R2D2/C3PO/Leah would be conspicuous

Yes yes and no (also, Leia) - they could definitely have skipped the last section, but I don't think it shits on the rest of the film or anything.

my wife & i were talking about carrie fisher and how it's weird she's such a funny and charismatic person irl but she somehow loses that when the camera turns on

Surgery has not helped with facial expressions, I'm sorry to say.

they certainly didn't need to show Leia's face and Cushing could have appeared (briefly) by hologram or whatever. They were just too proud of the tech

xpost Yeah, I agree with that. They didn't need the latter, but it didn't exactly hurt things. It felt less like fan service than, I dunno, the two grouchy cantina creatures.

xposts but that's how Leia the character is written. She's written to be somewhat serious-minded, a leader, and she plays that well!

irl carrie fisher would not be quite so believable as a leader of rebellion forces

in the ESB commentary track she kids herself over having to memorize that Hoth speech about the ion cannon

i think it shows how good an actor she is that she's NOT carrie fisher, and that she can turn George's robocharacter into a likeable hero

they certainly didn't need to show Leia's face and Cushing could have appeared (briefly) by hologram or whatever. They were just too proud of the tech

― Number None, Monday, December 19, 2016 1:52 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

yeah at first I thought they were just going to show Tarkin only from behind and his face reflected on the window in that first scene. That would have avoided the uncanny valley issues, I think.

Need to watch this again to see how they hold up, as I just didn't get annoyed by Tarkin or Leia at all.

Might be interesting to see a side by side comparison with young Jeff Bridges in Tron legacy - I got the sense photo-realism CG hasn't really improved between the two films but then there were reshoots to contend with and you get a lot more of Moff than Jeff (I thought CGI Jeff looked pretty impressive/a bit more convincing at the time though).

I guess some people are less affected by this stuff than others. A coworker who saw this didn't even notice they were CGI and assumed they just used similar looking actors (she didn't watch the original star wars dozens of times as a kid like I did though, and only has a somewhat vague recollection of what those characters look like)

I imagine they are going to go back and redo the cgi Tarkin and Leia several times in the future so that in the special editions released in 10-15 years time it will probably look pretty much perfect.

Marvel have done the de-aging thing in a couple of their movies. It's a bit more convincing

I mean, I certainly knew they were CGI, and given that, looked amazingly good. I also knew a lot of the shots of x-wings were CGI, and for some reason, was less impressed. I hadn't read much about this movie before I saw, so I big part of my enjoyment had to do with not knowing they were coming.

a

I am going to bring my 8 year old son to see this sometime in the next week and am going to ask him what he thinks of the CGI characters. I suspect he will not notice or be bothered by it at all.

May or may not have mentioned it, but my nine-year-old had no idea how they made Princess Leia young again. And didn't even notice the CGI Cushing at all. But then, she had no idea the actor was dead. Knowing that going in makes it hard to fully believe, no matter how good the effects.

like I'm going to listen to opinions on a Star Wars movie from a bunch of kids

For what it is worth, every time I watch older movies with my kids I make sure to stress how they were done without any computer effects at all. Just practical effects, or stunts, or models, or elaborate sets or paintings. Because otherwise they just assumed everything was done with computers, even black and white movies from the 1930s and 1940s. Because that's all they have known.

do your kids like the originals Josh?

Really Leia's CGI, I noticed it for the brief time she was on screen. However, I watch some clips of Ingvild Deila today and the one thing that had stood out to me during Rogue One - her teeth - belong to the actress. She also has a very similar face shape to ANH Fisher. I'm just not sure how much retouching she had.

i mean, the cgi was *weird*, but it didnt like ruin the movie for me or anything.

there was way more weird-face cgi in the first Captain America movie when they did bizarro scrawny Steve, and I still like and watch that movie

it doesnt upset the movie & the characters being there makes sense, it's not that big of a deal imo

unless doll-eyed tarkin gives you nightmares idk ymmv

or erotic dreams

:D

xpost My kids liked the originals to some extent, mostly New Hope/Jedi. I don't think they liked Empire as much. They never saw the prequels, have never asked to see them, and may not know they exist. They really didn't care for Force Awakens, to the extent that my younger daughter who saw the new one with me noted she had not seen any Star Wars movies since Force Awakens, which was a year ago.

After a conversation this evening, I'm curious as to whether there's correlation between being put off by CGI Cushing vs knowing about it beforehand. I'd not heard of it, and thought it was fine (though in fairness there were a few shots where the verisimilitude flickered I thought "I've enjoyed video games with entirely CGI characters, this is good").

i hadn't heard anything about it and it was v noticeable/off-putting when it cropped up

also a determining facror: were one or both of yr parents killed by cgi

saw a third time tonight....regarding the stolen Imperial ship, I was trying to figure out when they acquired it, cos originally they were in their own Rebel ship that they crashed, they're all told to stay put, and after they disobey K-2SO actually says "where are they going? we're leaving if Cassian comes back before them", suggesting they're going to leave in the now damaged ship. and then at the end of the scene, they're picking Jyn and Cassian up in a stolen Imperial ship.

obv had to have happened off-screen, perhaps w/ Bodhi helping K-2SO find one, just was a lil weird.

Dude are we going to have to send you back a fourth time

The U-wing is toast on Eadu. They steal the Imperial cargo shuttle from Eadu to get to Yavin.

Jesus

lol I know that silly - I meant, K2SO is chilling in the damaged U-Wing waiting for everybody to come back after he gets ditched, the firefight ensues and he's radioing the Rebels, and suddenly 2 minutes later they have an Imperial shuttle.

it was bodhi's shuttle that he traveled on to bring Galen's message I thought? Idk

This was terrific. Not much to add except that so much of the rebel hair and mustaches were right out of the 70s.

You should see how hairy they are under their suits.

I was looking forward to seeing Riz Ahmed in this, but, like so many others in this film, his character was severely underdeveloped and lacking any spark. I was happy enough with the film I got, but Gareth Edwards' original cut - the movie that was promised in the early trailers and marketing, before the drastic amount of reshoots with another director - will always hang over the film for me.

yeah, I hope they release some version of the original cut at some point. So many underdeveloped characters and plot threads in the beginning of this movie, which I assume are the result of the reshoots.

given that disney like to squeeze as much profit from their home video releases as possible, i suspect they'll release a standard dvd/blu-ray first and then a few months down the line a 'collector's edition' with a bunch of deleted scenes and a heavily-sanitised bonus feature about how the film was 'reshaped to better fit the director's vision'

imo they should craft the leftovers into a "Rogue One Holiday Special"

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/thank-god-rogue-one-made-darth-vader-a-proper-villain-1790293655

Now, scrap that stupid Boba Fett one-off and gimme Young Vader Murders A Lot Of People: A Star Wars Story.

a friend of mine who's old boss heard about the original cut said the studio was upset it was 'too art house' which is weird because why hire edwards to direct in the first place?

they also said forest whittaker's performance was hot garbage and the studio was not happy with it

he analyzes every line in the script and invents an accent to best present that line
so it's a different accent and inflection every line

also idk that godzilla film wasn't really "art house"

i hope that's not some sort of codephrase for "good cinematography and lots of martial arts"

lol 'performance' as reciting Joseph Campbell fortune cookies.

about the best you can hope for is sassy jokesmanship a la Ford in STAR WARS or O Isaac in EPIGRAM VII.

Young Vader Murders A Lot Of People: A Star Wars Story.

Didn't we get this already?

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130208034628/starwars/images/8/8b/ChildrenSlaughter.png

that picture doesn't look like anything