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Beef Hardcheese posted:I really hope it runs with the fandom metacommentary that's been speculated about, since you can see it in the trailer. "Who are you?" is just as much about J.J. Abrams as the characters and actors, and "I'm no one" is accurate (at least right now, the calm before the storm of the movie release / events in the movie). Finn has been raised to be a Stormtrooper but has nothing to fight for, like all of us who grew up loving Star Wars but were left disappointed and empty after the prequel trilogy. Ren plans to "finish what you started", Abrams staring at the ruined wreckage of Lucas' Vader (Lucas's "throw the Emperor down the shaft" moment was when he sold Star Wars to Disney, accepting that things had gone too far under him, and his only hope of redemption was to give in and let go). Abrams' plan is to finish the nine-act saga that Star Wars was at one point meant to be, and he will be merciless about exploiting sentimentality, killing off characters, and otherwise doing whatever it takes to make the story good. Then Rey and Han talk about the stories of how things used to be, the power of the original trilogy, Han assuring us that Star Wars was once good. At the end, the voiceover assures us that this is the real deal, and all we have to do is accept that Star Wars Is Back. How religious.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:49
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Basebf555 posted:I can't tell you if that's a "good shot" or not(I don't particularly like it), but you should be aware that in five years the CGI used in The Force Awakens will be "lovely" too. On the other hand, from what we've seen The Force Awakens isn't completely unnecessarily rendering every single Stormtrooper in CGI even when they're just standing around shooting a gun.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:51
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:How religious. I remember when I was a kid strongly associating Star Wars and church because my dad had Sundays off and after coming home from church we would watch one of the OT movies on VHS. The only difference is that church was kinda boring but Star Wars had spaceships so it was better.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:53
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Empress Theonora posted:On the other hand, from what we've seen The Force Awakens isn't completely unnecessarily rendering every single Stormtrooper in CGI even when they're just standing around shooting a gun. One thing that astounds me about modern films -- and makes me doubt the "you'll make fun of this in five years" -- is that it's utterly impossible to tell what's CGI and what isn't when it's done right. That was not true even five years ago. There is so much more CGI in movies now than anyone realizes. Even just an utterly mundane present day scene where two characters are standing on a sidewalk and cars are passing by and nothing fantastical is happening is probably 99% CGI nowadays. We only call out "Ugh CGI" in the rare instances where it's noticeable. Imagined fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 16:55
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Putting on the Whole Armor of God: Trying to do even the most perfunctory analysis of the new trailer, it's a horrifying mess. We open on a space character having space adventure, swinging through a giant underground chasm, maybe they're searching for The Artifact. Then we are then introduced to Jane Everyman, who I must assume was the same person just having the adventure, and her really awesome robot as she longs for space adventure. Uh, wait, weren't you the one who just had that space adventure we saw? And you have a really cool robot. That's looks pretty exciting to me. Cut to sweaty black man, who's looking for a different kind of space adventure because he had bad space adventures. Now I mention he's sweaty, because him being so sweaty and out of breath has nothing to do with his character nor are that many other people sweaty so I have to assume it's some kind of plot point maybe he has a virus or something (characters in deserts don't have to be covered in sweat, I can point to cinema tradition going back to Lawrence of Arabia, nor were people so sweaty in the other movies, but I'll throw away this awful non-plot-point maybe that actor just sweats a lot I don't know). Anyway, obviously the Two Amigos team up. Now introduce Dark Helmet, who is having a space adventure because of revenge. Pretend for a moment you were going into this blind and not making broad assumptions based on having watched the previous movies- is he the odd-man-out third companion? Because all three of these people are having space adventures, and we're shown their motivation stories back to back, so we'd assume they're all on a level with each other. And later on in the trailer two of the adventurers are side by side, yet the third one doesn't interact with them at all unless that's him attacking sweaty black man (seems like a setup because we just see his lasersword from the back but I'll go with it because imagery, actually that looks like prequel Anakin to me)... so, what the hell? I'm just supposed to judge the third guy because of broad stereotypes about his appearance? But you just told me not to do that because sweaty black man used to be bad but he's not anymore that's his whole arc.... I just... what? Okay so there's Bad Space War because there's a lot of melancholy going on. But the main character longed for space adventure, so what you'd want to do, is show all the exciting space adventures they'll be part of. But instead, we get melancholy. This seems more like The Last Starfighter, where there's a lot of bad things happening and only our main character can save the day. Only Jane Everyman isn't saving the day, it's sweaty black man who has the lightsaber and going to war and stuff, so he's saving the day. So uh... what the hell is going on again? This tone would make sense if our main character caused the downfall and sweaty has to be a solder in that war, like if halfway through the trailer we hear that this war is going on because she's the child of people who weren't supposed to marry and he's all like "I almost got lasered because of your past". But nope. So we opened on the Hopeful Young Person Who Looks to the Stars, except the universe that lies out there is full of laser death and torture. Wow, that's going to be a bit of disappointment for her. And our Three Amigos never really come together. So am I supposed to assume the Third Amigo was actually the Big Bad? Because otherwise there isn't a villain in this, I don't know who's fighting what or why. Harrison Ford plays The Wisened Sage Who Gives The Hero The Quest, but he doesn't give them any quest, so I don't know why he's in this movie. So my best assumption from the trailer is that two Young People want Space Adventure. In time they will find out that space is really depressing, which sweaty man already knew, so that's going to be a bit of a disappointment for him as well. Why is space depressing? Well my best guess is because The Third Amigo did things because of the burnt helmet which is the Icon Of The One Who Went Before. But what things did Third Amigo do? I guess he maybe magic tortured that one guy and there was an explosion? So the space amigos have to fight Third Amigo because he tortured that guy to cause the explosion? Well, then I guess I want to know who that guy was. Did he have Space Plans or something? Where was the explosion, was it like a Space Medical Facility or something? What the hell is the Enemy Plan? I mean I see some Evil Bad Guys In Uniforms but I'm really at a loss for what the they're doing except for being generically Evil. So uh.... Two Starcrossed Young People fight generically Evil Guys in Uniforms in a really depressing universe because of a throwaway space explosion which has absolutely no context, and there's a completely useless Old Sage who doesn't even reveal the The Quest so I have no idea what is going on or why. I don't want to see that movie at all. And for reference, Star Wars 1977 trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g3_CFmnU7k Has some of the same problems. I have to make some really broad assumptions to get any sense of what this film is actually about, other than spectacle. The trailer doesn't mention that the Princess has the Space Plans, so all I can gather is that there's a Space War between The Goodies and The Baddies. Doesn't mean it's a bad movie, but the only reason that trailer really gives me to see the movie is that it's a Blockbuster Science Fiction Movie (Romance, action, we've got it all- coming this summer!). The new trailer doesn't even have that, there's no promise of romance or anything specific. Just random Space Action and Revenge.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:57
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Imagined posted:One thing that astounds me about modern films -- and makes me doubt the "you'll make fun of this in five years" -- is that it's utterly impossible to tell what's CGI and what isn't when it's done right. That was not true even five years ago. There is so much more CGI in movies now than anyone realizes. We only call out "Ugh CGI" in the rare instances where it's noticeable. Zodiac came out in 2007.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:58
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Empress Theonora posted:On the other hand, from what we've seen The Force Awakens isn't completely unnecessarily rendering every single Stormtrooper in CGI even when they're just standing around shooting a gun. The scenes in question required hundreds of troopers on-screen at once, and to swap one out with a real person for a quick close-up would be very jarring. The technology just wasn't there yet to be able to make the two interchangeable, and it would have made for a major distraction every time they switched back and forth from CGI to real actors. Its self-evident that CGI is better today, no arguing that, but its still improving to the point that what we have now makes what we had five years ago look like poo poo. In another 5 or ten years I fully expect the same thing to happen. Its not fair to compare something like the façade of an office building to whole armies of CGI troopers or giant monsters. There will never be a time when that kind of fantastical stuff is indistinguishable from reality, we're always going to be able to tell its not real. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 17:01
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Mogomra posted:Paging SMG to the thread again so that we can read an essay about how we're dumb for not understanding the sublime perfection of this shot. And how there's actually no lovely CG. It only took a few years, but people finally found a bad shot in the prequels. Though it's more just generic than bad. But it is a dumb comparison because one is obviously not a close-up on a character's rear end-clenching rage. Padme isn't mega-pissed at Dooku, because they just blew up his army and put him on the run. Portman is conveying a mix of anger and resignation. Then it cuts to Dooku in the exact same position, looking smug with his robot chauffeur. The clone awkwardly steps into frame to match the droid. Fact is that no character has ever been that enthusiastic about shooting a gun in Star Wars. That's a level of acting reserved for, like, when Luke finds out who his dad is. 
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Oct 20, 2015 17:01
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Yeah there are a lot of movies a lot older than 5 years ago that have seamless CG. Most of it is environmental, but it's definitely there. Cast Away had some great seamless CG integration.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:04
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I feel like I saw that exact Falcon hyperspace shot in Star Trek. Finn quickly looking down as Kylo's saber ignites is a awesome little bit of acting. Cant wait to see this in full!
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Oct 20, 2015 17:06
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BonoMan posted:I wasn't looking for it. It just popped out at me. It's definitely the square jaw and teeth/mouth shape (they have that sort of flat bottom lip and top down turned upper lip when baring their teeth)... they both have that kind of flat face when they're showing their aggressive look. We need a dedicated goons-describing-how-women-look.txt thread
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Oct 20, 2015 17:09
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Basebf555 posted:The scenes in question required hundreds of troopers on-screen at once, and to swap one out with a real person for a quick close-up would be very jarring. Yeah, that's why all the orcs and soldiers of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were CGI 100% of the time and not just in wide shots of battles.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:12
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Empress Theonora posted:Yeah, that's why all the orcs and soldiers of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were CGI 100% of the time and not just in wide shots of battles. You make a good point but there are some differences between the two series that are pretty major factors. For one, it was very important that the orcs have personality, that they each look like individuals in a society, not clones. The troopers are literal clones, so there is not much of an advantage to having a ton of real dudes in suits, the fact that they all look the same is the point. Also a lot of the best scenes with the orcs are at night, specifically Helms deep when its also raining. Scenes like the warg attack in broad daylight don't hold up as well, and there are a few times when we cut from a CGI orc to a real one lying on the ground, which is noticeable. There are a few scenes in Return of the King that I find jarring, when we cut to a shot of a few real orcs standing in front of a gigantic army of CGI orcs. There's no easy solution that solves the problem, at least there wasn't at the time these movies were made. For Star Wars I'd rather just acclimate to the fact that the troopers are CGI, and once I do that I'm good for the whole movie, rather than just be constantly switching back and forth which would be distracting. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 17:30
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Gonz posted:So JJ Abrams hired Adam Driver to do press and be in photos as Kylo Ren just to throw people off the scent of his masterstroke Luke Skywalker heel turn? Plus the obvious twist will be that Luke is Kylo Ren's father. There was no mother. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 17:40
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Neo Rasa posted:Plus the obvious twist will be that Luke is Kylo Ren's father. Man, if they do surprise parentage reveals I'm going to be disappointed. Looks like I'll just have to accept it though.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:42
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I'm in the "Luke is Rey's father" camp now, based entirely on two seconds out-of-context from a scene with both Rey and Han where they don't seem like father and daughter.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:44
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Polo-Rican posted:We need a dedicated goons-describing-how-women-look.txt thread Don't ever google 'swinton bowie' or your head will explode.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:52
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Here's some good stuff: Boyega and Ridley reacting to the trailer. They saw it for the first time the same time everyone else did.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:57
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Imagined posted:Here's some good stuff: Boyega and Ridley reacting to the trailer. They saw it for the first time the same time everyone else did. This was already posted, please read the thread.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:09
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crondaily posted:This was already posted, please read the thread. You can't expect basic literacy from Star Wars fans.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:14
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To be fair, it was like ten pages ago.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:18
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revdrkevind posted:Putting on the Whole Armor of God: Trying to do even the most perfunctory analysis of the new trailer, it's a horrifying mess. Ok man
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Oct 20, 2015 18:23
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 Meh. I'll allow it.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:36
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Zoran posted:I'm in the "Luke is Rey's father" camp now, based entirely on two seconds out-of-context from a scene with both Rey and Han where they don't seem like father and daughter. Uh, have you considered that maybe neither of them know, because Han assumes his children are dead, and Rey assumes her parents are dead. She says she's no one. If she's sincere about that, she doesn't really know her lineage. anyway, the image doubling between Rey and Kylo Ren is so drat obvious, they have got to be siblings. And, conservation of characters standing, we don't know about a possible mother to Luke's kids, if he had any, so the logical conclusion is they're Han and Leia's. Images have a lot of power, and that parallel drawn between the two sets up a thematic and probably a concrete relationship. Also, Star Wars continues its Single Biome Planet pattern, of course, in three distinct worlds. Jakku, the world of sand and wreckage/forest world (w/ pirates)/ice world (First Order base, probably). I'm not sure about the significance yet, but it's congruent with both the originals and prequels. A New Hope - sand world/artificial world/forest world Empire Strikes Back - ice world/swamp world/sky world Return of the Jedi - sand world/forest world/artificial world okay, I suppose I could dig deeper into these. but I've seen the prequels more recently. Phantom Menace - okay, this one is less elemental than it is split into different types of human settlement. Naboo is a verdant & wet world, maybe the only world depicted with two biomes/Tatooine is a dry, dead world/Coruscant is a giant city Attack of the Clones - this one has more "reproduction" divided locales, and it can be split into five rather than three. In this Coruscant is still artificial, but it has bustling urban life. Kamino is replete with water imagery, curves, and phallic-necked aliens. Naboo is rustic and romantic. Tatooine is, unusually, a place of families, both of the new family Shmi had made with Lars, and the life of the sand people. Geonosis has "hive" and bug related reproduction imagery, including the droid factory (the normal Trade Federation soldier droids have bug-like characteristics), the native Geonosians, the honeycombed rocks, and the beasts Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan fight. Revenge of the Sith - Coruscant/Utapau/Mustafar - all three of these worlds are descents into different levels of hell. Maybe there's a more sophisticated reading, but what I see is that Coruscant is now corrupting, venal, Utapau is a deep ravine that Obi-Wan goes further and further down, Mustafar is literal hell. basically, the locations in the prequels seem to me to be more complexly coded in different ways, while the originals have more primal imagery. Which is in keeping with the originals being serials, and the prequels being more influenced by operatic tragedy. The trailer indicates a possible return to more simple, primal imagery, although perhaps with a focus on returns to more primitive states. Jakku is a subsistence/scavenger world. the forest world seems to be a pirate refuge. and the snow world has a goddamned castle.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:38
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pookerbug posted:
JJ stole it from the Star Wars OT anyways, he's just giving it back. 
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Oct 20, 2015 18:40
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I knew it! I knew I'd seen that exact shot! Yay for memory!
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Oct 20, 2015 18:41
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I think that it's unfair to call 2002 CGI awkward, doubly so considering they were the ones pioneering the technique and taking more challenges than they strictly had to. CGI is good today to the extent that previous films' artists advanced the state of the art, a process which includes producing some jank.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:45
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Cat Machine posted:She does kinda look like Hugo but who gives a gently caress because it's awesome to see a woman protag being raw as hell and loving poo poo up Chill, Hugo Weaving is a good-looking guy. He's a movie star.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:51
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Bongo Bill posted:I think that it's unfair to call 2002 CGI awkward, doubly so considering they were the ones pioneering the technique and taking more challenges than they strictly had to. CGI is good today to the extent that previous films' artists advanced the state of the art, a process which includes producing some jank. This is true if you're forced to use CGI, if you don't have any choice. But if you have all the time and budget in the world AND you and your workshop are already the acknowledged master of practical effects, why would you use CGI for a particular shot if it looks janky and the technology isn't ready to do what you want yet? Lucas has made many comments over the years expressing his frustration with how practical effects gently caress with the schedule and make things annoying because they don't always work properly and have to be fiddled with, so it's tempting to think of him using CGI not because it's more appropriate for a scene but just because he's lazy and it's easier for him. Imagined fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 18:51
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Bongo Bill posted:I think that it's unfair to call 2002 CGI awkward, doubly so considering they were the ones pioneering the technique and taking more challenges than they strictly had to. CGI is good today to the extent that previous films' artists advanced the state of the art, a process which includes producing some jank. Jurassic Park's CGI was cutting edge and was done in 1993 but holds up remarkably well. Saying that they were doing cutting edge doesn't give them a pass. That's the same year The Two Towers came out and the Gollum work done in that movie (but really shot several years prior) I think stands as a greater achievement and more cutting edge than what Episode II was trying to do. Jank is when you don't know how to really do what you want to do well.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:51
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I like the Ren and Rey twin theory. Even if they're not Skywalkers, and just former apprentices of Luke.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:52
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Imagined posted:This is true if you're forced to use CGI, if you don't have any choice. But if you have all the time and budget in the world AND you and your workshop are already the acknowledged master of practical effects, why would you use CGI for a particular shot if it looks janky and the technology isn't ready to do what you want yet? Lucas has made many comments over the years expressing his frustration with how practical effects gently caress with the schedule and make things annoying because they don't always work properly and have to be fiddled with, so it's tempting to think of him using CGI not because it's more appropriate for a scene but just because he's lazy and it's easier for him. Because you can do things with the new technology that you could not attempt with the old.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:54
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 Maybe someone with some gif-fu can edit these together with a cross-fade to make it look like the enterprise is in pursuit.
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Oct 20, 2015 18:55
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Bongo Bill posted:Because you can do things with the new technology that you could not attempt with the old. Sure. You can certainly try. But if it looks janky your choices are then to either go back to the drawing board or say, welp, put it out anyway. Anyway to me the CGI in the prequels is mostly fantastic for the time (and there's a lot more model work than people realize -- more than in the OT I've heard it claimed) and definitely did set a new bar. My problems with the PT have never been the effects. Imagined fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 18:58
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Imagined posted:Sure. You can certainly try. But if it looks janky your choices are then to either go back to the drawing board or say, welp, put it out anyway. The former option is for cowards.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:03
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Imagined posted:Sure. You can certainly try. But if it looks janky your choices are then to either go back to the drawing board or say, welp, put it out anyway. Just to be clear the CGI in the prequels was not criticized at the time of release, it looked fine then. Its just that the technology was moving so fast, it only took a year or so for it to look dated. So there was no moment where someone said "oh well, it looks janky but just put it out anyway". It looked good at the time.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:04
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I'm glad that they had those janky CGI effects in the PT because it only helped advance the field. It's not like the CGI detracted from the experience at the time, since it was all so new and we had no idea how much better it would look in a few years.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:05
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Bongo Bill posted:The former option is for cowards. Apparently the movie industry should have just worked tirelessly behind the scenes without actually using the technology in any films, then after 10-12 years when we're at Dawn of the Planet of the Apes levels, go ahead and use it.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:08
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Imagined posted:This is true if you're forced to use CGI, if you don't have any choice. But if you have all the time and budget in the world AND you and your workshop are already the acknowledged master of practical effects, why would you use CGI for a particular shot if it looks janky and the technology isn't ready to do what you want yet? Lucas has made many comments over the years expressing his frustration with how practical effects gently caress with the schedule and make things annoying because they don't always work properly and have to be fiddled with, so it's tempting to think of him using CGI not because it's more appropriate for a scene but just because he's lazy and it's easier for him. Doing something because it doesn't gently caress with the schedule and make things annoying doesn't sound like laziness, it sounds like doing something more efficiently.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:09
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Jesus Christ when the refrain from the Han Solo and Princess shows I can barely hold my emotions in. I've never felt anything like this about a movie in my life. It's utterly bizarre. I want to be cynical but I just can't.
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