George Lucas talks Lord of the Rings, Film, HD and more (1 Viewer)

[Sean Laughter]

Interesting to see Lucas still hasn't apologized for saying ILM was the only house that could do LOTR's effects justice. Unless he has previously, and I've just missed it.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

jus·tice
n.

1. Something that has the appearance of a video game.
2. The process of lining Lucasfilm's pockets.

Lucas can do whatever he wants with his own movies, but I'm sure glad that nothing in LotR evokes 'Playstation 2' the way the foundry scene in AotC does.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

In a link that was given here or in another thread I don’t remember, he kind of proudly says how effects artists from ILM went to work in WETA and how they contributed to them. This is actually not something to be proud of. Imagine they were happy to change their home and country and go somewhere where they feel satisfied artistically! And it's someplace not next door but real far.

 

[Brandon Conway]

So now Lucas can't be proud that they're being successful somewhere else after being at ILM? Please. If he was upset about those former ILM guys in the interview you'd be saying that he's being whiney Luca$ again. The guy can't win with some of you. He takes the high road and you slam him for it.



Which scene was the 'foundry scene?' Just curious because there are Ep2 scenes where I would agree with it looking too digital, so I was wondering if we were thinking of the same one.

But I digress on one point - LOTR has a few of these. I already mentioned Legolas climbing the Elephant in RotK, but another one is the long shot of the fellowship running from the Balrog. They just look as though their running in a game cut scene to me.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

The droid factory, where Artoo flies.

Not only does the scene look like a video game, it looks like it was made to inspire/sell video games, and it does nothing to advance the story.

There may be a couple of shots in the LotR trilogy that look a bit CGI, but still better than much of what I see from Lucasarts these days...and certainly not entire scenes.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Hmmm....I thought that scene looked okay; a few shots, perhaps not, but overall I'm okay with it. The ones I don't particularly like are some of the ones on Kamino where Obi-Wan is receiving the tour and the way over-enhanced bckground where Obi-Wan talks to Mace and Yoda in the corridor.

 

[Grant H]

Though it was added as and is primarily an action scene, there is some excellent foreshadow (think Anakin's dismemberment and mechanization) in this scene, and I found it to be a very effective tense scene the first time I saw it. It also provided a near-death experience necessary for Padme which served as better motivation to suddenly profess her love to Anakin.

It's not the first time someone in a film had to run through a gauntlet. It thought it was a nice fresh take on it much like the Pod-Race in Ep. I was a fresh take on the Ben-Hur chariot race.

 

[Jonny P]

The Droid Factory scene was fun.

It did look like a scene from a video game, but so do nearly all battle/action sequences in movies these days. Game makers are using the same technology to make their games that the filmmakers are using to make movies.

Game makers are attempting to make their games more "realistic" and film-like.

The battle scenes in "Independence Day" were like a video game, too.

The core audience for video games is the same audience that enjoys films like SW and LOTR.

 

[Robert Anthony]

That was probably the big FX gaffe for me. That just looked real bad. That and Anakin riding the big swollen space-tick/cow thing in the field.

I do agree that the Droid Foundry sequence was ultimately uneccessary. Lucas admits to thinking of it IN post production. It was in no version of the script at all. He felt the movie needed an action beat there to help ramp up the pacing towards the last reel..but I'm not so sure I agree. I know a lot of people feel Episode II needed a lot of it's cut scenes put back in, or that it needed an extra half hour to flow better, but I tend to think it needed a LOT of stuff chopped out. I've always thought the IMAX edit of Clones improved the movie GREATLY. It felt more Star Wars, and not just because it was up on the super-huge screen.

as far as the article goes--interesting read. As "Sky Captain" proves--I think in about 10 years, movies like AOTC are gonna cost like, 30 mil, tops. Moviemaking is going to end up like garage bands--anyone with the will and enough cash is going to be able to make WHATEVER they want. You wanna play punk, arena-rock, blues, or funk? you can just strap on a guitar and get down. You wanna make an epic, a comic book flick, a fantasy or a comedy? Fire up your computer.

 

[Dave H]

I agree. I also thought the very ending - with the Star Destroyers taking off - looked like a video game too. I think the models from the original movies looked MUCH better than the CGI ones. I wish Lucas would use more models with these prequels. I know there are some models and 'real' sets, but not enough. The right blend of physical models AND CGI is what makes things look best.

 

[RobertR]

Maybe for SW, but such a claim is questionable for LOTR. A lot of us have zero interest in the "video game" aspects, since we were first and foremost admirers of the BOOKS.

 

[Grant H]

Bingo. Some of the worst CG in LOTR is in the FOTR mine sequences. The backgrounds many times do not match the built set believably at all. No better than the matte paintings in really old-school sci-fi. Certainly not all the film looks bad, but not all of it has CG effects either. There aren't too many completely out-of-this-world locations. They did a good job with the "build part of it, CG the rest a la the Gladiator coliseum" and miniature work. The fact that they color-timed the whole film digitally and intentionally gave it a surreal look helped CG fit in as well since nothing is meant to be our reality. It's a fantasy world.

Digital is progressing. It won't be too terribly long when it can match film quality-wise in additon to beating it on a practicality playing field. Film isn't dead yet, but it won't be too terribly long. Do you really think if we're still around in 50 or 100 years, most movies will be shot on celluloid? Once everyone can get away with the quality of a truly HD digital image and the ever-decreasing costs come into play, more filmmakers will shoot with digital. As digital projection improves in quality and falls in cost, more theatres will implement it. The continuous quality combined with its simplicity will payoff. Just as theater-goers flock to the theaters with the nicest screens and best DIGITAL sound eventually they'll choose a pristine digitally projected image over a dim, flickery, scratched, poorly-spliced, projector-jamming film print.

Lucas thought (or maybe just hoped) it would all happen faster than it is, If everyone thought like him it would, but reality is slower. Geez, think how hard it still is to get some people to watch widescreen movies or even upgrade to DVD.

 

[Robert Anthony]

The problem is, I think a lot of people are confused as to what's really model and what's really CGI.

For instance, I believe some of those ships on the field in AOTC ARE models. And I believe all the ships had actual models built and painted to be scanned into the computer, so it's not like there wasn't a real-world counterpart to what was in the computer. True, it's not EXACTLY the same, but the same love and craft IS going into making models for these ships and sets. It's just that sometimes they're not being photographed, they're being scanned instead.

It's a lot harder to discern anymore (I think ESPECIALLY when shot digitally) what's bluescreen and what was actually on set.

As far as looking like a video game--a lot of great movies recently look like video games--I think that speaks more to video games' huge advances in programming than movies lowest common denominator. Saying a movie looks like a video game is funny because more often than not, especially with today's technology, video games are more movie than they are game.

Hell, I'm not necessarily sure that "it looks like a video game" will be an insult in a couple years--because Video Games are increasing their sense of realism almost exponentially, and the creativity of the people programming them ALREADY rivals some filmmakers. I've seen some things in videogames I WISH were in movies.

 

[Grant H]

There are also a lot of LOTR film fans who never read the books or only read part of one. I know some. The one's into video games too.

I'm betting the percentage of people who saw the movies who actually read the books is pretty low. Shit, when I saw Spider-Man (wish I hadn't), there were people in the theater who had NO CLUE about Spider-Man's origin or about Uncle Ben's demise. I mean they'd only been featured in the daily strip of the newspaper comics FOREVER. If that movie was huge and had lots of people who had never even read the comic strip's first panel, there had to be a lot of LOTR audience members who hadn't read the massive books.

The book-lovers are, I'd imagine, a small, but loyal and vocal fanbase just like the Star Wars fanboys/girls.

That is of course all IMO.

 

[RobertR]

The books have sold 100 million copies. If HALF the number of readers that figure represents saw the films (its reasonable to think that most readers of the books would have wanted to see Peter Jackson's adaptation), then your "low percentage" is implausible to say the least, no matter what your personal circle of friends reads, doesn't read, or plays.

 

[Kevin M]

Yeah....it just has a western & european fan base exceeded only by the Bible.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

For those interested the HD camera used in AOTC was a Sony HDW-F900 Camcorder with Panavision Lenses with a retail price of $136,500.00.

 

[Richard Kim]

I agree. If the majority of LOTR's audience had read the books, we wouldn't be hearing complaints about Return of the King's ending going on forever, or being confused about why Frodo was leaving on that boat.

 

[RobertR]

Your logic doesn't follow. The complaints can come from the minority, which can still number in the millions.

 

[Jonny P]

This is one of the more interesting threads I have read on here.

Last night, I popped in AOTC and watched the first 30 minutes or so before going to bed.

I have to admit that while the CGI is distracting, there really wouldn't have been a good way to make the movie without it. Lucas put a lot of lavish stuff into the film. If any of you have watched any of the documentaries on TPM or AOTC, you will see that Lucas is obsessed with stretching the boundaries of what can be done with computers.

I am not necessarily convinced that this is because Lucas himself is "cutting edge" and a "visionary." I think at one time he was, just like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were at one time. I personally believe that it is the people that work under him that truly make the difference.

Go and watch the documentary on the "Willow" DVD where Dennis Muren talks about his experiments in Photoshop that led to the walking "stained-glass man" in "The Young Sherlock Holmes."

He has good advisors who give their input as to what they think is a good direction to take. Lucas may*throw something "challenging" into the mix every now and again.

Lucas has always been obsessed with look and asthetic. I think he was fairly lucky to get the cast he did for the original trilogy. It simply all worked in a way that the took the mediocre dialogue and made it flow in "A New Hope."

To be honest, the real "genius" behind the original trilogy scripts (Empire and Jedi) -- in my opinion -- was Lawrence Kasdan ("Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Big Chill," "Grand Canyon," "Silverado"). He simply knows how to write dialogue and develop relationships in films.

The guy Lucas had "work on" the script to AOTC was the same guy who wrote the screenplay for "The Scorpion King."