Goodman Games

My starwars remakes were masterpieces!

Concerning wanting to believe, this generalization IMHO can be true for any bad movie. Or any bad story, period. If you really want to enjoy something, I'm sure you'll figure a way to enjoy. As for plays... Well I watch more plays than movies, and I took 4 years of acting and I'm part of a theatre group (sorry, English is not my native language, I'm unsure what you call a group that does plays together, lol), so your comments are not lost on me. But a play where the acting is not credible will not be entertaining for me: there are limits to how much I want to believe.

I also agree that my enjoyment of a play will have little to do with the "special effects" (in as much as there are any in plays). There is a reason in fact why we usually don't use a big puppet on the stage to simulate a monster: my impression is that it's because it's very difficult to make it credible enough for the public to continue to be immersed in the play.

I voluntarily dissociated story and mood (or stagecraft for a play), from the special effects, in my previous post. They're not the same thing. The movie is an artistic creation, the special effects are a tool. Like Van Gogh's brushes and paintings, not the same thing. I'm only talking about the brushes here. You can argue that hard wooden pallets do as good a job as bristles; well nor for a realistic rendition. Sinbad attempted a realistic rendition of a monster, I don't have the impression that the movie attempted to show us impressionistic art in the form of a giant warlus.

There's a lot to be said about old movies that were probably less warped towards some of the present-day challenges especially in the blockbuster movie industry (instantaneous satisfaction, special effects for the sake of special-effects, story structure as a recipee), e.g. the first 3 starwars movies that had much more soul than the latest 3 movies where the special effects were of course much more important. Thus, I prefer the original 3. However, the special effects in the latest 3 movies are much better nonetheless, in as much as both sets of movies attempted realistic renditions of space battles, light sabers and monsters. You might argue that the art in the first 3 SW movies was much better as whole, fine, I also agree with that if you wish to state it that way. But the special effects are better in the latest three, in that in the attempt to make an actor look like he fighting a monster, for example, and taking out the actor's performance or the choice of what the monster looks like (it's design), the modern movies do a better job.

Skyscraper wrote:My starwars remakes were masterpieces!

George Lucas, is that you?

Sinbad attempted a realistic rendition of a monster, I don't have the impression that the movie attempted to show us impressionistic art in the form of a giant warlus.

Actually, rather late on in his life, Mr. Harryhausen still maintained that the stop-motion work better captured what he was trying to do, and that he preferred it to the computer stuff.

But the special effects are better in the latest three, in that in the attempt to make an actor look like he fighting a monster, for example, and taking out the actor's performance or the choice of what the monster looks like (it's design), the modern movies do a better job.

Nah. The monsters in the arena in Episode 2 (?) look fake, and they lack any real weight. When Obi Wan rides the giant lizard, it just doesn't look right. Computer-generated Yoda does not hold a candle to muppet Yoda. Effects-wise, Jar Jar Binks is a masterpiece, though. Actually, in the "remastered" original trilogy, many of the added effects, while they may be okay in and of themselves (and this is not always the case) detract from the film itself by drawing attention away from the story. IG-88 in Empire looks immeasurably better than the computer-generated robots added to the Tattooine backdrop.

I suspect that George Lucas knew this to some degree.....Phantom Menace C3P0 is a puppet rather than computer-generated.

And, hey, if you liked the Original Trilogy, George Lucas was making use of stop motion animation as late as Jedi.

Raven_Crowking wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:My starwars remakes were masterpieces!

George Lucas, is that you?

Sinbad attempted a realistic rendition of a monster, I don't have the impression that the movie attempted to show us impressionistic art in the form of a giant warlus.

Actually, rather late on in his life, Mr. Harryhausen still maintained that the stop-motion work better captured what he was trying to do, and that he preferred it to the computer stuff.

But the special effects are better in the latest three, in that in the attempt to make an actor look like he fighting a monster, for example, and taking out the actor's performance or the choice of what the monster looks like (it's design), the modern movies do a better job.

Nah. The monsters in the arena in Episode 2 (?) look fake, and they lack any real weight. When Obi Wan rides the giant lizard, it just doesn't look right. Computer-generated Yoda does not hold a candle to muppet Yoda. Effects-wise, Jar Jar Binks is a masterpiece, though. Actually, in the "remastered" original trilogy, many of the added effects, while they may be okay in and of themselves (and this is not always the case) detract from the film itself by drawing attention away from the story. IG-88 in Empire looks immeasurably better than the computer-generated robots added to the Tattooine backdrop.

I suspect that George Lucas knew this to some degree.....Phantom Menace C3P0 is a puppet rather than computer-generated.

And, hey, if you liked the Original Trilogy, George Lucas was making use of stop motion animation as late as Jedi.

I recall that stop motion was used, i watched the making of (thus the 8 mm fling). As for which monsters look better, well the rancor was superb, it just didn't look like it was in the same room as Luke. That's an important problem with that type of movie IMO.

As for Harryhausen's claim that his movies were better than today's... Do you find his impression to be objective evidence?

Anyway, we'll have to agree to disagree it seems. I like a lot of old movies, which doesn't mean that I'll throw away the baby with the bathwater (do you guys use this expression in English?) concerning modern movies, the special effects are often awesome. Now if they could only use that technology to good use...