Star Wars Thread

[ghostrunner]

If anyone has a 70mm IMAX theater nearby, I highly recommend it. Saw last year's that way, and will see this one on Saturday. Looks like St. Louis has one of these at the St. Louis Science Center. Might be hard to get tickets for anything in the next week or so. Also expensive, so the kind of thing I will probably keep to doing once a year.

[ghostrunner]

Really liked Rogue One. I read that 40% of it had to be reshot, and it's surprising because it seems well thought out. Though there's a lot from the original trailers that got cut. Lots of clear but very small nods to the original trilogy. Grimmer than most Star Wars movies, and not as "fun" but still really exciting and funny in places. I think it's a better movie than Force Awakens, but tonally different and maybe doesn't scratch the Star Wars itch quite as well. Much less of a movie for kids, though we took our 7 and 11 year old and they both liked it.

CG is getting really good. The main droid character has to be 95%, maybe 100% CGI and the only way you can tell he isn't is from knowing it's currently impossible for a robot or even a puppet to move like that.

Will spoiler this to be safe, though I think this is known

[SHOW]

Not such a big fan of bringing back dead actors with CGI. Tried to read up about it, but I hope decent compensation has gone to Peter Cushing's family, and that they receive royalties if that's applicable. I would hope Disney doesn't have the right to use his image without their permission. They own the character, but not the actor. It's weird - he hasn't done any work on this movie, but he gave a performance for them to base it on. They're using his image. It's different from stuff like Westworld or the Avengers where actors are still participating and giving motion capture or line readings. Also different from movies where actors have died before filming wrapped, and they use a digital double to complete it

[redbirdjazzz]

Really liked Rogue One. I read that 40% of it had to be reshot, and it's surprising because it seems well thought out. Though there's a lot from the original trailers that got cut. Lots of clear but very small nods to the original trilogy. Grimmer than most Star Wars movies, and not as "fun" but still really exciting and funny in places. I think it's a better movie than Force Awakens, but tonally different and maybe doesn't scratch the Star Wars itch quite as well. Much less of a movie for kids, though we took our 7 and 11 year old and they both liked it.

CG is getting really good. The main droid character has to be 95%, maybe 100% CGI and the only way you can tell he isn't is from knowing it's currently impossible for a robot or even a puppet to move like that.

Will spoiler this to be safe, though I think this is known

[SHOW]

Not such a big fan of bringing back dead actors with CGI. Tried to read up about it, but I hope decent compensation has gone to Peter Cushing's family, and that they receive royalties if that's applicable. I would hope Disney doesn't have the right to use his image without their permission. They own the character, but not the actor. It's weird - he hasn't done any work on this movie, but he gave a performance for them to base it on. They're using his image. It's different from stuff like Westworld or the Avengers where actors are still participating and giving motion capture or line readings. Also different from movies where actors have died before filming wrapped, and they use a digital double to complete it

[SHOW]

Cushing's Estate received special thanks in the credits. I imagine the "special" part involves remuneration. My biggest problem with it was that it's not quite good enough for the level of scrutiny they subject it to. If they'd done all his scenes like the first one started out, catching a reflection of his face while he kept his back to the others, it would've worked better. They also made him too tall; Cushing was just about the same height as the actor playing Krennic.

[ghostrunner]

Really liked Rogue One. I read that 40% of it had to be reshot, and it's surprising because it seems well thought out. Though there's a lot from the original trailers that got cut. Lots of clear but very small nods to the original trilogy. Grimmer than most Star Wars movies, and not as "fun" but still really exciting and funny in places. I think it's a better movie than Force Awakens, but tonally different and maybe doesn't scratch the Star Wars itch quite as well. Much less of a movie for kids, though we took our 7 and 11 year old and they both liked it.

CG is getting really good. The main droid character has to be 95%, maybe 100% CGI and the only way you can tell he isn't is from knowing it's currently impossible for a robot or even a puppet to move like that.

Will spoiler this to be safe, though I think this is known

[SHOW]

Not such a big fan of bringing back dead actors with CGI. Tried to read up about it, but I hope decent compensation has gone to Peter Cushing's family, and that they receive royalties if that's applicable. I would hope Disney doesn't have the right to use his image without their permission. They own the character, but not the actor. It's weird - he hasn't done any work on this movie, but he gave a performance for them to base it on. They're using his image. It's different from stuff like Westworld or the Avengers where actors are still participating and giving motion capture or line readings. Also different from movies where actors have died before filming wrapped, and they use a digital double to complete it

[SHOW]

Cushing's Estate received special thanks in the credits. I imagine the "special" part involves remuneration. My biggest problem with it was that it's not quite good enough for the level of scrutiny they subject it to. If they'd done all his scenes like the first one started out, catching a reflection of his face while he kept his back to the others, it would've worked better. They also made him too tall; Cushing was just about the same height as the actor playing Krennic.

Yes, that too. Though they're incredibly close.

[JoeMcKim]

[SHOW]

They also did a good job on the cameo of Princess Leia in Rogue One, granted it was easier then Tarkin since it was so quick and brief.

[wart57]

I really liked the movie. My wife didn't care for how grim and violent it was. I thought it was better than Force Awakens.

[SHOW]

I loved what a bad ass they made Vader in the closing scenes. Cut through the rebel fighters like they were nothing. And the Tarkin scenes were really well done I thought. The voice actor really pulled of Cushing's voice well.

[JoeMcKim]

I would think that considering that since they CGI'ed Tarkin's face entirely as long as the actor was the same height and build that it allowed them to choose the best voice actor for the role with no concern at all about what his face looked like.

[planet planet]

[SHOW]

Having read the critics reviews, I do think it was way slow moving to start and I also think the plot line was pretty cliche, but I guess you're a little beholden to the Star Wars franchise.

[JoeMcKim]

Do we really need to post everything in spoilers? If you know a SW movie just came out you should kind of know that the movie is going to be discussed in here. If you come into this thread not expecting to get spoiled then it's kind of their own fault.

[ghostrunner]

I just spoilered that piece because I didn't know it going in and the movie just came out. It appears to be all over the place now.

I would think that considering that since they CGI'ed Tarkin's face entirely as long as the actor was the same height and build that it allowed them to choose the best voice actor for the role with no concern at all about what his face looked like.

I think the thing to do is just hire a new actor, period. And really even if his family gives permission and gets paid, I still just don't think it's right. It's not a decision he made. I read that Robin Williams has his voice, likeness, etc.. all locked up in a trust until 2039 or something like that, and I understand why. If the actor agreed to the project, like Philip Seymour Hoffman in Hunger Games, I think that's different.

Technically, on one hand it looked incredibly good, but on the other hand it still wasn't convincing to me. They seemed afraid for him to move his head/face too much. As reserved as Cushing is in the original, he's still more emotive than that. It reminded me of a very detailed video game cutscene. I'm kind of crapping all over an impressive technical achievement here, but my biggest beef is I think it's just unnecessary.