When the Death Star scene was shot for Star Wars - there was no such things as "video games". If I recall they started to pop up in arcades in the early 80's....the Star Wars one kicked ass if I remember right!

Who here is 30+ and remembers arcades? Lol, we used to pay to play video games and they lasted only a minute sometimes! lol

The advent of popular video games and Star Wars is almost contemporous.

Star Wars (1977), Space Invaders (1978).

'Consumer' Pong versions came much earlier (1971 Magnavox) but it wasn't the phenomenon that Space Invaders was.

Like I said, there were no such things as "video games" when the Death Star scene was shot in "Star Wars".

What's your point?

even willow and the indy films had "chase" scenes. in fact, even lucas knows this very fact himself and starts to make fun of himself, whether consicously or not, in his new episode 3 webdocs. he says that his job is only to say, "faster and more intense" and "action". =). you go Josh! =). i think you're one of the few star wars fans that changed my opinion of ep1&2.

If I can get just one person to change their mind about the prequels, then I'll consider that mission accomplished.





So . . . mission accomplished, then, I guess.


Yep. Think I'll just head on home now.

no,no,no, you need to "convert" the rest of the padawans into Jedi Knights =^).

Robert what are you on about? As an engineer and amateur filmmaker I have to add my 2 cents.

The first movies were black and white and had no sound. I'm sure when sound was first introduced there were traditionalists like you saying it would never fly. Then came colour and now 3D.

George Lucas is known for revolutionising the use of special FX in his films. I have to admit it is this which captivates me more in Star Wars then the actual story.

Having said that improved technology does not mean less emphasis on storytelling. It means an ever greater tool set available to the story teller to get his/her point across. 3D is in its infancy but I'm sure it will eventually become a mainstream technique with its own unique nuances which we will one day look back on and wonder how we ever did without them.

There will always be people who resist change. But I'm afraid if you look back at the past change is inevitable and has for the most part brought an improvement to all of our lives.

Best Regards,

Geoff

I have to agree, like it or not 3D will make it's ways into our theaters.
Of course most of us are still waiting for film to finish it's slow death that most people were claiming years ago.

3D will happen, but I think we've still got quite a while.

"George Lucas is known for revolutionising the use of special FX in his films"

I found it fitting that you said "his films" and not just 'films.'
Lucas has indeed become known for revolutionising the special FX in his own movies.....
in fact, that's all his been doing since 1977.

:)

And on the 40 year mark, he'll do it again.

What is it they say?
Art is never completed, only abandoned?
Well, you gotta hand it to George, at least he's not a quitter.

I agree, he's not abandoning he's art.

It's almost like he's the first top level "artist" in film to take advantage of the opportunity to re-invent your past works on a large scale over and over. I think it might be that time now...you create something and continually re-visit it until the day you die.

He's not playing with these films - he's actually overhauling them on all levels so they become brand new again. If you think about Stars Wars in 1977 - if it was left as is...no changes at all just a new print made, well it would be awesome. However, he's actually taking advantage of film's ability to scale up. The actual film he used is scalable..unlike digital cameras where what you shot is it. He can use his master films and bring out the highest resolution not even possible in 1977 - he can make all 6 of the Star Wars work together fairly (not perfect of course) closely.

It's just interesting to see the whole process go from a simple film release...to re-releases on VHS, to DVD, to another re-release to theaters, to another planned 3D theater re-release. Someday he's offer implanted brain chips of Stars Wars that makes you think you're in the universe 24/7! That's coming in 2015!

<<<-- Originally posted by Luis Caffesse : "George Lucas is known for revolutionising the use of special FX in his films"

I found it fitting that you said "his films" and not just 'films.'
Lucas has indeed become known for revolutionising the special FX in his own movies.....
in fact, that's all his been doing since 1977.

:)

And on the 40 year mark, he'll do it again. -->>>

Well, he has written some ten films since then, produced some 15 or 16, and a television show. Some better than others, and some having nothing to do with special effects at all. I don't know about you, but when I watch Tucker, or Radioland Murders, I don't automatically think 'effects film.'

Unless you meant that's all he's been doing since 1997. But then, he's also made three extremly large and complex films since that time as well.

I think Lucas is responsible for digital filmmaking (HD, at least) but he predicted it in 1996, before anyone picked up a DV camera to shoot a film. He also brought us Pixar and Edit Droid, which went to Avid. Jurassic Park's dinos brought us great CGI (first seen in Young Sherlock Holmes, The Abyss and T2).

Lucas may have messed things up with the two re-do's of the original trilogy (1997 and the DVDs) and Phantom, but he's definitely responsible for what I'm doing today with filmmaking. It was the Wired magazine interview with him in 1996 that he predicted digital filmmaking.

When i read that while working at a movie theatre as a projectionist and going to film school, it changed my thinking and made me realize filmmaking wasn't something for the elite few, but, for better or worse, it's for all of us. And I didn't have to be rich or know rich people to do it.

heath

Hey, I didn't know you were a projectionist? I did that for a couple months myself. You learn alot about an audience and about the last link on the filmmaker chain. It's crazy to know 100's people and millions of dollars worth of production are in your hands...splicing together 8 reels wherever you feel like it. We had arc lights, so the brightness of the film was controlled by how much you payed attention to the welding rods. I felt depressed for the filmmakers who's babies are in the hands of kids and drunken projectionist's all over the world! (this one guy was totally drunk everytime he projected, so when the bell rang to change reels he was always way off) We had a platter system in one theater and two huge old single reel projectors in the other. You had to run back and forth to deal with them both...nuts!

"Well, he has written some ten films since then, produced some 15 or 16, and a television show. Some better than others, and some having nothing to do with special effects at all. I don't know about you, but when I watch Tucker, or Radioland Murders, I don't automatically think 'effects film.'"

When you think of the latter, you think "story film"? "Character study?" Radioland Murders is nothing but effects film, having been designed principally as an in-house exercise in testing digital compositing methods.

As for Geoffrey's "What are you on about?", I'm on about cost-payoff tradeoff, both on the personal and economic levels:
- When's the last time you saw a 3D film? Did you enjoy holding your head perfectly upright? If The Aviator was in 3D, would you hold your head upright for 3 hours? Would you do it for every movie you went to go see? Does viewing movies in 3D appreciably add to your enjoyment of the film, such that you'd be willing to take on the extra burden of dealing with the shutter goggles? Every time? What percentage of young children (ostensibly the very audience that 3D would appeal to most) have the constitution to put up with them?
- Those shutter goggles are expensive. Audience members muck them up and break them and steal them and they require maintenance and repair and replacement. And 3D production and post-production is not inconsquentially more expensive. Both audience members and investors will be called upon to fork over more money, making the whole filmmaking business a riskier endeavor. How much do you pay to see a non-matinee showing? $7.50? $8? Is it worth $15 or $16 to you to see Constantine in 3D? If going to the movies cost double what it does now for every movie, would you see as many movies on a whim, without having received a favorable review from a friend or journalist or internet buzz? Each time you plunk down your ticket money, you're essentially making a wager, gambling on your satisfaction or disappointment with the artwork you're about to experience. Studios and investors make the same wager from the opposite end. 3D films up the ante on both sides of the table.

As I said in a previous post, it's good that filmmakers of the calibre that took the stage together this month are advancing the state of the art and pushing forward both their artistic visions and the technical capacities developed to realize them. Fine. But until we get rid of the shutter goggles, it's not a revolution, it's merely another round of ballyhoo, a throwback to the '50s, from which we can expect about equipollent success, both in terms of adoption uptake and profitability.

Go into a Vegas casino, and for every high-stakes table, you'll find 10 low-stakes ones.

The only thing I'm gambling on, in my arguments here, is that audiences won't accept 3D presentations in any more significant numbers now than they did in 1955.

I worked at three theatres, all 3 platter systems, so I could get the movies started and, if I didn't have to build or break down the films, I read comic books, like Iron Man.

heath