Solo: A Star Wars Story

Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Is it possible that they've used Tarkin and Leia as proof of concept for CGI faces in this movie.

Is it possible they are going to CGI augment certain parts of the face to make our lead actor look more like Han?

I certainly hope not. I think it would be a huge mistake. I'm already put off by the idea of this film, but that would probably put me over the top.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Is it possible that they've used Tarkin and Leia as proof of concept for CGI faces in this movie.

Is it possible they are going to CGI augment certain parts of the face to make our lead actor look more like Han?

I certainly hope not. I think it would be a huge mistake. I'm already put off by the idea of this film, but that would probably put me over the top.

No....
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

If they were gonna CGI-replace the faces then they would have picked actors who resembled the originals better. The new Han is, what, like 4-5" shorter?

Disney is thinking about new generations of kids who may have never seen the OT in the first place. For future audiences it doesn't need to be Han Solo = Harrison Ford. (Sure, Ford might be the best, but . . . James Bond movies still make money today.)
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Is it possible that they've used Tarkin and Leia as proof of concept for CGI faces in this movie.

Is it possible they are going to CGI augment certain parts of the face to make our lead actor look more like Han?

I certainly hope not. I think it would be a huge mistake. I'm already put off by the idea of this film, but that would probably put me over the top.

I don't think that the technology is there yet where they could do this process for a lead actor throughout an entire movie, it would be just too time consuming and expensive to do so. As it is, they've barely begun to really use this tech but I'm sure that within 5 years we'll see CG face replacement become more common and the tech being used on a lead throughout an entire film within 10 years.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Doing CGI work on faces/bodies is already rampant in most TV/movies. It's for cosmetic reasons and they don't admit it. The big-name stars over 30-40yo are increasingly turning into photoshop creations. The "de-aged" scenes are just the times when they get more aggressive with it.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

I think they have a ways to go before the tech is fully ready-for-prime-time, so to speak. I suspect it will get there eventually, but it's not there yet.

The issues with CGI in these cases:

- Animation looks unnatural. The movements just don't look..."real." Whether it's how the lip curls, or how eyebrows respond, or whathaveyou, there's still a quality to it that just seems artificial.

- Eyes still look too glassy. There's a tendency to overemphasize the reflective quality of eyes. I mean, yeah, eyes show reflective lights and such, but they aren't made of glass. Eyes in a lot of this stuff look like CGI-water, not...you know....like eyes. At least when this is done poorly, it's a tell.

- Hands. As tough as animation is, any artist will tell you that hands are probably one of the most complicated, pain-in-the-ass things to get right. They either end up looking like spiders or like clubs. It's rare that the animation really looks like a normal hand would.

- Lighting. Playing off of the eyes issue, how CGI stuff is "lit" in general always seems to be a problem. It just never seems to capture/catch the light properly. It always seems just a teensy bit too "bright" or not nuanced enough, etc. I don't know how to describe it, but the surface just doesn't look...right.


To be clear, I think this stuff will get there eventually. Tarkin is one of the most stunning achievements I've seen in CGI in recent years. And what's more, he was used in a pretty subtle way. There seemed to be a lot less of the tendency to "lampshade" just how cool and impressive the CGI is. I think it's probably just a matter of time.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

^^
I agree with your assessment on the CGI characters Dan.

One of the big tells for me in R1 was the way Tarkin's lips moved. They just did not look real in a few instances. It threw me out of the film a bit, but not enough to ruin it for me. I think in such cases it would be better if the filmmakers pull further back, away from the character, or have he/ she move their head a bit to mask that problem more.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

The problem is not the CGI work being weak, it's the viewers being so ridiculously picky about how human faces (and hands) look. We judge emotions based on things like micro-expressions so subtle that we don't even consciously see them. It's pretty wild that the SFX artists are are even willing to take a crack at human faces at all.

It's a classic case of sinking 99% of the effort into the last 1% of the perfection. They are 99% there now. I'm not sure they will ever be able to do that last 1% in a streamlined affordable way and still make it convincing.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

I guess I can see why they would throw Woody in there. I suppose it's good to have a well-established actor in the cast. (Alec Guiness in the original trilogy, for example.)

Maybe I'm not getting what the tone of this film is supposed to be, but it sounds more and more like a total comedy. Because, Woody can go either way and I'm sure that's why he was cast.

21 Jump Street in Space, I'm guessing.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Am I the only SW fan who has watched The Hunger Games?

The reasoning for this casting choice for Han's mentor is obvious. Woody Harrelson just spent the last several years playing the main character's mentor in the HG series. He was an annoyed drunken grumpy sort of mentor.


Felicity Jones' look/hairstyle in Rogue One even visually resembles Jennifer Lawrence's look in HG. And I don't have the slightest doubt that the J-Law's protagonist character helped bring us Daisy Ridley's character in TFA too.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Im kind of bummed about this. I cant take Woody Harrelson seriously in this type of role. I groaned when I saw that he is going to be the main antagonist in the new planet of the apes. His doofy face, the sound of his voice, I just cant see him as someone that I respect or fear.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Maybe I'm showing my age... but I'll never get this character out of my head:

Woody_Harrelson_as_Woody_Boyd.png
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

I can't help, but find the addition of Harrelson to be a very distracting element for the movie. They need to stick to lesser known people. It's always what made Star Wars more believable.

I think Forest Whittaker was a stretch for Saw, but given his part was rather small it worked okay. I have a VERY hard time picturing Woody existing as a flesh and blood Star Wars character, BUT time will tell. I tend to have my initial knee-jerk reactions when I hear things. I have to give it a chance and hope for the best. This is such an odd ensemble I don't know what to think of it right now.

From the get-go I never thought anyone needed a Han Solo pre-ANH solo film. I loved him the way he was introduced as-is.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Nobody under 30-35yo has ever watched much Cheers. They have seen a lot more of Hunger Games.

Why should Disney be worried about what the older set (us) thinks of the casting? In our eyes this movie already has at least 4 strikes against it no matter what they do:

1. These guys' backstories are being told at all
2. It's not 25yo Harrison Ford playing Han
3. It's not 25yo Billie Dee Williams playing Lando
4. The movie hasn't already been around since we were young
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

Nobody under 30-35yo has ever watched much Cheers. They have seen a lot more of Hunger Games.

Why should Disney be worried about what the older set (us) thinks of the casting? In our eyes this movie already has at least 4 strikes against it no matter what they do:

1. These guys' backstories are being told at all
2. It's not 25yo Harrison Ford playing Han
3. It's not 25yo Billie Dee Williams playing Lando
4. The movie hasn't already been around since we were young

I'm in my mid/late teens I actually agree with all four of those strikes. In fact everyone my age that I've talked to about it agrees with them.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

I guess I can see why they would throw Woody in there. I suppose it's good to have a well-established actor in the cast. (Alec Guiness in the original trilogy, for example.).
Well, that doesn't equate.
Sir Alec Guiness brought gravitas to SW, as did Peter Cushing, which played a part in the success of the movie. The one thing Star Wars no longer needs is famous faces to sell it, IMO it has the opposite effect. It throws you out of the 'fantasy' as your mind goes 'oh look it's that guy from.............'
I've said it before, there's too many famous actors out there that wanna piece of SW.
 
Re: Star Wars Anthology (Young Han Solo)

I'm in my mid/late teens I actually agree with all four of those strikes. In fact everyone my age that I've talked to about it agrees with them.

Not surprising. Once you're a fan of the old trilogy then the 'strikes' are probably very common feelings among any age group.

I didn't mean to insult younger audiences with my comments. I just expect the teens/20s demographic to be a bit less exposed to the old trilogy on average, relative to older audiences. Older audiences have lived through several rounds of the old trilogy being in theaters, and for decades it was the only SW stuff to exist. Whereas younger people grew up with six SW movies + a TV series, and the prequels were the only SW movies to be shown in theaters during your viewing lifetime.

I'm curious, how accurate are my perceptions about teens/20s people and SW? As in, the non-rabid-SW-fans?
 
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