Do the early Star Wars model ships have too many greeblies?
- Thread starter batguy
- Start date
That is somewhat correct, for some models, the Jawa Crawler being a good example - the profile and hull shapes were intentionally broken up to confuse perspective. Just aesthetics, but there were also bluescreen considerations which required the ships to be very un-glossy.
Aside from that, greeblies and dirty weathering were the order of the day because Star Wars is a Western. If you want a good idea of how awful it can look when Star Wars forgets itself and relocates to the big city, just go watch Attack of the Clones, as others have suggested.
My 2c - while you're totally welcome to your opinion, but what you're criticising is a core part of what made Star Wars so fresh and so great. It seems like criticising Indiana Jones for using a whip when logic would suggest he should have relied on his gun far more. These things are what they are!
Have you ever seen TV/movie cars on display? Batmoblies, Herbie, Mad Max, Knight Rider, General Lee, etc.
They usually don't bring the real prop cars fresh from the set and put them in front of the crowd. Instead they have a nicer version of the props built just for publicity. The display car will have a hot engine, a stick-shifted transmission, glossy paint, etc. Whereas the prop was probably a stock engine, automatic, somewhat flattened paint finish, etc. The prop car just isn't what the crowd expects to see. So they give the crowd what they think the prop car should be.
The publicity version will be more presentable and also more realistic to what the fictional car was intended to be like. The stock engines, automatics, and flattened paint are not what the screenwriter had in mind when they dreamed up the car - those were compromises made purely for practicality during filming.
I'm sorta daydreaming about what a "publicity" version of the early SW ships might have looked like. The fact that the total greeblie coverage & colors/finishes were chosen for filming reasons is exactly why I'm questioning those things. What if we lived in a universe with real YT-1300 freighters, X-wings, TIE fighters, etc? What might the ships really have looked like in that world?
If Lucas could have had what he wanted within the limits of 70s technology, it'd have been a wall-to-wall chromearama, perhaps even worse than the Prequels. He wanted Flash Gordon, and if he'd gotten that, *we'd* have gotten nothing new.
Don't you remember that feeling of euphoria as you left the cinema? You'd just had a glimpse into an amazing new world. Your world changed that day, didn't it?* You BELIEVED it precisely *because* it was funky and dirty and complex and detailed. That was the miracle of it. That was a GOOD thing.
*Rhetorical point; I'm guessing you're too young to have been there? If you're much under forty or so, I guess it might be hard to understand just how much Star Wars changed everything which came after it.
Don't you remember that feeling of euphoria as you left the cinema? You'd just had a glimpse into an amazing new world. Your world changed that day, didn't it?* You BELIEVED it precisely *because* it was funky and dirty and complex and detailed. That was the miracle of it. That was a GOOD thing.
*Rhetorical point; I'm guessing you're too young to have been there? If you're much under forty or so, I guess it might be hard to understand just how much Star Wars changed everything which came after it.
If Lucas could have had what he wanted within the limits of 70s technology, it'd have been a wall-to-wall chromearama, perhaps even worse than the Prequels. He wanted Flash Gordon, and if he'd gotten that, *we'd* have gotten nothing new.
Don't you remember that feeling of euphoria as you left the cinema? You'd just had a glimpse into an amazing new world. Your world changed that day, didn't it?* You BELIEVED it precisely *because* it was funky and dirty and complex and detailed. That was the miracle of it. That was a GOOD thing.
*Rhetorical point; I'm guessing you're too young to have been there? If you're much under forty or so, I guess it might be hard to understand just how much Star Wars changed everything which came after it.
I was born in '78. Old enough to be an original-era SW fan but I have no memory of the pre-SW world.
I'm aware of the larger picture of the film's impact. Public/movie perception of future space life was still coming off "2001" back then. Watching ANH in 1977 felt like being drop-kicked into something lightyears farther out and yet lightyears more realistic at the same time. And that's just the space life aspect of it, let alone the mythical stuff, the mish-mashing of different existing Hollywood genres, the fact that there had been such a drought of things like it in the years leading up to then, etc.
I don't see George Lucas in 1976 wanting "chromearama". He wanted the oily mechanical feel the SW world had. It was both more realistic in theory and also more practical to build & film everything that way. He might have stylized things a lot more in SW if it was possible at the time but he was also only a couple years removed from the hot rod cars of "American Graffiti".
Throughout this thread I have been saying I'm not talking about losing the "used space" look. IMHO the existing SW look was exactly the direction they wanted to go. But how far to take it? I think perhaps the practical limitations of filmmaking in 1976 (both SFX and also cost limitations for the full scale production design) made them take it a step or two farther than they had originally set out to do on paper.
*Rhetorical point; I'm guessing you're too young to have been there? If you're much under forty or so, I guess it might be hard to understand just how much Star Wars changed everything which came after it.
Not that hard really. Go back and watch 2001 a space odessy, and imagine that until Star Wars THAT was the best anyone had ever seen... EVER. Not a knock on 2001...I do like that flick...
Jedi Dade
Zombie_61
Master Member
With regards to the special effects, I think 2001: A Spacy Odyssey is still one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.
Agreed! I figure that Star Wars beats 2001 chiefly in pacing and action. The model work was as good. Before that, most sci-fi movies were lucky to be Forbidden Planet, which is also among my very favorites, but it didn't have anywhere's near the believability of 2001 or Star Wars.
--Alex
--Alex
Very true 2001 was very good... The best up to that point actually. But if you look at the model effects IMO SW is clearly more complicated and better. Most of the 2001 space shots are "pretty"... which is part of the realistic aesthetic of the movie.
my post was in no way a knock on 2001... just that SW was a serious jump, that pretty much blew everyone away... part of the response to the "rhetorical" point being made about how the first viewing of star wars completely changed the game in its time and that nothing since has had that monumental effect on movie going experience.
Jedi Dade
my post was in no way a knock on 2001... just that SW was a serious jump, that pretty much blew everyone away... part of the response to the "rhetorical" point being made about how the first viewing of star wars completely changed the game in its time and that nothing since has had that monumental effect on movie going experience.
Jedi Dade
BigGuido
New Member
So far as the greeblies are concerned, I love them aesthetically, but from a practical point - at least as far as the trans-atmospheric ships like the Falcon and X-Wing are concerned - I take issue. All those greebled surfaces wouldn't last very long at high speed atmospheric flight. Heck, the Falcon's sensor dish would have been ripped clean-off during the high speed departure from Mos Eisley. I suppose one could argue for some sort of structural integrity force field or extended energy shields that prevented the shearing force of the wind to effect the greeblies. As a matter of practicality and sensible aeronautical design, a smooth surfaced trans-atmospheric ship (Naboo starship designs come to mind here) more along the lines of McQuarrie's original concept drawings makes a lot more sense.
Jaitea
Master Member
As I said in post 88
'Yep The Millennium Falcon is as smooth as a baby's a** flying in atmosphere with it's particle deflector shields switched on (IMPO)'
In the world of Star Wars the not so aerodynamic starships don't have to worry with atmosphere resistance with their shields up
J
I can't believe this long, drawn out discussion was started just because someone didn't want to bother putting Greeblies on their model ...
Spot on buddy, 'tis how i called it, don't get antsy because your too lazy to put the effort in lol.
lee
BigGuido
New Member
Didn't see that one. Now that would be really cool, sittin' on the top side of the Falcon whilst going Mach 12, sipping a cup o' Joe while the clouds and such slide by - and not a hair on my perfectly coiffed head is outta place! I'd pay good money for that experience!
Lutso
Sr Member
Good point. Cool by me!
All the OT vehicles are perfect and therefore they have just the right amount of greeblies. The end...
