Miniature Spacecraft in The Mandalorian Star Wars TV show

[3Dsf]

I think another point is like... well. Think of old cars. People often say, "oh - you know, those old cars were really built to last! Look at the ones still on the road today!"

Well, that's not really true. The old cars on the road today are generally the best ones. All the crappy ones are now gone.

It's like that with models in movies. People point to the best and most memorable model sequences in the best movies of yesteryear and wax euphoric over how wonderful the modelwork was. But most modelwork in most movies was just garbage. Awful optical compositing, cheap sets, etc.

Same today with crappy CGI. There's tons of truly garbage CGI effects, slapped together on a budget or blindly following random trends, around today. The good stuff will be remembered, though.

 

[Automaton]

That’s really cool! Always a huge fan of digitally composited practical effects. They’re an aesthetic choice as much as a technology choice... The constraints give them a certain vibe. I’m looking forward to seeing these in action.

 

[robn1]

Even a bad model at least looks like something that exists in the real world. Bad CGI, and even pretty good CGI just looks like a cartoon.

 

[Hunk a Junk]

There were more real models in The Phantom Menace alone than in the entire OT combined -- and the majority of people are STILL convinced the were no models in the movie and it was all "bad" CGI. There were no real model spaceships in The Force Awakens and everyone drooled about how real the Falcon and spaceship scenes were. I even heard more than a few people boast about how great it was that JJ used the original Falcon model for the movie!

I will say it once again: if people like the movie (or TV show, in this case), they won't care about whether it was models or CG. If the movie sucks, the best model work in history will still be considered a hate crime. I guarantee that ILM could duplicate these new model shots with CG and no one -- even professionals -- would likely be able to tell the difference. Definitely not regular viewers. The only reason they are doing this is for the same reason stores sell vinyl records to hipsters: so they can sell an familiar product with the illusion of it being better because it's "old school." It's marketing.

 

[INVAR]

...Lighting gear is fantastic. Even internal LED lighting of scale models can be precisely (often wirelessly) controlled, with an array of effects that were not possible in the 1970s and 1980s...and with no thermal threat to the model itself.

I concur with much of what you opined, and if you saw the 'behind the scenes' clip from the Mandalorian Panel on the fact that the ILM guys are pretty much geeks like ourselves with a PASSION to offer their abilities to try some things in an old school way, married to digital.

The model maker in this case is 3D printing detailed parts he is gluing together for models and messing around with Arduino boards and flickering LEDS for engine lighting that should make every Sci-fi model builder on this board cream their drawers. That John Knoll just decided to 'lend' his talents to machine a motion-control rig for a 4K camera in his garage to shoot the models is INSANE!

That making of clip alone may do wonders for modeling and breathe some life into a dying hobby.

 

[robn1]

There were more real models in The Phantom Menace alone than in the entire OT combined -- and the majority of people are STILL convinced the were no models in the movie and it was all "bad" CGI. There were no real model spaceships in The Force Awakens and everyone drooled about how real the Falcon and spaceship scenes were. I even heard more than a few people boast about how great it was that JJ used the original Falcon model for the movie!

I will say it once again: if people like the movie (or TV show, in this case), they won't care about whether it was models or CG. If the movie sucks, the best model work in history will still be considered a hate crime. I guarantee that ILM could duplicate these new model shots with CG and no one -- even professionals -- would likely be able to tell the difference. Definitely not regular viewers. The only reason they are doing this is for the same reason stores sell vinyl records to hipsters: so they can sell an familiar product with the illusion of it being better because it's "old school." It's marketing.

Yes there were real models in TPM, they looked great, and just made the CG stand out. There were a lot of models in the prequels, but there was a lot of CG that could have been practical and would have been better if it was, like those gawd awful cartoon clone troopers.

And I'm just dumbfounded how anyone could believe the CG Falcon in TFA was a model, or anything else in that film. I guess some folks just don't know what "real" is, they can see video of real planes taking off or real car crashes and say how phony it looks, but accept video game graphics as realistic.

And liking the film has nothing to do with it, Howard The Duck sucked but the model work was great. Meteor was a good film even though the models sucked (but at least they look like "real" models )

 

[CutThumb]

In certain films models work best, in others the CGI is so exceptional its difficult to tell, many manage to combine the best of both worlds.

Watching that on Sunday it seemed what they were really trying to do was make the ship move like the OT ships, rather than the ridiculous manoeuvring we saw in the TFA or TLJ. That more than anything makes a CGI generated image stick out to me , because your brain goes "What the hell" when it sees an X wing turn on a penny or shoot ten ties down in ten seconds. The tracking limits that kind of motion.

If it works well with the audiences then its going to stick, plus the ILM guys doing it are our generation, trying to produce an updated version of an OT universe that doesn't look dated.

I got to say it worked for me. I loved every single second I've seen of the Mando so far, even when its a poor quality phone video.

Disney guaranteed my subscription there and then.

 

[ggriffaw]

Well done and poorly done effects can be done in either. Many of the complaints come down to poor choices or lack of skill. Sometimes people get caught in the trap of doing something in a shot just because they can.

The old school style shots in The Mandalorian are more for the nostalgia than the approach being superior to CGI. I haven't heard for sure, but I bet there are CGI effects in The Mandalorian as well as the model shots. They include the stuff they think will get a positive reaction at the time in promotion and don't talk as much about the rest. At a different time, like the TPM era, they would have been promoting the CGI techniques and not talking much about the practical effects. It's largely about marketing, not as much about one technique being superior.

 

[Richard Baker]

I thin the original 'Independence Day' film had the best approach to SFX. They used CGI when it was needed but also went old school when it would produce the shot they wanted. Air Force One was hung on wires in front of a sky photo and the cruise missile wings opened up using rubber bands.

 

[Hunk a Junk]

There were a lot of models in the prequels, but there was a lot of CG that could have been practical and would have been better if it was, like those gawd awful cartoon clone troopers.

Interesting you brought up the clonetroopers because they illustrate a few points. They, probably more than anything else, are why JJ pushed the PR idea of "practical effects" when making TFA. "See? REAL stormtroopers! We know how to make Star Wars the right way." The clonetroopers were an experiment in hard surface CG modeling to push the technology. One of the problems when compositing a practical character, like a trooper, into a shot is that you become locked in to the lighting, reflections, and shadows on the real object that you're then putting into a digital or miniature environment where there is different lighting. You have to match the lighting of the two or else the illusion is broken. GL wanted thousands of clones fighting thousands of droids all while ships are flying overhead, explosions are happening, etc. He wanted the flexibility of changing the troopers location in the shots, adding troopers, rotating troopers etc while not having to be married to whatever lighting was used during the live action shot. Creating them digitally, and living with the compromises of quality (or pushing the team to make the quality better), was worth having to avoid the other compromises involved in compositing live action. It's certainly understandable to look back to 2000 to 2002 technology and say they looked awful, but GL pushing his team to try it is why we have Iron Man and the CG troopers in TFA (yes, there were a ton of them, especially in the hanger shots. In fact, a lot of times they shot live action troopers only to remove them and replace them later). If they can make things look real today it's only because someone with vision took the risk to push the technology at some point.

But again, if the PT had been good in people's eyes, they wouldn't complain about effects. Exactly the opposite. Every flaw would've been charming in the same way the jerky stop motion fakery of the Taun Taun makes fans misty. I have kids who grew up with PT, and I've listened to them and their friends talk about the clones. They love them. They've never complained once about them looking fake. It's all a matter of perspective and subjectivity.

And none of this is to say I disapprove or dismiss what the Mandalorian team is doing. Not at all. It's super fun. But there's a reason why they took time out of the convention to show a video of them doing it. The crowd reaction, and the positive buzz it generates among cranky fans, was worth the extra effort and expense.

 

[korben44]

I have no issues with the Clone Troopers in AotC... Hunk of Junk, you have expressed my feelings on the subject in your responses... Stop using the force to read my mind!

 

[INVAR]

Watching [mandalorian Panel] on Sunday it seemed what they were really trying to do was make the ship move like the OT ships, rather than the ridiculous manoeuvring we saw in the TFA or TLJ. That more than anything makes a CGI generated image stick out to me , because your brain goes "What the hell" when it sees an X wing turn on a penny or shoot ten ties down in ten seconds. The tracking limits that kind of motion.

^^^^^^^^ THIS!!!!!!

 

[StevenBills]

but GL pushing his team to try it is why we have Iron Man and the CG troopers in TFA (yes, there were a ton of them, especially in the hanger shots. In fact, a lot of times they shot live action troopers only to remove them and replace them later)...

My eye immediately latched onto the two TIE pilots who walk across the frame in the hanger in TFA. Something about their walking cadence, motion blur, maybe a combination of the two, just made it look off. And yep, turns out they're CGI'd.

SB

 

[Hunk a Junk]

The movement of the ships is something that evolved in the OT as ILM improved it's camera mounts and camera rigs. There's clearly a big leap in movement between the ships in ANH and TESB. That's one of the reasons they made the small 3' Falcon -- so it could do the flips and rolls that it couldn't do in the first film. So, again, much of this is subjective. The ships in ROTJ didn't move the same way they did in ANH, but it all kind of gets lumped together. Fans want things to "look right," but that ideal is a moving target and means different things to different people. I remember a friend complaining in 1980 that the ships in TESB looked "wrong" because they moved too fast, especially the TIE fighters. Compare how the TIEs move in the Death Star escape dogfight vs. the asteroid chase in TESB. They're very different. Imagine if while making TESB they held a convention and Dennis Muren said, "It's very important that the ships have the right look on screen, so we're sticking with the same system we had in the first film instead of this new and more flexible one we built. The new rig can do more things, but we want the ships to have same maneuverability fans saw in the movie they loved."

 

[Richard Baker]

There is a marked contrast between how the ships move in the three OT films. I have been watching the first film recently and the TIEs seem to drift leisurely in comparison. I remember the first time I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater and it was hard to watch the giant space battle at the end because everything was wiping around so fast- it was not until I watched it repeatedly on VHS I really got a feel for what was going on...

 

[thegnome]

Yeah I like the real life versions instead of CGI because it seems more real, because it is

 

[Jedi Dade]

I'm all for real models... while I freely admit that CGI has come a huge way... to my eye models (still) look better. There is something about the limitations of having to do it practically that lends realism to shots - no non-physics movement and camera angles that could not be done practically. In the spirit of truth in advertising I am part of the aforementioned OT era demographics... but I really do think that real models just look better.

and its also a bit selfish on my part - being a huge fan of studio models... that there actually is a studio model involved

In addition - I'm totally digging the OT era looking models I've seen so far in the mandolorian. It looks appropriate- looks like it belongs in the OT.

Jedi Dade