Bloop
Sr Member
I can't say I noticed the use of Master Replicas sabers as props, and obviously most people won't either - I think I've got a pretty good eye for detail, but I wasn't looking for it, and haven't done much in the way of recreating Star Wars items myself. But I understand why others would be upset. You want the people working on these shows and movies to care about the properties they're working on, to want to do their best, especially when we know it doesn't really take that much more money or time to do it "right."
Let me offer an analogy from my personal experience. I'm an instrumental musician, and have worked professionally for years, performing, arranging and writing music. I can usually notice the difference between real musicians performing and the use of sound libraries/synths to recreate acoustic instruments. I say "usually" because it has definitely gotten harder to tell - the tech to sample real musicians playing has gotten much better over the years. But I'd say most music for tv shows (and a lot of movies) is done by one person now, using synth instruments instead of real performers. While I can tell the difference, I know most people can't, even with things that I know are obvious synth sounds. Or they just don't care.
It also bothers me more because it means fewer jobs for musicians. Don't get me wrong, I love the tech of being able to try to recreate "real" sounding music - it helps me in composing and arranging because I can hear things sound more like what they'll sound like live, with actual musicians playing each part. And I also like the challenge of trying to make it sound "real," just as many of us here like trying to recreate props and costumes as accrately as possible.
But technology makes it easier and cheaper to do things, and the people running these productions have budgets and time contraints, so we tend to get things that are just "good enough" rather than excellent. And, like I said, most people can't tell the difference, and/or don't care. It happens in every industry. Graphic designers and photographers have lost their jobs in media because tech makes it easy for "anyone" to do it. Why hire a photographer AND a reporter AND a web designer for a news site when the reporter can just snap pics on their iPhone and upload and layout everthing using easy-to-use templates? Why pay for an editor to proofread stories when we have spelling and grammar checkers on our phones? Maybe (often) it's not perfect, but again, who really notices anymore?
