Star Wars Studio Scale RUMORS.

[DARKSIDE72]

That's too bad... I was hoping for someone new to take the Mcquire, Johnston designs to a new era. Chang hasn't a clue... What's McCallum going to do now? Walk Georges dogs and pick up their poop for a living? LOL That would be fitting.

 

[Wolfsburg]

Last I heard he's doing some other movie projects but his association with Lucasfilm is done. I somewhat agree with you about Chiang but in many ways he was simply trying to convey what Lucas dictated to him. Maybe with a different/better direction, he and McCaig can come up with some stuff we'll like.

 

[Guy Cowen]

Chaing can and will be ignored and his designs do not need to be used if they dont fit the bill....officially

 

[Wolfsburg]

Oh. Well there ya go! lol! I hadn't heard that. So what exactly will his role be?

 

[Guy Cowen]

Concept design, as before, but it doesn't mean his designs will be used unless they're worth using.

 

[Wolfsburg]

I see what you're saying. Let's hope the powers that be are more discriminating then!

 

[Aurora]

The more I read the happier I feel they are trying very hard to do the right things. 35mm. Great choice.

Star Wars: Episode VII To Shoot On 35mm | Movie News | Empire

I believe Episode I was shot used a mixed medium with digital and film. Don't think it should matter to much as know one could tell the difference back then. Even Lucas made a bet about which part of the film was shoot on digital or film.

 

[CutThumb]

Don’t write Doug Chiang off as Concept Art Director. He’ll run a department of at least half a dozen artists and as previously stated it’s the choices made from all these varying imaginative works which will drive the look of the overall finished product.
And that rests VERY squarely on somebody else shoulders. Hopefully this time not just one mans "vision" but some reasonably independent and clear discussion and with a concensus of opinion before the final choices are made.
The reason I like Chiang is he’s a very clean draftsman and can produce and change design direction very quickly. Clearest example I can give you is “The Radiant”. Its one of the very few ships that bares ANY resemblance to the original trilogy and it was specifically designed to be like a bit more angular like OT craft because George Lucas wanted it to link . So out of about a half dozen designs and then tweaking , plus the final ILM build by John Goodson, that’s exactly what we got. Bravo.
Annoyingly GL then ignored his own god advice and never managed that linking idea very well again, up to and most notably including ROTS. So the entire “look” of the films ultimately were his choices out of thousands of pieces of production art and in my opinion he made some poor ones , going for that over complex and ridiculously cartoonist sci-fi , instead the “realistic” used and workable universe more common to Star Wars and Empire, but which we started to see being lost in Return of the Jedi. Biggest offender IMO were the creature designs, which started with teddy bear Ewoks and then resulted in George going totally tonto with the prequel creatures.
Interestingly Doug didn’t produce much of the creature concept design that was eventually used in TPM (his designs were less bizarre than most). Total EP1 art production was much closer to the way the OT was produced, rather than the later Prequel ones, including Dougs excellent Ralph McQuarrie like production paintings. But then everything went so much more digital later ,including the preproduction art and storyboards that became the video and animatics , and the art departments ultimately ended up working through almost the entire film production, which resulted in that horribly over designed and unrealistic appearance.
Which ties in nicely to why I’m happy they are using 35mm film. I’ll leave the arguments about resolution/grain /pixcel etc to those that want to read up on it. I’m more interested because that means the entire production of the film will be much more traditional and that means a huge change to the way the film may be shot. JJA could really move it very strongly away from the massive use of the digitally added green screen post production acting and FX elements to the real life set building and performances we’re being promised and thats what I’d certainly prefer to see. The finalized product will of course be digitally converted for release, and optically it will arguably make very little difference to the viewing public be it 35mm or pure digital but that’s not the point.
The point is that by choosing 35mm they are obviously trying very hard to recapture that “realism” that the original trilogy managed ,and in my opinion, NO OTHER single science fictional space opera has managed so convincingly in the last thirty years. And 35mm when used to shot larger models looks far more convincing than digital productions, at least to me. May be somebody else thinks that as well.
That was and is one of Star Wars unique selling point as a franchise ( at least before the prequels) and I hope that is what we are going to see, along with a lot of very cool builds, in the future on the screen.

 

[Treadwell]

I believe Episode I was shot used a mixed medium with digital and film. Don't think it should matter to much as know one could tell the difference back then. Even Lucas made a bet about which part of the film was shoot on digital or film.

TPM was shot all in 35mm except for one scene done as a test (Qui-Gon taking a sample of Anakin's blood and calling Obi-Wan on the comlink), and the drop in quality is noticeable. Mind you, it was an early camera and in low light---much improvement since then.

Also, every 35mm shot except one in TPM was scanned into the system for effects work at 1080 resolution and output to film again, so it isn't really a good guide for either format as would be used today.

 

[deaddog]

I am very very hopeful that the prequels will simply be "ignored" - much like sequels have done throughout history (The texas chainsaw massacre history comes to mind). Maybe, with years of therapy and a strong dose of denial we can forget that the prequels ever happened and Episode 7 can be the next movie we were all hoping for...

 

[SofaKing01]

I agree that a reboot of the PT is a GREAT IDEA! I don't think this is something that should be ignored...

 

[Jedi Dade]

OK its been a while since I added anything to this conversation and I have a few things (people may argue if its really adding I suppose).

Regarding the Prequels - I too was severely disappointed by them (mostly TPM, but the others were not up to scratch either), and looking back nothing short of another totally blown away moment like ANH when I was like 10 would have been up to expectations. But reboot/redo of them is not going to happen.

What I can see them doing is some KOTOR type stuff that gets more into the Rise of Palpatine, and more insight into the Force... or some middle stories between ROTS and ANH - how cool would it be to see Vader hunt down and fight Mace Windu - C'mon you know Mace survived that fall

There was a long planned and delayed TV live action planned - how great would that be! With the "Agents of Shield" coming out this fall as a spin-off/ tie in machine to the Marvel movies the same could be done with Star Wars. I hope its wildly successful so that Disney will move on a Star Wars parallel...

Back to the topic - the CGI brothers of the models (and actors/creatures) looked great in some circumstances and left a lot to be desired in others. I hope that there is a judicious mix, where each tool is skill fully deployed, to maximum effect. For example if I see another CGI Trooper of any type I might puke... How hard is it to vac-form a few sets of armor, really...? and while there have been HUGE advances in motion capture etc. the CGI creatures and people just don't move quite right... They look off - sorry but true. Someday they might be acceptable - but it isn't today. The same to a lesser extent is true for the ships... They often totally defy the laws of physics in their maneuvers - some of which is OK but Lucas's experiment with making dogfights so fast that you can't really process what you're seeing is in full force in everything from ROTJ on... Slow it down just a touch so we can actually see it, and have them move with a touch of reality attached pretty please .

Jedi Dade

 

[stonky]

How hard is it to vac-form a few sets of armor, really...?

QFT. What a ridiculous decision - not only was the end result not nearly as successful, but I can guarantee that using CG troopers was a LOT more expensive. And this isn't in hindsight, it was George that vetoed the idea of making real suits despite the pleas of the VFX leadership on the shows, all because he's got it in his head that more CG = he's some sort of innovator. Just ridiculous - look at the prequels as an example of what happens when you hire bright, talented, hard working people...and ignore them.

Lucasfilm became a software and marketing company right after ILM won an Oscar for Jurassic Park and ceased to be a production company, and the final nail in the coffin was the move to the Presidio complex a little more than a decade later. Say what you want about the prequels using more practical models then the OT, but there were countless poor decisions made on the PT in the name of innovation at the cost of the betterment of the product. Cue Jar Jar, just ridiculous. George lost his way and those misguided tendencies reflected directly on the attitudes and polices of all of the Lucasfilm/Lucas Digital branches. Two of my favorites: ILM: "Incredibly Lame Management", and, "What are the two most exciting days for an employee at ILM? Their first day and their last." I think that the Disney sale is the best thing that could have happened to them, to be honest. I think that they couldn't have made a better choice than Kathleen Kennedy and I couldn't be happier than to see that Star Wars has another life under the supervision of someone who couldn't possibly be as dogmatic in how best to get the picture on the screen. JJ has gone on record now saying that he's going to shoot on film as opposed to shooting digitally (like he always has), and I feel better already. He's not perfect (who is? More lens flares, anyone?), but I feel like his decisions are properly motivated.

And just to be clear, I don't want to confuse Lucasfilm and ILM - my criticism for ILM falls primarily under the umbrella of the Prequel Trilogy and Indy IV (they've done some amazing work recently under different circumstances, Davey Jones is incredible, amongst others), and my criticism for Lucasfilm falls under their mismanagement of the Star Wars license and their inability to capitalize on the strengths of their branch divisions (over-saturated marketplace, poor quality products, slow death of LucasArts, etc.). Sometimes less is more.

 

[Jedi Dade]

The ONLY reason I can see to do the CGI troopers was to save on set construction There were quite a few totally CGI shots in AOTC with troopers running around... Each one made me cringe. Especially the ones at the forward command base with Yoda... Ughh.

Jedi Dade

 

[Wolfsburg]

I never liked how colorful and "custom" so many of them looked, with all those tacky stripes, outlandish paint jobs and added doo-dads. Almost makes the uniform and homogeneous stormtroopers in the OT look like a step backwards...which is yet another design aspect of the PT that makes no sense.

 

[Laspector]

Didn't I read somewhere that Chang said he remembered seeing the original trilogy and thought the ships didn't look "right" and he always wanted to redo them "his" way? That, to me, tells me he hasn't a clue.

I don't know who designed the pod racers but to me those were the only thing in the prequels that screamed Star Wars, particularly rebel design: stuff made from throwing other stuff together.

 

[ralphee]

From previous crimes alone, they need to lock Chaing in a cupboard till opening night!

lee

 

[CutThumb]

I don’t think Doug will loose any sleep over the criticism leveled at him in this thread (officially) , particularly by people who can’t even spell his six letter surname correctly. CHIANG just for future references. If you are going to be critical about people best get their names spelt right.
Interestingly, also for those who can’t be bothered to check before they post, Doug CHIANG produced the bulk of the pod designs and they were built as models, as were a very large number of designs used in TPM. There’s an awful lot of concept drawn up before the director and artist(s) finally agree on the elements that create the best one. Rarely (if ever) does the first one hit the mark. Care to check on just how many version of the Probe droid, snow speeder or AT-AT were drafted before they agreed on the finally depiction? There are dozens of original trilogy concepts,the star ships ,fighters, robots and creatures ,that are all laughably bad. But arguably more original than most people will ever produce.
Visually the NT needs to obviously link more to the original trilogy, and that’s ground zero as far as I’m concerned. I think there is little point in moving everything on too far by saying “well its been thirty years” so won’t the technology have moved and coming up with a completely different look. Remember, the civilizations in the Star Wars universe are supposed thousands of years old and space travel common place so design ,based on the space technology will have peaked centuries ago.
In fact after a long and protracted war I’d argue that that worn and tired look would last a longer time. And the recovery period, likely to be lawless ,particularly with hardly any Jedi around and a disbanded Imperil force could make things very interesting. So much depends on the story its impossible to say. But the more I hear, like Benedict Cumberbatch, who is a huge fan of SW and could now be involved the happier I am. What a Sith he would make. JJ is surrounding himself with OT fans who want a nice universe with very cool spaceships to play in.

 

[ralphee]

I don’t think Doug will loose any sleep over the criticism leveled at him in this thread (officially) , particularly by people who can’t even spell his six letter surname correctly. CHIANG just for future references. If you are going to be critical about people best get their names spelt right.
Interestingly, also for those who can’t be bothered to check before they post, Doug CHIANG produced the bulk of the pod designs and they were built as models, as were a very large number of designs used in TPM. There’s an awful lot of concept drawn up before the director and artist(s) finally agree on the elements that create the best one. Rarely (if ever) does the first one hit the mark. Care to check on just how many version of the Probe droid, snow speeder or AT-AT were drafted before they agreed on the finally depiction? There are dozens of original trilogy concepts,the star ships ,fighters, robots and creatures ,that are all laughably bad. But arguably more original than most people will ever produce.
Visually the NT needs to obviously link more to the original trilogy, and that’s ground zero as far as I’m concerned. I think there is little point in moving everything on too far by saying “well its been thirty years” so won’t the technology have moved and coming up with a completely different look. Remember, the civilizations in the Star Wars universe are supposed thousands of years old and space travel common place so design ,based on the space technology will have peaked centuries ago.
In fact after a long and protracted war I’d argue that that worn and tired look would last a longer time. And the recovery period, likely to be lawless ,particularly with hardly any Jedi around and a disbanded Imperil force could make things very interesting. So much depends on the story its impossible to say. But the more I hear, like Benedict Cumberbatch, who is a huge fan of SW and could now be involved the happier I am. What a Sith he would make. JJ is surrounding himself with OT fans who want a nice universe with very cool spaceships to play in.

Thanks for the skooling lol, but i like Chaing better, in any case, this isnt a spelling bee, and if it were, we both lose !

Lee

 

[Wolfsburg]

Didn't I read somewhere that Chang said he remembered seeing the original trilogy and thought the ships didn't look "right" and he always wanted to redo them "his" way? That, to me, tells me he hasn't a clue.

I had never heard this but that's a real shame he feels that way, if true!