But the thing is TFA blended the practical & digital effects,....when people gripe about the amount of green screen in the Prequels its really the 2 digital films that they complain about,...Episodes 2 & 3 overloads your senses with the amount on screen & you can tell a lot of it is CG,....it's well documented with the "we'll fix that in post" comments,...they really do have a video game feel
Disney/Lucasfilm really underlined the fact that they were going to do a lot more in-camera,...a step back to the Original Trilogy (which also had a lot of blue screen comps),...trying to woo back the fans who had given up on the franchise.
J
Luv ya, brother, but
all the films blended practical and digital, even II and III. There are books and online resources showing all the sets, all the models built not only for Episode I, but the others as well. Now, you could argue that TFA blended them more seemlessly, but that's like saying that the blue screen in ROTJ was more seemless than the blue screen techniques developed for ANH. They're better because the technology is better. TFA was made thirteen years after AOTC. And the technology only got better because Lucas had the guts to push it. Yeah, fans complain about the CG stromtroopers in II and III, but Lucas did that because he wanted to push the technology. And he succeeded. Iron Man is entirely CG and no one complains (also because there was no beloved "practical effect" Iron Man suit from an earlier series of movies to compare it to). There were a ton of CG stormtroopers in TFA (watch the demo reels) and no one complains. People love to accuse Lucas of all sorts of sins to validate their hate of those movies, but Lucas used ALL his Star Wars movies to try to advance the cinematic craft. Digital is just another tool. I think for Lucas, whether he puts a stromtrooper on screen using a man in a physical suit or a man in a motion-capture digital suit, it doesn't matter. Both are fake. As John Knoll pointed out, the stormtrooper costumes in ANH are far less detailed than fans remember. They're fake. The TFA stormtroopers are a more detailed fake. The CG troopers are a different kind of fake. It's all fake.
As for the "overload your senses," I'm old enough to have heard those same complaints about the OT. Really. It's not like accusing Lucas of relying too heavily of fakery is anything new. I remember fans complaining Empire and Jedi relied too heavily on matte paintings, muppets and blue screen that looked fake (which, especially when it comes to Cloud City is why they added windows and other details during the SEs). Really, we're just making subjective opinions based on personal tastes. I honestly think most people who complain about CG in the PT have no actual idea what is CG and what isn't -- which is what Doug Chaing pointed out about some people thinking Episode I was "all digital." IMHO, I think for many people (not necessarily you) complaining about the CG in the PT is a catch-all bag for every other hyperbolic complaint about the films. There is also a huge double standard involved. If Lucas had made TFA and used a digital Falcon, there would be people whining that he didn't use a "real" miniature as God intended. For my part, for all their flaws, the PT had guts. They were inventive. They took risks. To quote Teddy Roosevelt, "They dared greatly." They tried to expand the SW universe and the cinematic art instead of being an unimaginative rehash of stuff we've seen before. TFA is a fun but cowardly film built on a lot of tears and soiled diapers. Which doesn't mean others aren't entitled to like it.
BTW, every filmmaker jokes, "We'll fix it in post." That's not a sin. That's just a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that time and money on film sets are finite. In other words, "We could keep shooting for another 12 hours to get the shot perfect and spend another $300,000 a day to keep the crew here instead of going on to the next location, but we'll just have to find a solution later." Here's the perfect OT example: Obi-Wan's death. They tried to get a "practical" effect to work, but it didn't and they ran out of time on that set. They had to "fix it in post." At the time, the "fix" was do it editorially, but time marches on and now filmmakers can make a fix like that digitally. It's not a crime to do that. It's not laziness. It's not an affront to the fans. It's just moviemaking.
Bottom line: If people like the film, CG is fine. If they don't, the CG sucks.
