STAR WARS: "Rise of Skywalker" **SPOILERS**

I don't want to see an animated film with photorealistic fake humans.

They looked weird and creepy to me. CGI Leia looked the worst of all.

 

Gotta be kidding me with that screenshot however many years of experience to dump that?

 

Yeah, I do... @David Campbell's thoughtful and considered posts are always interesting to read... it's one of the reasons why I like SHMF so much; come for the conversation, stay for the good folks you meet here.

Convincing or not (and it wasn't, however technically audacious it was, ditto the later Leia cameo), the trend of 'resurrecting' dead actors/actresses - even if they get the approval of said deceased persons' estate - is a worrying 'thin end of the wedge' scenario... they even 'resurrected' Jack Lord for a cameo in the rebooted Hawaii Five-O with probably the most awful-looking CGI imaginable... I very much doubt the man himself would have been pleased or approved of it, it was hideous and an insult to the memory of an iconic role.

What's next, Marilyn Monroe in a hardcore porn flick? Actually, on second thoughts ... JUST KIDDING, JUST KIDDING!!!

Let the dead rest, you vultures ...

 

That is VERY much a case of "your mileage may vary". My dad had a moment of "wait, isn't he dead" seeing Peter Cushing on screen again.

We did both agree the Leia moment at the end didn't hold up the same way though. I've also seen the Jack Lord "cameo" and had much the same reaction as everyone else "yikes, why??"

I've read some of the commentary after the fact and had my attention drawn to details about CGI Tarkin that make it stand out further in retrospect, but in the moment? My thoughts went from "oh they're not going to" to "oh this'll just be a reflectio-NO WAY" to "THIS IS AMAZING" over the course of that scene. Loved it, loved it, loved it.



That said, you're spot on with the trend being concerning. Hollywood being Hollywood can't just let one technical achievement slide by that's appropriate for the material in question. No, hell no, once something works, do it 500 more times just to be sure. In general it's wholly unnecessary and can be filed with these musical holograms currently going around under "why would you do this?". In Rogue One? Yeah, still absolutely unnecessary, but in my mind? Successful; not without fault, but absolutely successful.

 

Hide the children... it's ghastly looking!!! And aside from the moral question, it's going to date terribly... to the point it will take people watching that movie years from now right out of the film itself! A (relatively) lookalike actor with great make-up would have been cheaper and much, much better in that instance.

Kinda sums up Rogue One as a whole, don't you think...?

 

The truth is that this "trend" is nothing new, at least the technology has advanced to the point where it can be done with taste and dignity and the cost is such that there is less of a chance of it being used frivolously. Bringing back Tarkin made the movie more interesting, it enhanced it to be able to see that character in a different context. Not to mention George already did it with Episode III and it looked much worse back then. I think you have to think of the intentions as well, Brining Leia into The Rise of Skywalker was to me at least much more respectful than killing her off in a title crawl or having a ship blow up and then a character screaming "Leia was on that ship!"
I think there is a lot of potential in the technology if used correctly.

 

Good points. Now this is not meant to argue how unrealistic Leia was in Rogue One. She looked off and unrealistic. Thankfully it was brief. But Carrie Fisher saw it and approves according to an ABC special. At least it adds some approval to what they did. That’s my only observation.

 

Watching all 9 Episodes in a fairly short span was pretty cool - it definitely gives you a different perspective and allows you to appreciate the connections across the films better.

I also heartily endorse watching them in the order that uses the Prequels as a "flashback" between "ESB" and "ROTJ".

No order is perfect, but I think this works better than going 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or chronological with 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3.

This order "ruins" the tension when Luke prods Yoda to confirm that Vader is his father, and it also spoils the reveal of Leia as his sister, but those are really the only issues, IMO.

 

Can't say i want to see an animated film either ......…. but there was improvement in IX concerning the part/face CGI of Leia.
10 years is a long time for further improvements.
The latest younger Arnold Terminator looked incredible compared to the above work of Rogue One.
From all the negative things that I've read about Disney [mostly from here] they seem to be the sort of people/company that would create further tales of those 3 if they smelt big money from it.
Didn't Disney already purchase some sort of copyright to their younger selves for possibly this purpose?

 

Also true but I grew up reading the old Expanded Universe novels so getting more side stories in the same universe that I love is not this terrible awful thing to me.

 

Firstly thank you @The Hermit . Same to you. We may disagree over the new movies but unlike some here and elsewhere I won't name,even when critical you are fair and it's never to whine for the sake of whining and you provoke real reasoned discussion beyond "wahhh Disney ruined my childhood! Star Wars sucks now! Pay attention to me!! ". So I lift my drink to you. ( In this case my diet coke.)

As for the whole thing with the resurrected CGI characters in Rogue one...I truly believe that was a trial balloon of sorts for possibly having more adventures of the original trio of Luke,Han and Leia using the likenesses of the original actors,just as I think SOLO was a similar trial balloon to test out if Audiences would accept a new actor in those iconic roles. Obviously,both possibilities went over like a lead...well,balloon. I personally thought SOLO was fun and the recastings were pretty good,but apparently a majority of movie goers just weren't bothered with it.That pretty much killed the idea of untold tales "Star Wars stories" with recast OT heroes.

Thusly I think Carrie's sudden death changed the discussion around the idea of CGI likenesses ,so I don't think we will see that occuring now. Maybe in 20-30 years it'll happen when we are all too old to give a damn or dead,but I think outside of books and animation we won't be seeing the OT heroes in new untold tales anytime soon.


I'd watch the hell out of a Donald Glover lead "the adventures of Lando Calrissian" Disney plus series though.

 

It can't be done. There was a SAG (later SAG-AFTRA) rule around 1999 -- not coincidentally, around the time of the release of Final Fantasy -- that stipulated that if you used a computer simulation of an actor in a movie, the actor or their estate would have to be paid a negotiated rate. Anytime an actor's face appears, they have to be paid. Even Fred Astaire's estate got paid for that vacuum-cleaner commercial, and that was more than 20 years ago.



Even if you pay the actor's estate the going rate, a representative has to agree to the use of the face in the film or TV show or advertisement. And then you have the added problem of having to hire somebody to the voice, because that can't be faked. (I'm told that Carrie Fisher's estate still got paid $3 million dollars for her appearance in The Rise of Skywalker, which is about as much as she was going to get if she had lived.)

BTW, many years ago, an old pal of mine worked on some of the effects for the 1982 film The Last Starfighter. The head VFX boss, John Whitney Jr., stated publicly that his ultimate goal was "to make new movies with dead actors," so you could literally have a film with John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, and also modern actors at the same time. They were never quite able to pull that off. You look at a more recent film like Avatar, and even then the alien creatures and forests look fine, but the moment they slip in a CGI human, it looks weird. Our brains are sharply attuned to distinguish between a real person and a replica, and the slightest thing will throw that off.

What is true these days is that when an actor is signed for a major big-budget action film, they generally go in and do a full body scan of the actor and they get hundreds of shots of their faces from different angles. This allows them to do a pretty good digital replica, using face replacement and other VFX techniques where a stuntman does the tough work, which avoids putting the real actor in any risk. I think because of Paul Walker dying in the middle of Fast & Furious 7, they're making sure if this kind of thing happens again, they'll theoretically have all the raw materials to make a fairly accurate digital double of the actor with the fewest possible compromises.

 

So, you recommend going in this order: 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6?

 

Put some Jack Daniels in that Coke and I'll join you... although I'm more of a Gin & Tonic man myself when it comes to liquor ...

Trial balloon or not - and with Disney, I certainly wouldn't rule it out! - there's no way they could produce photo-realistic CGI recreations of well-known actors at present... they're getting closer by the day but I'd say a completely seamless and believable human digital performance indistinguishable from a flesh-and-blood performance artist is still a good twelve to fifteen years away yet... I fear the day when they finally crack it, more so when that tech gets cheaper and starts trickling down to smaller (and less discerning) companies outside of the major studios and effects houses... you can't put toothpaste back in the tube once it's squeezed...

If I was an actor of any prominence right now, I'd have put it in my Will that no-one, not even my estate upon death, can approve my likeness for anything for any reason whatsoever... I'd also do what Richard Burton did for his Will; put in a clause that anyone who contests the terms of said Will automatically forfeits their share... but that's a whole other discussion for another time and thread...

 

The 'Machete' order is best imho if you have never seen them before:

• IV: A New Hope

• V: The Empire Strikes Back

• II: Attack of the Clones

• III: Revenge of the Sith

• VI: Return of the Jedi

 

Yeah, I do.

Whether you go release order or Episode order or "Flashback order", each version has its flaws, but for me at least, "Flashback order" seems to work the best!

 

I know some think that "Phantom Menace" is superfluous, but I disagree. It has way too much character information that you need for 2 and 3 to be irrelevant!

 

You lose Qui Gon Jinn for one.

 

I'd almost amend that to eliminate AOTC. The original Star Wars pretty much tells you all you need to know about Anakin, Obi-wan and their relationship. The only piece of the puzzle the audience needs coming out of Empire is the circumstances of how Anakin becomes Vader and how Palpatine turns him. ROTS pretty much answers those questions without the bloat of AOTC. For the first time viewer,a one film cut away that tells the full truth of Anakin's fall is sufficient. I think a two or three movie pause between Empire and Jedi is a bit much. ROTS or one of the fan edits that condenses the prequels into one three hour or two and a half hour movie is better,IMO.

Then,if that first time viewer wants more background on Padme,the circumstances of how Obi-wan and Anakin met,how Palpatine came to power, how the clone war started etc ,one can show them the other two prequels.

It's clear from rewatching the prequels last December prior to Rise of Skywalker that George was basically spinning his wheels with Episode I and II. The real meat of the story and the one he really wanted to tell was Revenge of the Sith. The fact one can literally eliminate two entire movies from the narrative without missing anything really of significance says a lot about the prequels.

 

ATOC gets too bad a rap. It reveals the Death Star plans, the origin of the clone army and introduces us to Jango Fett.

 

obi-wan's visit to the clone world and fight w/ jango fett was great, not just relative to the rest of the movie, but great period. the rest of the movie...meh....

 

Quite frankly I worry less about the technology being at the disposal of movie studios to make a cheap buck at the expense of departed actors than the other real world implications of warping reality to such an extent. Trust in our institutions is at an all time low. Throw in the ability to create photorealistic digital facimilies of people or alter existing footage by replacing one person's face and (eventually) voice with another... Pandora's box is no longer a metaphor.

It's intriguing and scary as hell at the same time.

 

I mean, all of that is well and good and those parts are easily the highlights of AOTC....but none of that really is pertinent to the story being told in the original trilogy. We don't need to know where the Death Star came from. It's a big ball of death built by the Empire to tighten their grip on the Galaxy. We don't need to know Jango Fett to get Boba Fett. We already know he's a bad ass mysterious bounty hunter who is working for Jabba. ( If anything,the whole Jango Fett thing in AOTC and Boba being his clone hurts Boba and basically makes him a battle worn copy of an even more dangerous guy,but that's just my opinion).
And all the Clone army does is answer the question why the clone wars were called that. But ROTS offers enough info there really. You see the original storm troopers of the republic all look alike, think "ok...so that's why it was called "the clone war" and be on your way.

If you are watching in Machete order for the first time, after Empire you really don't care about death stars and Jango Fett and clones...all you wanna know is how and why Luke's Dad became an evil mechanical monster and perhaps the riddle of the "other" Yoda alluded to. ROTS answers those questions. So that's the movie to show in that circumstance.

Now once that first time user becomes (hopefully) a fan of Star Wars, then show them the other two prequels,maybe the clone wars and of course the sequels.

 

Not a huge loss in story terms, as he doesn't really come up in later films.

But you don't get the basics of the Anakin/Obiwan/Padme relationship. You don't know Anakin's mother. You have no idea who Jar-Jar is - yeah, I know some think that's a positive, but he's still an important participant, especially in "Clones".

You don't see the roots of pre-Emperor Palpatine. You don't get the origins of various political conflicts. You have no clue who the Trade Federation guys are.

And most importantly, Padme makes little sense without "Menace". You have no idea of her background or why this very young woman is such an important politician.

When we meet her in "Clones", Anakin is very nervous because he's not seen her in 10 years. This lacks the same importance/impact without "Menace".

I won't go so far to claim that the Prequel story's incomprehensible without "Menace", but I have to believe "Clones" and "Sith" make a lot less sense without it.

Sure, you can figure out the general picture, but the same would be true if you watched "ESB" and "ROTJ" without "Star Wars" first!

 

As noted above, I disagree - and that's just a disagreement with the notion that you can drop one of the 3 films!