GeneK wrote:
> "Jaxtraw"
knickersjaxtrawstudios.com> wrote...
>>> No, what you're overlooking is that back then, indeed until Star
>> Wars pretty much, nobody expected special effects to be realistic.
>> It was impossible. It couldn't be done.
>
> Oh come one, you're telling me that prior to Star Wars nobody
> who built spaceship miniatures knew how to glue parts of old
> model kits onto them, or to paint them so they looked like
> they had separate plates in their hulls? That's nonsense.
Miniature making evolved. People may have known how to do those things, but
didn't necessarily think of doing them. They became de rigeur as model
making technique and effects work strove towards a greater sense of realism-
and in this context this means "more convincing" rather than "close to
reality" necessarily. Models became more detailed as it was realised that
adding such details created a greater illusion of scale by providing scale
cues. People expect things to be detailed. It may be in the future a
starship hull is cast from solid plastic, but people in this day and age and
in past days and ages expect at a subliminal level for big metal things to
be made of joined plates. It creates a convincing effect.
We must draw a distinction between convincing and realism, perhaps realism
is a bad term to use period. For instance, ghosts don't exist so you can't
portray a realistic ghost. There is no real to strive towards. But effects
crews can certainly strive towards a convincing portrayal of a ghost. What
matters is if it works for the audience.
>The
> miniatures (the good ones, at least ) looked the way they did
> because their designers intended them to look that way. The
> intent was to create something that looked *different* from what
> people saw around them in the real world.
I'm not sure anyone did think of the bits of kits and metal plates until
somebody thought of it, you can see the evolution of scifi "realism" through
say 2001 to Star Wars and on. Are you saying that 50s fx crews sat around
debating whether to stick on bits of model kits or not? I don't think they
did.
Additionally, it's not just model making. SW added technologies never before
seen; computer controlled cameras, advanced (for the day) compositing
techniques, the idea of spaceships swooping around in complex ways that
simply couldn't be done before. It was cutting edge. THe makers of This
Island Earth or 2001 couldn't have made a movie that looked like Star Wars
even if they'd wanted to. Technology wasn't there yet. Star Wars was the
point at which space battles could be portrayed convincingly. Prior to that,
it just couldn't be done.
> It's not that Star Wars looks "realistic" and everyone now wants
> spaceships to look "realistic." It's that Star Wars was a cultural
> phenomenon and now everyone wants spaceships to look like
> the ones in Star Wars.
Circular reasoning. It was a cultural phenomenon largely because of the
amazing sfx (the story's nothing to write home about) and for the time big
budget treatment. It set a standard because it looked great. The spaceships
looked like they were really spaceships made of real materials flying around
in space, to the eyes of the contemporary audience.
>> Remember Star Wars? I'll never forget the sheer thrill of watching
>> that with my dad at my local cinema. For the first time it was like,
>> "this is what a space battle actually looks like!"
>
> Maybe that's the difference between our perceptions. I
> didn't go to the movie with my dad. I went myself after
> classes during my senior year in engineering, by which
> time I knew that actual explosions in space wouldn't make
> smoke or showers of sparks. The FX certainly looked
> "cool," but didn't remotely resemble anything "actual" that
> my dad was doing on the prototype for the NASA space
> shuttle at the time. Except, maybe, some of the hatches
> on the Millenium Falcon.
Well I hardly see the purpose of that remark. I appreciate I used the term
"realism" but I've explained above, and surely you understand, that in movie
terms that means "convincing" to the audience, as opposed to a documentary
standard of realism. Sci-fi is portraying things that don't really exist.
Your father's work on the Space Shuttle is meaningless to that; it's like a
film maker in 1900 presuming that a futuristic aeroplane must look like a
hot air balloon.
Movie-making is storytelling and artifice. Artifical lighting is used,
artificial settings, artifical dialogue, all to create a convincing illusion
for the audience. That's all that matters. Putting detail on spaceships is
more convincing to the audience. Often using spaceship moves that are more
appropriate to aircraft works too, because that's the point of reference
people have. It may be that a true-to-the-laws-of-physics-in-space movement
will be less convincing to the audience (except a small minority of
aerospace engineers) than an "unrealistic" one. What matters is how it
looks.
It's much like your previous arguments about how the Enterprise should move.
We don't know how it should move. It doesn't obey the laws of physics as we
know them. What matters is whether it looks cool, and whether it convinces
most ordinary viewers.
>> Nothing was ever the same after that. The
>> inferiority of the effects in, say Doctor Who, became painfully
>> apparent. I suspect as it goes that that's one reason for part of
>> the disappointment expressed about the Star Wars prequels. A lot of
>> middle aged people went to see them expecting the same emotional
>> reaction they'd had to Star Wars. But SW was such a step change in
>> our perceptions; it couldn't be done again. Awesomeness is a
>> relative measure compared to the average.
>
> That would certainly be my opinion of the reaction of
> drooling fanboys who only went to the movies to see
> more and better whiz-bang space battle FX.
Well, Star Wars was a kids movie primarily about whiz-bang space battle FX.
It wasn't Hamlet.
> My disappointment in the SW prequels was the lack of
> engaging characters and the absence of anything in the
> plot that told me something important we didn't already
> know from the first three movies.
Well, Star Wars was a kids movie primarily about whiz-bang space battle FX.
It wasn't Hamlet.
> But you're right about
> one thing: nothing was the same after Star Wars. There
> hasn't been a single successful science fiction film driven
> by a complex, realism-based plot rather than whiz-bang
> space battle FX since.
Blade Runner? Alien?
Science fiction is about wow factors most of the time, thrills and spills
and adventure. If you want reality, go live your normal life. Cinema is
about creating something a bit more thrilling than that. Especially sci-fi.
Take a look at the trailer for say This Island Earth. It's non-stop
promotion of the special effects sequences.
> Maybe if they want STXI to be successful the best course
> would be to fire the writers and actors and just put up two
> hours of Trek ships in battle. They could do a montage of
> all the different designs they considered being blown up,
> climaxing with the appearance of the one they finally chose
>
Oh, don't be so snobbish and silly. You have a fine refined sense of the
aesthetic compared to the dumb sheep, right? Are you in Anybody's gang?
Ian
