06-10-2008, 02:19 PM
George Lucas used to be a hero of mine, being the creative genuis behind the original star wars trilogy and Indiana Jones he offered much to admire to meas a youngster. This shy, quiet spoken man reminded us of the true magic of cinema in a decade when gritty realism was the fashion (1970's).
Then George invented ILM (industrial light magic for the uninformed fuckwits among you) a company dedicated to researching new and innovative ways to create special effects in the cinema. Things started well with many innovations, computerised motion capture, matte paintings, minature animation, animatics instead of storyboards etc then things took a bizarre turn.
Suddenly George seemed to become even more enamoured with computer generated imagery than the craft of filmmaking itself.As the hideous prequel trilogy proved, out were the memorable characters, subtle humour, quickfire dialogue and well edited action sequences. In came the faceless, emotionaless characters, the stilted dialogue, the wooden performances, the endless, never ending CGI. Out went the charm, the spirit of adventure, spaceships you felt you could reach out and touch. In came the cartoony spaceships and characters with no tangible quality, layering effect, upon effect, upon effect until the effect was no longer special.
Now there is a new Star Wars film to be released The Clone Wars a feature film made entirely using CGI animation - ::dunno::
CGI animation can be used to create great films :- Toy Story 1 & 2, the Shrek films, The incredibles, but these films all had strong believable characters at their heart, the technological wizardry on display took second place to the story and the characters.
George has lost his way and is at an age when surely his passion for CGI is now out of control.
Do the honest thingGeorge, either step away, or sacrifice yourself like Obi Wan Kenobi did in A New Hope, let younger more creative hands shape the future of the Star Wars universe, and maybe then the true magic can return.
Then George invented ILM (industrial light magic for the uninformed fuckwits among you) a company dedicated to researching new and innovative ways to create special effects in the cinema. Things started well with many innovations, computerised motion capture, matte paintings, minature animation, animatics instead of storyboards etc then things took a bizarre turn.
Suddenly George seemed to become even more enamoured with computer generated imagery than the craft of filmmaking itself.As the hideous prequel trilogy proved, out were the memorable characters, subtle humour, quickfire dialogue and well edited action sequences. In came the faceless, emotionaless characters, the stilted dialogue, the wooden performances, the endless, never ending CGI. Out went the charm, the spirit of adventure, spaceships you felt you could reach out and touch. In came the cartoony spaceships and characters with no tangible quality, layering effect, upon effect, upon effect until the effect was no longer special.
Now there is a new Star Wars film to be released The Clone Wars a feature film made entirely using CGI animation - ::dunno::
CGI animation can be used to create great films :- Toy Story 1 & 2, the Shrek films, The incredibles, but these films all had strong believable characters at their heart, the technological wizardry on display took second place to the story and the characters.
George has lost his way and is at an age when surely his passion for CGI is now out of control.
Do the honest thingGeorge, either step away, or sacrifice yourself like Obi Wan Kenobi did in A New Hope, let younger more creative hands shape the future of the Star Wars universe, and maybe then the true magic can return.
We need to punish the French, ignore the Germans and forgive the Russians - Condoleezza Rice.