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Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (JJ Abrams 2015)


crocodile

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Apes.. and real animals, and humans are more difficult to do than orcs, aliens or other invented creatures.

Because we know how the real things is and we can compare to it.

There are very few scenes in few films with true photorealistic animals. Humans are not still done believable in close ups.

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Abrams: “I knew that he had done in some movies a kind of more growly thing, and I didn’t want Han to be growly. There was a fire in his eyes that you see in the movie.”

Hope this is accurate.

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I'm fine with performance capture. I'm not being negative about that. I mean that I don't want to be ripped out of the film by the contrast of everything in a scene being practical and just one big CGI slap in the face. Apes are easy to be convinced because they're real. Look at Lurtz in LOTR compared to Azog in Hobbit. I know which one I'd prefer.

I actually disagree about the apes. The fact that they exist and you know how they move and look in real life makes the CGI quite harder to pull off

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Just saying that Guardians of the Galaxy having CG creatures is fine for a film filled with CGI. Abrams is trying everything to go practical. Building huge sets and making costumes and masks and makeup instead of CGI aliens, yet they make her characters fully CGI? It might look obvious and out of place. I don't want to see a well lit scene outside with real locations, sets and actors dressed as aliens and then Nyong'o walks in full CGI.

You underestimate ILM. They pretty much always do stellar work, and given there are likely fewer effects shots in the film (and digital extensions) they'll have more time to perfect the character.

I agree. Those CGI apes in the recent POTA films don't look realistic at all

Maurice looked real to me. The others are getting pretty darn good.

New Vanity Fair video. Set footage included (with John Williams making an appearance!). Some piano music at the beginning, probably not Williams. It could be though...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/05/star-wars-the-force-awakens-vanity-fair-cover

For some reason that video wouldn't play for me on mobile this morning so here's a youtube version

Now it all makes sense why they paired Boyega and Ridley with Ford for the cover; Leibovitz visited the set while they were in the desert so of course those three characters would be together and not Oscar Isaac's X-Wing pilot character, who these characters must meet up with later.

~~~

More new pictures at this link:

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/05/star-wars-force-awakens-photos

5543ca95db753b82389cbd94_vanity-fair-sta

Reminds me of 2005 Doctor Who!

I love that huge guy in the middle.

Is thst a Rancor to the right?

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You know Disney is serious about the movie to get Annie freaking Leibovitz to come over and take shots of the cast. Maybe they'll have her work on the poster artwork like she did with Cinderella. I don't know if she can conjure a Struzan-type atmosphere.

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I recognize the shiny being at left as looking like a McQuarrie sketch. But nothing else looks familiar, as if every alien in the new movie is new. I realize it's a big galaxy, but still.

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I love that huge guy in the middle.

Oh, that's a Trandoshan! It even has the same Y-Wing pilot outfit as Boskk.

The guy in the right side, in the full photo (the masked red one) i think it is a Kaleesh, in other words, the same species as general grievous.

This is completely real. I couldn't tell at all.

Well, yes, Maurice was good. But mainly because he does not move very fast or make weird antics.

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Where did you find this scan? Is the rest of the article online?

From here: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/photos/2015/03/star-wars-portfolio (though it now looks as if they took down the Episode VII material)

The end of the article was missing from the images they did have up, but all the images were higher-res than the initial ones that hit. Here are high-res versions of the images themselves: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/photos/2015/05/star-wars-the-force-awakens-photos-annie-leibovitz

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Where do you guys see a Rancor?

The creature next to the guy with the red mask reminded me of a Rancor. (I miswrote left instead of right in my original post)

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i really hope this film turns out to be what we all want it to be.

It depends on what you want. If you're expecting a glorious return to form to the franchise, you'll almost surely be disappointed. I'm trying to keep my expectations in check. It should be a fun J.J Abrams action movie in the Star Wars mold. It won't be a contender for "Movie of the Year" but it should at least be a fun time at the movies.

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No, I just want something that feels right. Star Wars was never what you looked to for "movie of the year" status. It was what you looked to for good spirited fun and maybe one or two worthwhile life lessons. Give me that, Abrams.

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No, I just want something that feels right. Star Wars was never what you looked to for "movie of the year" status. It was what you looked to for good spirited fun and maybe one or two worthwhile life lessons. Give me that, Abrams.

Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back were.

As somebody who (unfortunately) knows a lot about the movie's plot. I think your criteria will probably be satisfied.

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I'd like to see it return the franchise to a respectable position. Something that's worth being "into." I have a particular stake in the very young generation (five years or so) having some worthy pop-culture thing to cherish. So far it's a wasteland. I'd love for this to be something real for them.

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That reminds me, I never feel satisfied after an Abrams movie. I guess he succeeds in entertaining the audience (in a very rudimentary way) but I always end up with an unpleasant feeling of emptiness. Will Star Wars bring out a different director in Abrams? Doubtful but we shall see.

Alex

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That reminds me, I never feel satisfied after an Abrams movie. I guess he succeeds in entertaining the audience (in a very rudimentary way) but I always end up with an unpleasant feeling of emptiness. Will Star Wars bring out a different director in Abrams? Doubtful but we shall see.

Alex

J.J Abrams' films aren't masterpieces but I still find all of them much more satisfying than most modern blockbusters including some of the better ones, like the MCU films.

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That reminds me, I never feel satisfied after an Abrams movie. I guess he succeeds in entertaining the audience (in a very rudimentary way) but I always end up with an unpleasant feeling of emptiness. Will Star Wars bring out a different director in Abrams? Doubtful but we shall see.

Alex

J.J Abrams' films aren't masterpieces but I still find all of them much more satisfying than most modern blockbusters including some of the better ones, like the MCU films.

I'm complaining about their shallowness. I'm not asking for masterpieces.

I'm not a Trekkie but I hear they complain about that too (Abrams making Star Trek juvenile and such).

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I'm not a Trekkie but I hear they complain about that too (Abrams making Star Trek juvenile and such).

Judged against the Trek criteria, they're shallow but when viewed with the summer action (or Star Wars) movie criteria, they're pretty good. I don't really see them as any less shallow than all of the other modern blockbuster films.

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But the scrips by Orzi, Kurtzman and Lindelof are far more problematic then JJ's direction

Yeah. The scripts themselves aren't that great. J.J's exciting direction is what really makes the films work for me.

The involvement of Lawrence Kazdan in TFA will probably help a lot.

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