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Villeneuve's DUNE


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56 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

Star Wars tends to get bonus points for being the first movie that started it all.


Yeah, it’s more the novelty than then anything else.

 

Not that I mean to sound too flippant: the film definitely has its own charms: it’s a more personal film in the sense that it’s imbued with autobiographical flourishes, it’s a movie that has a “meta” level to it insofar as it’s constantly referencing other films and works of fiction. It’s also a “New Hollywood” movie in the sense of its commentary on the Vietnam War (something absent from Empire and hamfisted into Jedi).

 

But it’s also much more the B-movie. True, it’s an unpresumptuous B-movie, but still a B. The Empire Strikee Back has more of the feeling of an A-picture. Even people working on the film felt it was all getting much more earnest. And the biggest budget also helps: I mean, what Lucas did on $11 million was pretty astonishing, but there are definitely spots where you feel the limits of time and money bearing on the film in a way that you don’t in Empire.

 

And the miss-en-scene of the original film I often find uninspired compared to its sequel: it’s a film whose success hinges more on the script than on anything Lucas does with his camera.

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I’ve only seen a fan restoration once so as to compare the two, and I do agree there are a few shots where the Special Edition makes the film feel a bit “bigger”: the alternate shot of the Sandcrawler is much better than the one in the original film and gives a sense of scale otherwise absent from it.

 

But the basic mood of the film is still much more jolly and upbeat (in a B-movie kind of way) than it’s sequel.

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33 minutes ago, Chen G. said:


I mean, what Lucas did on $30 million was pretty astonishing, but there are definitely spots where you feel the limits of time and money bearing on the film in a way that you don’t in Empire.

 

It's way more astonishing when you know it's actually $11 million.

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Oh, I got the two mixed up: Star Wars was $11 million, Empire was $33.

 

But my point still stands. Star Wars does sometimes feel cramped in its $11 million drawer: the cheapness of Vader's suit, the cheapness of much of the Cantina sequence, etc...

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24 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Oh, I got the two mixed up: Star Wars was $11 million, Empire was $33.

 

But my point still stands. Star Wars does sometimes feel cramped in its $11 million drawer: the cheapness of Vader's suit, the cheapness of much of the Cantina sequence, etc...

 

You're looking at it with today's eyes. Nobody thought it's looked cheap in 1977. Nobody! 

 

But we definitely had some complaints about TESB.

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8 minutes ago, AC1 said:

You're lookibg at it with today's eyes. Nobody thought it's looked cheap in 1977. Nobody! 


1. Of course I’m looking at it from today’s eyes; to do anything else would be disingenuous of me.

 

2. That’s a big statement you make there. I do know even people in the production thought many of the aliens (mostly the Greedo-type ones) looked cheap. 
 

Anyway, my main preference for Empire is not the budget: it’s the tone and feel of the movie.

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14 minutes ago, AC1 said:

...we definitely had some complaints about TESB.

Indeed. Critics were not kind to TESB, and it took less money. ROTJ was received more positively.

 

 

33 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Star Wars does sometimes feel cramped in its $11 million drawer...

Nowadays, people such as Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Daniel Craig, wouldn't even get out of bed, for $11,000,000.

How times have changed...

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2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:


1. Of course I’m looking at it from today’s eyes; to do anything else would be disingenuous of me.

 

 

Then you know that almost all special effects movies get dated, not just Star Wars.

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On 07/11/2021 at 1:22 PM, AC1 said:

Then you know that almost all special effects movies get dated, not just Star Wars.

2001 doesn't. It was way ahead of its time, in 1968, and it's still way ahead of its time, in 2021.

It will never get old, or dated.

The best special effects, ever.

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1 minute ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

2001 doesn’t.


Much of the Stargate sequence has lost much of its luster, and while the spaceships do look great, in some shots the way they move you can really tell it’s a still image being juxtaposed on an animation stand: it just doesn’t always have the sense of depth or the freedom of motion of later films.

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16 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Nowadays, people such as Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Daniel Craig, wouldn't even get out of bed, for $11,000,000.

 

You need to adjust to inflation: In today’s dollars, Star Wars cost around $80 million. It was comparatively low budget, but it wasn’t somekind of shoestring-budget indie.

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1 minute ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

2001 doesn't. It was way ahead of its time, in 1968, and it's still way ahead of its time, in 2021.

It will never get old, or dated.

Then best special effects, ever.

 

Indeed, Richard. Of course, the effects of 2001: ASO were practical instead of photo optical. Same for Alien. However, Star Wars and TESB used a lot of optical effects, which deteriorated the image considerably. While I'm not a fan of Return Of The Jedi, the optical effects technique in that movie was much improved. 

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14 minutes ago, AC1 said:

Indeed, Richard. Of course, the effects of 2001: ASO were practical instead of photo optical. Same for Alien. However, Star Wars and TESB used a lot of optical effects, which deteriorated the image considerably.


That’s not right, surely. Kubrick did try to have as much of 2001 done in-camera as possible, but the net result according to Kubrick himself is that around 50% of the film does involve some-kind of compositing.

 

That it looks better is the combination of having a Uber-pedantic director, a lengthier production schedule and bigger budget than Star Wars, as well as being shot on a larger format (70mm and large-format still photography as opposed to 35mm and Vistavision).

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39 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

That it looks better is the combination of having a Uber-pedantic director, a lengthier production schedule and bigger budget than Star Wars, as well as being shot on a larger format (70mm and large-format still photography as opposed to 35mm and Vistavision).

 

Sorry, but I really think that the fact that we are looking most of the time at practical or physical effects instead of optical effects has a lot to do with it. Bigger budgets are helpful but they don't solve problems with optical effects, which Star Wars,TESB and ROTJ relied heavily on. Having many different elements in one frame left Lucas no choice. 

 

The effects in the OT have been updated and many have forgotten that some of the effects weren't perfect, like the exterior scenes of Cloud City in TESB.

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I'm really not sure what you mean. There are plenty of composites (what you call "optical effects") in 2001. Kubrick estimates that around 50% of the film was composited in some way or another.

 

The individual camera elements in both films are either real models or things fabricated on the animation stand: a fair bit of 2001 is actually animated.

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Me too. Much of the praise stems from the use of practical effects. Maybe because the space behind the miniatures were matte painted is the reason why Chen considers it a composite shot? With optical effects I mean shooting different effects shots and bringing them together in the lab to create a new shot. This means we are already watching copied instead of original footage and the transition or integration is rarely smooth. Of course, it was less noticeable back then when seen on the big screen. I never saw strange cutouts around the spaceships in Star Wars when they were against a black background. I did see it on TV. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
7 hours ago, Tallguy said:

Did someone here point out that Raban does not actually appear in the novel anywhere? He's just talked about?

 

Have you even read the book? of course he appears in the novel

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6 hours ago, AC1 said:

 

In that case ...

 

robert-pattinson-wearing-a-black-suit-pa

 

33726451743_6ef6964dcc_b.jpg

 

This guy has become too big of a movie star now to just flay at the end of the second movie. He's The Batman!

 

But ten years ago, we would've loved to see this lame vampire on a stake. 

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3 hours ago, AC1 said:

I wonder how many more will take Richard's post deadly serious.

No one has ever taken that seriously, the idea is just too terrible for not commenting that this should really not become reality.

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23 hours ago, Romão said:

 

Have you even read the book? of course he appears in the novel

 

I just re-read it last month. He's talked about. He never appears.

 

17 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Ok then, Mr. @Tallguy, enough of the :lol:, why don't you. Who would you choose?

 

No idea. He kind of needs to be the anti-Paul. I don't know the up and coming late teen / early twenty somethings.

 

They have a heavier lift in the next movie because in the book Feyd and the Baron kind of oppose each other (from the same side) and show the reader who each of them are. I think that's part of the reason that the Baron doesn't seem very smart in the movie. He wants the Atreides dead and the Emperor helps him make it happen. He's mean but there aren't plans within plans. Removing Feyd diminished both the Baron and Piter.

 

Funny thing, in the book there is a chapter on Giedi Prime that makes sense narratively but not chronologically. It would fit in well in the next movie, maybe.

 

Feyd is every bit the rapist and deviant that his uncle the Baron is, only he's very heterosexual. I wonder if that will be removed as well.

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Hopefully. If Herbert made the Baron homosexual to make him evil (hey, it was the 60s), and made Feyd hetero to make him sympathetic, then drop both tropes. Just stick with fat, ugly = evil, and beautiful, young = good. As if there's such a thing as a good Harkonnen. 

 

Oh wait. There is a good one. 

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Quote

Dune is really a project that was, for me, focusing entirely on Arrakis and the Fremen planet

 

And yet, it takes thirty minutes to get there (which actually works incredibly well dramatically).

 

Yet another case where you don't look at what the artist says. You look at what they do.

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