Star Wars Anthology shit talk (Rogue One, Young Solo, TBD)

If the new in-canon extended universe has given us anything, it is that the Emperor is a total motherfucker who encouraged his underlings in their constant fraternal conflicts in the sith tradition to both harden their abilities and winnow out the weaker ones. Krennic (Mendelsohn's character) did not come up with the huge space weapon design but by the time this film rolls around he's forgotten that, and it's his project despite others wanting to co-opt it. Obviously it's not his after this movie!

Netflix heads-up: they're still streaming at least the first two "Ip Man" films, starring Donnie Yen

On sale, and all.

lol fandango's email service is useless

Waiting in Alamo's virtual line. We'll see.

Got mine. I don't think even Douglas Adams would have imagined a virtual queue being such an effective Turing test.

Hahah a fine comparison. Got mine as well -- was hoping for opening weekend but my preferred times weren't open for purchase so afternoon of the 22nd will have to do. (Already have the day off work to start my Christmas break so hey.)

Donnie Yen is my number one reason for wanting to see this. saying that, they totally wasted the guys from The Raid in force awakens

Also,

http://www.avclub.com/article/rogue-one-presales-nearly-take-down-fandango-246517

I got Friday night at 7:30pm at one of the better theaters nearby (a Cinemark). I tried to get Thursday night but it was sold out within about 3 minutes.

People can't wait for twenty minutes in their climate-controlled homes for the Internet to sell them a ticket, but they'll stand outside in December for an hour to get a seat.

This is why we aren't doing anything substantial about climate change, isn't it.

Sorta

When I was in high school, the Return of the Jedi rerelease was opening and some people I knew were standing in line all day at the city's largest theater. The thing is, until I got there about an hour before showtime, there were only about 20 people in line and it was a 700 seat theater. I think we rolled by and yelled "neeeerds" at the dudes in Jedi robes

Tom are you seeing it at Air & Space?

is any of the film in imax?

i would roll my eyes but lol my downtown silver spring theater is nearly as expensive as air and space

i feel like my 5-y-o might not QUITE be up for this? on the other hand he watched han solo get knifed by his own son a year ago

Even though director Gareth Edwards didn’t shoot Rogue One on IMAX cameras, and he didn’t shoot the movie on 70mm or 65 mm film like Christopher Nolan might have, he did shoot the movie on the Arri Alexa 65 camera, which is essentially a digital version of a 65mm camera. That means we’ll be getting quite the widescreen spectacle on IMAX screens, one that has a larger surface area of imagery that was captured by the camera and will be projected onto a massive screen for maximum visual potential.

off-topic (but distantly related since Marvel and Lucasfilm are both Disney?) url but I thought this was good: http://screenrant.com/marvel-studios-movie-color-grading-mcu/

the Arri Alexa is the same camera Marvel's been using, but it's also the one used for Fury Road and Jupiter Ascending, both of which look excellent imo

I have no idea if there's any ongoing communication between Edwards and Rian Johnson, but Johnson and his DP, Steve Yedlin, definitely have a strong handle on what kind of processing digital requires.

But yeah, my post-processing obsession aside, there's no reason this sucker wouldn't look great in IMAX

(seriously though, who the fuck at Marvel Studios came up with this completely flat color scheme)

Neat little vid, but my own aesthetic choices was always to max out the contrast and vividness with any photography I shot, from scanning in rock pics from my SLR 15 years ago to cat photos shot on my iPhone 7+.

So I'm biased as fuck. But seriously, there's no reason the films can't look hyper-stylized to match the hyper-reality of the characters. Like this:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cieEzdkuhoo/UiQkN2G9hxI/AAAAAAAARn8/Qgzf8Ev-a5k/s1600/tobattle.jpg

otm, I felt like the Dr. Strange visuals were good but the colors should have been wild

fwiw I guess Episode VIII is on film, probably some hangover from the Abrams decision to shoot that way

Rogue One looks amazing so far on digital, as far as I can tell by watching the trailers

I dunno - I like the way the MCU films look, especially compared to the DC stuff. Yeah, the color grading is more subtle, but it adds to the feeling of... maturity? that they all have. I don't know how good it would look to have all of the A-list actors that Marvel manages to get traipsing around some hyper-colored world.

did you watch that video? imo there's a difference between subtle and "we didn't even tweak the color curve"

like at least come up with a good house style

Agree with that dude re Marvel's color grading. Really bothered me in Avengers Assemble and Winter Soldier especially.

I watched the video. Pretty sure they're not just printing footage straight out of the camera! Maybe they were probably trying to match the Nolan Batman stuff?

but it adds to the feeling of... maturity? that they all have

But I think that's just an outgrowth of the assumption or the arbitrary culture-wide decision that only certain visuals are acceptable to communication certain themes. It's a cinematic equivalent of joyless dour austerity that doesn't connect with the joy that can be inherent in your genre. I figure it's a fixation on look and figuring the deeper bits will just come along naturally. Maturity seems more the result of how you handle or portrait emotions and decisions and choices, and those can be blown-out and oversaturated as possible, if you get the portrayal part right.

I wonder how much --if any -- of their decision-making process for these movies is guided by looking forward to the home video market. Aren't there still TVs that can't reproduce pure black?

most televisions can't do pure black, unless you have an OLED screen, although the majority of newer ones do fine and it doesn't stop people from watching the majority of content which does have at least some pure black

the complaint is not that they did nothing, but that the color grading is pretty uniformly bland and lacks one specific thing (pure black) that'd help a lot even without tuning the rest of the color scale

fwiw there were a lot of complaints about the Snyder Superman movie having a horrible palette too, but that's kind of its own thing

the nolan films definitely had pure black values, but also were shot on film iirc

I'm going to drop this in here as well, admitting I'm guilty of talking about this in nearly every genre film thread now and I'll step back: https://storify.com/tvaziri/steve-yedlin

The gist of it is that film, depending on the type and usage, has a very specific color grade depending on what you use, and production tools are used to tweak that much more with digital processing but you retain that base color curve that some color scientist at kodak or wherever probably worked out over decades. Shooting on digital actually captures much more color data, giving you free reign to nondestructively adjust the palette in all kinds of ways (some of which are just a wise decision to emulate a film stock, realizing that the work's been done in another medium). So, given relatively endless possibilities... do something with it, even if it's a throwback kind of emulation!

Rogue One looks pretty awesome

I think that the MCU look was calculated so that people would talk about the characters and the stories and the action, and that every review wouldn't spend a bunch of time discussing how distracting the look was. The characters are all heavily saturated primary colors, doing outlandish things all the time. Remember that the first Iron Man movie was a huge gamble and the way the MCU has panned out only really felt like a "sure thing" after Joss Whedon actually managed to not fuck up the first Avengers movie. Intentionally conservative color calibration and muted contrast makes sense to me in that context.

Back to Rogue One: Interesting chatter in the latest Empire magazine re: Edwards' shooting on this :

(Kathleen Kennedy) " Crafting it through the lens is very much a product of his style...but it's very, very hard to do inside these giant movies where you have to plan everything. Finding that balance for Gareth was tough." (end quote) And then this from the author of the piece: "It is also the reason why John Knoll's brainchild is giving him such a headache now, during these final stages. Because Edwards doesn't block his scenes out ahead of shooting, instead allowing the actors to find and hit their own marks while the cameras roll, 'that can make it a little harder to make sure you have bluescreens in the right places.' Sometimes Knoll would just have to say, ' Okay, we shot it, but there weren't any tracking marks (to indicate where VFX elements would go). (...) So, he admits, "it's been a little harder in post." (...) You do get that spontaneity in-camera that outweighs those concerns (...)"

I dunno - to me it reads like Edwards brought a really new and refreshing feel to this as a SW film but the executives were flummoxed. I hope that, if this ends up being a great SW film, he's allowed to make another. Though seems like he may have rocked the boat a bit for these people.

Or maybe I'm projecting since I work with "creatives" all the time and they are often freaked out if production templates are not adhered to, even if it means a potentially better product.

Though I also see Knoll's point about having to do more post VFX work if kept shots occurred without bluescreen in the b-ground. Guess it's a good a time as any for someone to come up with tech that allows for dropping in bluescreen after the fact - somehow? Though impossible to do if shooting on film, I'd imagine.

tbh the idea of not storyboarding a star wars movie is legit terrifying to me but i am kinda anal about preplanning lol

not blocking i mean

you totally have an 'X' under your desk chair to indicate where it goes

y

MCU muted colors suck and is why none of the films stand out visually. feels like a stylistic choice regurgitated from the 90s to pander to the manbaby demographic. there is a cultural line from Image Comics to Limp Bizkit's "Faith" to Gears of War to those "gritty", "dark", desaturated fucking movies.

Star Wars seems to sill be colorful though who knows w this Rogue One thing.

Muted colors equalling "gritty"? -- I blame Matt Mahurin.

the executives were losing their shit over Edwards' handling of this movie so I dont know if the final product is 'his vision'. it sounds like they basically fired him. I have a good source on this but I cant name names.. hes currently working on episode 8.

to compare, episode 8 is already in the can with about a day or so's worth of reshoots and about a year to do post production. rogue one is a dumpster fire that has 50m worth of reshoots being done the summer before release. I hope it works out.

I knew I could believe in Rian Johnson

If one judges by the look of the trailers Rogue One at least *looks* fantastic. Much more visually epic and exciting than JJ Abrams' "TV Guy With A Big Budget" approach on Force Awakens. If Edwards was indeed fired at would be cool if he went out with the best looking SW film to date.

*it would be cool

I have a guy and he confirms what we all know: Darth Vader doesn't fuck. His dick did get burned off. fyi

skipping this one if there isnt at least a jackoff sesh

not to be captain save a jj but if you think force awakens didn't look fantastic you need yr eyes replaced imo

https://cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/thefilmrealm.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/rey-sledding-force-awakens-900.jpg?w=768

i'm psyched for Rogue One but Gareth Edwards track record to me is very much all hat & no cowboy as far as his "visually fantastic" style is concerned. Monsters and Godzilla were 90% insufferably boring sweaty characters staring at the horizon and/or running

Xpost ) yes that was one of the few shits where I went "aaah". Not enough of them, imho. My eyes are fine.