Ghisallo Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 (edited) I was just wondering if Lucas purposefully made the puppet look bad so he could say "see doesn't the CGI look better? I do under stand that for Yoda being all "monkey style kung-fu" he had to use CGI but still.... Okay Episode 1. here is puppet and then CGI side by side. https://youtu.be/wxaZxpNTm8A?t=74 Now Empire... https://youtu.be/M_QcRPNfUuE?t=68 am I just seeing things or is that Puppet from Episode 1 just looking bad on purpose? I mean if you look at Empire and the CGI you could say "yeah that's the same <whatever species he is>" but the puppet from episode I? uggh Edited April 22, 2015 by Ghisallo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beniboybling Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Hey pal, I think you've got something on your head... is that, tin foil? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fyurii Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I really doubt that was the intent. Jar-Jar, Sebulba, Jabba and the other Hutt (Gardula I think), the pod race commentator, the Gungans, and even the zoomed out shot of Yoda walking & talking to Obi-Wan on Naboo. All CGI. It's around 30 years before he's first met by Luke on Dagobah, and they just wanted to show a younger looking Yoda. However, the puppet still looked bad in comparison to the one from ESB & RoTJ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarknessInLight Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 (edited) I was just wondering if Lucas purposefully made the puppet look bad so he could say "see doesn't the CGI look better? I do under stand that for Yoda being all "monkey style kung-fu" he had to use CGI but still.... Okay Episode 1. here is puppet and then CGI side by side. https://youtu.be/wxaZxpNTm8A?t=74 Now Empire... https://youtu.be/M_QcRPNfUuE?t=68 am I just seeing things or is that Puppet from Episode 1 just looking bad on purpose? I mean if you look at Empire and the CGI you could say "yeah that's the same <whatever species he is>" but the puppet from episode I? uggh You're gonna get a lot of prequel haters on this topic saying that the original puppets were this or that. It's all hot air honestly and should be ignored as it is not productive to your conversation/topic. Now, to your question. The puppet used in Empire and Return was a great live action prop. It worked. No question. The one from Phantom, however, was based on Lucas' efforts to make Yoda appear younger. That particular puppet failed because it didn't look real, for one thing, and Yoda wouldn't have aged that much in that short of a time period. 30 years is a minute for Yoda given that his species can live almost a millenium. Lucas tried too hard with the creation of that puppet. The CGI Yoda used in Clones, Revenge and later Phantom(via the Blu Ray) is closer to the puppet used in Empire while allowing for a more active and believable Yoda character before his imposed 20 year exile. This Yoda pays homage to the original Puppet in Empire by using it as its model. Edited April 22, 2015 by DarknessInLight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 (edited) Hey pal, I think you've got something on your head... is that, tin foil? Well my thought process was this. From the jump George said he wanted a CGI Yoda for the first movie but couldn't pull it off (for whatever reason). Heck he was having issues with the puppet in Empire. So my thought was maybe he said "I don't really care how the puppet doesn't look like the Henson consulted one because I am going to be replacing it anyway." Its interesting actually how two popular film makers are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Lucas who whenever possible wants CGI over puppets and props and Del Toro who will fight to use puppets and props over CGI. Edited April 23, 2015 by Ghisallo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IchibanSaru Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 Well my thought process was this. From the jump George said he wanted a CGI Yoda for the first movie but couldn't pull it off (for whatever reason). Heck he was having issues with the puppet in Empire. So my thought was maybe he said "I don't really care how the puppet doesn't look like the Henson consulted one because I am going to be replacing it anyway." Its interesting actually how two popular film makers are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Lucas who whenever possible wants CGI over puppets and props and Del Toro who will fight to use puppets and props over CGI. According to the behind the scenes extras regarding EP1, the technology wasn't in place at ILM to make a cg Yoda that would play as "realistic." ILM was all proud of itself that it had a small scene of a cg Yoda walking with his cane, but knew they still had a ways to go before the face could be mastered. Lucas wanted a cg Yoda, but ILM couldn't deliver one to his satisfaction in time so he went with the puppet. Little did Lucas and ILM know that Gollum was being made by WETA around the same time. By the time EP2 came out, ILM had their cg Yoda ready for prime time. In the meantime, Gollum changed the industry in terms of face motion capture and emoting. Yoda was behind the curve, being a cg homage of a puppet from a movie 20 years earlier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 The thing is I think you NEEDED the homage. Sometimes going all in on tech isn't good. If you were introducing Yoda for the first time I would say indeed "go all in." However Yoda not only already existed but is, imo at least, one of the most seminal characters in the History of Sci-Fi movies. Having Yoda look measurably different just because technology let's you do so would be like Changing Vader into a General Grievous like character simply because you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IchibanSaru Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 The thing is I think you NEEDED the homage. Sometimes going all in on tech isn't good. If you were introducing Yoda for the first time I would say indeed "go all in." However Yoda not only already existed but is, imo at least, one of the most seminal characters in the History of Sci-Fi movies. Having Yoda look measurably different just because technology let's you do so would be like Changing Vader into a General Grievous like character simply because you can. I'm not saying the homage was the wrong thing. Simply that Gollum, not being constrained by a previous iteration outside of 1970s animated movie wasn't constrained. And with Weta being young, hungry and full of rogue talent. like ILM was in during the first trilogy caused the delay. The Gollum who gets brief cameos in the FoTR is an early crude model compared to what was shown in TT. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Weta were the guerrilla effects team and ILM had become bloated and with no driving spirit. Tons of talent, but no spiritual push. ILM was hamstrung by Lucas' "vision" and nobody dared say no to him. They should've just replicated the 1980 Yoda puppet (with more articulation) and called it a day. The cg Yoda was a huge disconnect from the Yoda in ESB and RoTJ. ILM lost its way (with the Prequals) because of Lucas' micro management of every single thing. ILM's Ep1 Yoda team were made to take cues from Lucas rather than the original reference character itself (with Lucas' new "young" Yoda look). Then the cg Yoda looks absolutely nothing like the new puppet, but rather goes back more to the original. Sure, time had passed between Ep1 and 2, but Lucas had painted himself into a corner and retconned his way out with the cg and tried to wave his hand to make us forget his "great" idea about a young, vibrant Yoda. He deleted that thing the soonest chance he had. That's the problem when nobody has the guts to say "no" to a guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 And that was the problem with most of the stuff he did tbh. Hell I think even he knows it. If you don't realize, even subconsciously, that you are being a virtual tyrant and messing with stuff for no real reason, do you forbid the "original edition" after you publish a "remastered" or directors cut? No you do not, and that is precisely what he did with these movies. Add to the fact that it makes NO sense that a guy who lives for 900 years old would look so different after 20...the difference between episode 1 and 5 is about that. 2% of your lifetime? Are you kidding me? That is why I think the "I was looking for a younger Yoda" is BS. That wasn't brought up until people said "wth is up with Yoda?!?!? He looks like a freak!!!!". I honestly think that excuse is just that an excuse. I think he said " just get it done...when you fix the CGI I will issue a remastered edition" and then when he got called out on it pulled an excuse out of his butt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlrikFassbauer Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 I was just wondering if Lucas purposefully made the puppet look bad so he could say "see doesn't the CGI look better? Never watched the Muppes TV series ? Bad. Someone I once knew (he claimed to be a Star Wars fan) seriously believed that George Lucas was purposefully forcing all other SW novel authors to write WORSE novels than the original OT novels ... Because these novels were by far the best ones, he said. He never liked the Thrawn Trilogy, for example, and he didn't like it because he didn't like Psychology (and therefore Thrawn's psychology games) and too much talk. All he liked and loved was action. Nothing else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IchibanSaru Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 That is why I think the "I was looking for a younger Yoda" is BS. That wasn't brought up until people said "wth is up with Yoda?!?!? He looks like a freak!!!!". I honestly think that excuse is just that an excuse. I think he said " just get it done...when you fix the CGI I will issue a remastered edition" and then when he got called out on it pulled an excuse out of his butt. I actually think Lucas thought a "younger more vibrant" Yoda was a genius idea at the time of its conception. At times, he seems to forget his own mythology in terms of time (other examples: Jedi overseeing peace for a thousand generations before the Empire or Leia remembering her birth mother). Once again... nobody had the guts to say "George. That's not going to work. In movie X, it was said that it was Y. You can't make it Z now." The negative feedback the Ep1 Yoda puppet received made him have to rethink the age thing and fall back on a more realistically aged Yoda in the form of cg. The same thing happened to Jar Jar Binks. Lucas had plans to make him a huge part of the entire prequel trilogy... but after the fan reactions, he was forced to essentially write him out of the story for the most part. Lucas loves to retcon himself. The problem is, he's not aware that he's doing it until after the fact. Lucas said it himself "You can do it. You can destroy these things if you're not careful." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted April 24, 2015 Author Share Posted April 24, 2015 To your last sentence yeah he said that. He also had arrogant times when he lashed out at people saying "they are just movies, not the bible" or some such when people were pissed at all the CGI he added to "A New Hope" and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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