Commas are an important tool. Learn to use them.

limitations are what bring out creativity. it forces you to consider what you’re doing carefully, and bring to the screen the things that are ACTUALLY IMPORTANT. rather than every fanciful thought you have. more reflections! more ships! more physics! more cloth movement! i’m the best film maker ever!

i also disagree re: pod racing. a scene built for the inevitable game tie-in if ever i saw one. the pod racing shouldn’t have even been in there. it was ridiculous. it could have been alluded to, or shown in part, but i guess that would been ‘restraint’…
we didn’t actually have to see han solo make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. i’m almost surprised he didn’t add it into the remastered versions…

but you’re right, it’s not all tech. the direction was awful, as was the script. and a lot of the acting. and ALL of the ‘humour’! plus the graphics weren’t even that great. for their time, sure, but boy do they get dated fast. real models/puppets on the other hand actually exist. so the lighting/volume will always be perfect, the details will always be perfect. actors will interact with them perfectly, and they always look like they belong in the scene. they don’t rely on current quickly-dated tech capabilities.

plus i think the second two of the original trilogy were better. because their directors had more reverence for the source material. lucas should have been forcibly restrained, subdued, and replaced, halfway through the filming of ep1:pm.

Part of the charm of the original trilogy is Lucas’s so-called “lived in universe” theory of building the world around his actors by way of scuffed-up sets and dirty, real-world feel technology. Just think of any shot in the first trilogy of the Millennium Falcon, of how the camera would move through the set, how the actors would interact with it, how everything onboard the ship looked like it had been spit out of a space slug: none of that is easy with greenscreen and much of it, particularly how the camera moves, is impossible. This “lived-in universe” was totally absent in the prequels, partly because of it’s “Golden Age” of the Republic setting, but also because of the sets that were built (many were not) each was only partially built and had to be digitally extended in post.

Greenscreen sets often force the director to compose shots in a more static and straightforward manner to facilitate the digital extension, limit his camera movements, and all but eliminates standard coverage. Moreover, it forces director’s to shoot exclusively to storyboard. Even the editing process is hamstrung by being made to cut with only your digitally enhanced footage (in other words, you can’t swap out a shot at the last minute for a better take, because the better take is a greenscreen).

Sure, a great director and cast can compensate for these limitations, but the prequels had neither going for them. Maybe it isn’t solely to blame for the prequels (I would pin that on Lucas’s financial security, which put him in a position where he was able to choose not to collaborate with anyone in any phase of the storytelling, which he did so well in the trilogy, when he was forced to over schedule and money concerns) but greenscreen didn’t do much to help.

the current thinking is that green as a back screen for effects shots works better then blue but some people still use blue. but green is becoming more and more widespread.some people feel green works better then blue and some people still prefer blue screen.

the clone troopers! how come temuera morrison’s face was always cg in the third one when they couldve just use the actual actor… and i have to agree with some of the other posts, its not about nostalgia, the sets and some of the aliens looked alive in the original… even when you watch it now… the star destroyers, the death star, all of them looked like they were actually there. someone mentioned that he liked the look of th naboo fighter, well john, phantom menace used alot of models compared to the last 2.. and the pod racers, alot of those hots weren’t cg. they actual models! thats why they looked great! (except of course when they would crash, those were cg. but still looked great because it was mixed in with actual models.

I do agree with you, it was the story that killed it more than the technology, however, just to play devils advocate, if you watch A New Hope, the effects still hold up pretty well after all these years. Put Phantom Menace in your DVD and those groovy CGI affects just don’t look so sharp as they did when the film came out. I don’t think the effects of the prequels stand up to the “test of time” like the originals do.

It was George NOT letting someone else write and direct. If George just came up with the rough draft of the script, and then handed it over to a good writer and director, the movies would have been awesome.

YES… this is a place for discussion… what I’m saying is that I CLEARLY was not saying ZERO creativity goes into coming up with a concept… but rather the vast majority of the creativity goes into making the concept into a movie.