Special Edition Truck Chase?

Crack that whip said:
... but OTOH, I do know many people now, particularly younger viewers who've seen CGI and digital composites their whole lives, have a real problem buying older effects with miniatures, matte paintings, photochemical / optical composites, etc. It sucks, but there you go. Given that reality, I don't know that I can fault Lucas for tweaking his movies in ways that (hopefully) make them more palatable to contemporary audiences while still retaining their essence. Raiders and other movies exist first and foremost not to document their own creation and history, but to present a narrative fantasy to the viewer, and anything that detracts from that is potentially a liability, a shortcoming. I'm pretty torn over this instance of revision, though, since as noted the shot worked fine for me.

And why should we cater to a younger generation that cannot appreciate the historical artistic merits of film making and special effects? By that token we should just arbitrarily redo all of the visual effects of all films prior to Jurassic Park just to make them happy? I staunchly disagree with revisionism. If you want to "update" the effects to look modern, that's fine so long as the film is given the addendum that it is an entirely different version and the original theatrical film is preserved independent from the revisionist edition, something Lucas obviously is against.
 

Crack that whip

New member
oki9Sedo said:
Agent Spalko said:
oki9Sedo said:
The matte painting effect was presumably state-of-the-art at the time.
Not true. Matte paintings had been in use for many years before.
And were still in common use then, surely.

Correct. "State of the art" needn't mean they were a recent innovation in 1980/1981, only that they hadn't been supplanted by something newer then, and they hadn't.
 

oki9Sedo

New member
Crack that whip said:
Correct. "State of the art" needn't mean they were a recent innovation in 1980/1981, only that they hadn't been supplanted by something newer then, and they hadn't.

Exactly, the term "state of the art" doesn't mean that its a brand new innovation, just that it has the most advanced it has ever been and not been supplanted by anything else.

eg. the CG in Iron Man is state of the art. CG has been around for over 20 years, but this is the most advanced it has ever been and there isn't anything else to supplant it.
 

God'sRadio

New member
Green screen in the bridge sequence in TOD? Never noticed that - anyone point it out. It is noticeable when they go from 35mm to Super 16 film stock (or whatever), presumably for the shots actually on the bridge (more grain)
 

Darth Vile

New member
Each of the original 3 Indiana Jones movies had state of the art special effects when they were made. Most of them still hold up today (just like the OT Star Wars movies), but some (and only some) of the shots just look weak. They did then and still do now.

If done with a modicum of subtlety, I have no issue with a couple of CGI enhancements. That doesn't make the movie better/worse for me, but I understand why they may want to tweak a couple of shots that they believe were never as good as they should have been.
 

Way of the dodo

New member
The problem is that subtlety, it seems like almost nobody has it. Although it can be achieved, look at the Blade Runner touch-ups, they are really well done and basically invisible.
 

Adamwankenobi

New member
Crack that whip said:
... but OTOH, I do know many people now, particularly younger viewers who've seen CGI and digital composites their whole lives, have a real problem buying older effects with miniatures, matte paintings, photochemical / optical composites, etc. It sucks, but there you go.

It's a sad truth indeed. :sick: :(

Crack that whip said:
Given that reality, I don't know that I can fault Lucas for tweaking his movies in ways that (hopefully) make them more palatable to contemporary audiences while still retaining their essence. Raiders and other movies exist first and foremost not to document their own creation and history, but to present a narrative fantasy to the viewer, and anything that detracts from that is potentially a liability

In my opinion, anyone who can't enjoy the film simply because of their taste in ADD-catering effects, needs to mature a few years or ten. :whip:
 
Travis85 said:
If this technology was available at the time these movies were made, they would have used it.

What that's a Chicken and the Egg argument. Surely if digital had been around since Day 1 of the movie industry it would have been used but the fact that it wasn't is part of the evolutionary process. Films used to be in black and white before color and there were similar debates over the colorizing of film, especially when Ted Turner got his hands on the classics. Film is a historical document. By that argument why don't we just get rid of all books and make them all digital?
 

Travis85

New member
Since the original movies are already available on DVD, the retouched versions would not replace them, but exist along side them.
 
I wouldn't be too sure. Each time the Star Wars Special Editions are released Lucas makes even MORE subtle changes. This is, after all, the man who changed the title to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and wanted to remove the scene where Indy shoots the Cairo Swordsman because it was too violent.
 

Michael24

New member
Agent Spalko said:
wanted to remove the scene where Indy shoots the Cairo Swordsman because it was too violent.

Do you mean at the time of filming or more recently? I'd always heard that Lawrence Kasdan thought it was too violent and tried to talk them out of doing it, but not Lucas.
 

Crack that whip

New member
And it should also be noted in all fairness the title is still Raiders of the Lost Ark; the "Indiana Jones and the..." appears only on the packaging / labeling. It's still Raiders of the Lost Ark onscreen when you're actually watching it.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Agent Spalko said:
I wouldn't be too sure. Each time the Star Wars Special Editions are released Lucas makes even MORE subtle changes. This is, after all, the man who changed the title to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and wanted to remove the scene where Indy shoots the Cairo Swordsman because it was too violent.

You do realize that any changes made to Indy had to go by Spielberg and even perhaps Ford first as it's their ''baby'' too? Spielberg is also quite fond of changing his work too, so I don't know why Lucas is always blamed and demonised 100% for everything. If you hate Lucas so much, you should hate the Indy movies too, because it was his original concept which he brought to George Lucas. And every Indy film starts with a story and idea written by Lucas, which is then fleshed out by the scriptwriters, Spielberg and sometimes Ford. But Indy has his genesis in Lucas, so he should be ''redeemed'' if you will for giving us that.

It's a minor change, in a minor sequence of the film. It's not as if it was changed to where the Cairo Swordsman had a gun and shot first. Why blow something very minor up to epic proportions? It's not like whether the shot is a matte or is cleaned up a little effects the film's plot or outcome, nor does it affect the way you originally viewed it.
 
Raiders112390 said:
You do realize that any changes made to Indy had to go by Spielberg and even perhaps Ford first as it's their ''baby'' too? Spielberg is also quite fond of changing his work too, so I don't know why Lucas is always blamed and demonised 100% for everything.

It's a minor change, in a minor sequence of the film. It's not as if it was changed to where the Cairo Swordsman had a gun and shot first. Why blow something very minor up to epic proportions? It's not like whether the shot is a matte or is cleaned up a little effects the film's plot or outcome, nor does it affect the way you originally viewed it.

At least Spielberg put all 3 versions of Close Encounters on Bluray while Lucas refuses to give the fans a proper treatment of the original theatrical versions of his films. Just be glad Steven and Ford have veto over George otherwise we'd be getting more than the Han Shoots First controversy. I don't trust George period.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Agent Spalko said:
At least Spielberg put all 3 versions of Close Encounters on Bluray while Lucas refuses to give the fans a proper treatment of the original theatrical versions of his films. Just be glad Steven and Ford have veto over George otherwise we'd be getting more than the Han Shoots First controversy. I don't trust George period.

But why? Should an artist be allowed to alter his or her art? After all, it is their creation--not ours. We can enjoy it and have fun viewing but it is theirs at the end of the day.

And I have the new DVDs. That scene looks pretty much the same to me, except cleaned up i.e. remastered, but not altered with CGI. But the whole film looks cleaned up, which imo is a good thing, and is a necessary thing.
 
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