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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Star Wars - Episode III.5

08:26 / 15.03.05

Star Wars fanboys write the third and a half episode of the saga, and show just how easy it is to make a reasonably polished-looking production on almost no budget.

The trailer is suitably entertaining, and, although the acting quality is pretty dire, the effects and overall finish of the film is startlingly good.

Details lurking at http://www.panicstruckpro.com/revelations/

11:24 / 15.03.05

Wow, does indeed look surprisingly polished.. I find myself looking forward to it, kinda..

17:55 / 15.03.05

But the acting! The acting hurts...

Foust is SO authentic

23:58 / 15.03.05

The link isn't working.

08:07 / 16.03.05

The link isn't working.

The links works; their server doesn't. Doubtless it will be up again shortly.

17:49 / 16.03.05

My reasonable guess is that they got overloaded with downloads.

My pet conspiracy theory is that their offices were ransacked by Lucas's jackbooted *cough, ahem* "stormtroopers." He's terrified that someone will find out you can make a decently convincing cgi spaceship for nothing, and his investors will start banging on his door demanding to know what he's doing with all the money... (I'm guessing "beard polish")

childishly,

~L

miss wonderstarr

20:57 / 16.03.05

Having studied a whole ton of fan films back in the early 21st century, I find it half endearing, half disappointing that this one follows exactly the same conventions:

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fade in and out of 3 intertitles (usually "the BLANK of a BLANK") -- structure based on the official trailer for Episode I.

mournful John Williams intro during title sequence... cutting into bright Star Wars March for faster, wordless montage

longer clips with dialogue, where the acting always starts to jar

lightsaber duel always with some superficial twist (two sabers, two women, purple blade, three duellists)

title with climax of theme tune

one line of dialogue as post-script after titles.
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It's really almost astonishing how unadventurous these trailers are in their structure -- or perhaps how touchingly faithful they remain to the Lucas original, as if quality is measured by how closely it measures up to the official product. Which I suppose is exactly how many people are going to be judging it.

Funny how the acting looks rough even when they're not talking.

Otherwise, effects are superb: in this respect things have moved on significantly since 2001, when I last looked closely at fan trailers.

21:46 / 16.03.05

The effects are quite impressive for a home-made job...but christ, you'd think that they would find SOMEONE who could act. That lantern-jawed woman is just...awful.

I'll still never really understand why people invest so much time and money making these things though.

21:50 / 16.03.05

longer clips with dialogue, where the acting always starts to jar jar.

22:30 / 16.03.05

What is it with the image quality of fan movies? Yes, I know they're shot on low-end equipment, but I've seen home-made video that didn't look like a home movie, so why couldn't this crew, with their obviously high level of technical proficiency, make the cg scenes and the "acting" scenes mesh more smoothly? The discrepancy between the two types of shot make the acting even more dire than it really is. To use a music term, if the viedo could be "mastered" I'm sure that the acting in that short would only be as bad as, say, the acting in Episode I or II.

Can Benny the Ball or any of the other film-industry Barbelithers shed some light on this?

22:54 / 16.03.05

My knowledge of post on the vision side is very limited, but they should certainly be able to downgrade the SFX to match the video stuff. I'd imagine that they are more interested in a) proving that they can do special effects, b) the director wants to show that he can get second unit action stuff down so that they get in the industry that way - as a result, the real stuff and acting is secondary, probably a nuisence, they'd fit right in at Skywalker! But yeah, there are a couple of moments (when the guy with the light thing walks down some stairs into a cavern or something) that look entirely like they are shot on mini-dv or something.

Saying that, the greenscreen backgrounds on Ep III trailer stand out a mile against the real stuff.

06:31 / 17.03.05

I'm sure that the acting in that short would only be as bad as, say, the acting in Episode I or II.

AotC is bad but it ain't that bad.

Ugh, horrible sixthform stuff.

08:30 / 17.03.05

I still can't see it-
but re: with their obviously high level of technical proficiency, make the cg scenes and the "acting" scenes mesh more smoothly?

My guess is that they're not lighting the CG and the live action the same- its a simple mistake to make- but it can end up with 2 contrasting looks- when you create a CG set in most 3D CG programs you have to light it- as you would a live action set- now knowing what wattage and power lamps you had on the live action down to the exact angle is crucal to the two parts meshing together.

Also if you shoot on DV compositing the live action onto the blue screen isn't going to be as smooth - unless your working on high end HD- mini DV simply doesn't have the resolution to make it look seemless- to try and explain briefly the image is made up of less pixels- therefore when you need to composit an element out (the blue screen) its not going to be as smooth and the edges of the image can look messy.

All this said if i try and watch the damn thing i get told that i access is forbidden so what the heck do i know, i'm just guessing!

03:08 / 18.03.05

I just saw the trailer for this and I have a question is Palpatine the same person as Darth Sidious? I always thought they were and I know they're "both" played by Ian McDiarmid... but in the new trailer Darth Sidious looks inhuman while Palpatine is a relatively good-looking older man. Is one a clone of the other? Does Sidious just have a glamour around himself. Does the Darkside change him physically? If you know let me know cause this is really bugging me.

06:36 / 18.03.05

Are joking?

If not I suggest that you a) read this thread properly, and b) go read the thread on RotS.

09:01 / 18.03.05

ok the sites open again now and i've seen it- what the fark?!

this is such an odd thing?! The acting does look horrible- also if you watch the teaser trailer it shows some different stuff- and it looks apalling! The CG in the final trailer does look pretty impressive- although some of the keying isn't great- however the acting is fucking awful- leading to the question- Why bother! You can't put it out commercially cos Lucas will put a clamp on it- I'm actually suprised he hasn't tried already? Especially with its release date clashing with RotS?

Why not use that expertise and make something original that can be shown on TV and stuff? I was especially shocked by the teaser- please if you've not seen it yet go back and look-
the line aren't you a little short for a storm trooper has nothing on the midget emperers guard seen lurking in the background.

It also looks really weirdly shot- one of the things with movies like star wars is they use dollys and cranes to add to the slickness of the camera moves- some of this stuff looks like it was shot by the same DV camera guy that shoots 'Funky Handheld Camera' on changing rooms or summit- horrible, just horrible- also in the teaser theres CG which isn't finished yet so we have what looks like computer games cut with bad student film- all in all it reminded me of the Steve Coogan TV movie- Cruise of the Gods, in which fans pay to interact with their scifi heros...

all in all fairly depressing

20:06 / 15.03.06

I just discovered this thread and am very curious to go home from work and watch it (can't view @ work). But I thought this might be a fun place to put news about the upcoming SW TV show (instead of the more cliche place to put such news, the main Ep. III thread):

from BBC News:

Star Wars series to run and run

The TV series spin-off of the Stars Wars film franchise will run to at least 100 episodes, according to producer Rick McCallum.

He told BBC Radio 1 the writing team would soon be meeting to start on the project, which would begin filming in 2008 and be ready the same year.

"Hopefully if we can make it work and everybody's excited and watches it we will keep on going," said McCallum.

The series will be set between episodes three and four of the film saga.

It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers.

McCallum said there would be "a whole bunch of new characters" and the series would be "much more dramatic and darker".

- Huge franchise

He added that it was unlikely any of the stars of the movies would be involved in the TV series.

Star Wars creator George Lucas has just completed writing the script for the next Indiana Jones film and will then begin work on Red Tails, about African-American pilots in World War II.

Following completion of that film, work will begin on the Star Wars TV series.

There has already been a Star Wars series spin-off in the shape of the animated Clone Wars, which began as three-minute episodes before they were expanded to 30-minute shows.
-----------------------------------------------------

I read in another version of this article online from somewhere that McCallum said the series would probably have 'a few bounty hunters to start out with' in major roles.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

14:22 / 16.03.06

This trailer is interesting, but pretty standard fan film stuff, complete with well done saber effects + crap fight training. Actually, kind of like Anakin in Ep2...

If you have not, you should give a look to Art of The Saber, a short fan film made by a pair of brothers who do kung fu.