Really? Who gives a shit! Outstanding ending to the season. Luke taking the "kid" and a visit with R2D2 Incredible! **** the CGI! I loved it.

After watching back through a second time, judging by their interaction, it's pretty obvious that Grogu and R2 have met in the past.

Clearly several people did as it is a topic of discussion.

Sure. I get that. I've had to sign NDA's before, and there are still things from my military days that I have not been given liberty to discuss (as far as I know) so I know that people can keep secrets. I'm just thinking that something like this would be heard to keep secret and the fewer who knew about it the better. But then Luke was my immediate thought as soon as I saw the scene where Grogu was sending his signal. Maybe even before that. I'm sure if I thought of it then a bunch of other people did too. If they are going to continue doing stuff like this than the Deep Fake crew would be the guys to work with.

Good lord, The Volume is insane:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The MVP of the Trask set was being able to wet everything down and catch that reflective goodness. Would&#39;ve been a nightmare on a greenscreen stage. <br><br>(Although we all know da real MVP of this ep is <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FrogLady?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FrogLady</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/MissMistyRosas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MissMistyRosas</a>) <a href="https://t.co/Q2w1VCdBQM">pic.twitter.com/Q2w1VCdBQM</a></p>&mdash; Ian Milham (@Monkey_Pants) <a href="https://twitter.com/Monkey_Pants/status/1341454331355131904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 22, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Well here’s the thing, and UnderEJ is certainly far better suited to speak about VFX than I am, but “touching up” an already completed visual effect is a very, very different process than actually creating the effect. That takes a team of people working together with a singular vision and those people are "True" artists.

I mean, anyone can take a great photo and change it to look “better”, although 'better' is often times in the eye of the beholder. But creating a person's face using Motion Capture hardware and software while making it look “believable” is a completely different process altogether.

For me, the audio/visual sync was off on the DF version and immediately took me right out of the scene, which made it far more distracting than the original.

MoCap is getting better and better each year with faster processors and there are claims that Apple’s new ARM chip advances rendering time and complicated processes like these to a new level, so the future is brighter than ever before.

LMAO

https://scontent.fmkc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...30&oe=60085D9A

I hope either of Filoni or Favreau gets her spot one day.

ROFL Perfect

Nice.

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/12/jo...et-1234606005/

It's got to be killing that bitch how well Star Wars is doing now that she's been defanged and kicked to the curb.

Go make me turkey pot pie. 4321

LMAO

https://scontent.fmkc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...3e&oe=6009390B

While I'd definitely like to see someone else as president of Lucasfilm, I'd rather Favreau and Filoni continue as Creatives and not Admin/Decision makers. At this point in time, F&F have a Blank Check at Lucasfilm, which allows them to pretty much do whatever they want to do in the Star Wars Universe (and in Favreau's case, he already had Carte Blanche in the MCU as well).

Lucasfilm needs their Kevin Feige, someone far younger than KK and more in touch with not only the source material but fans as well. It needs to be someone that understands filmmakers, such as a successful producer like KK but someone far more in tune with the Star Wars Galaxy.

If either Filoni or Favreau were to take on the role as president, either guy would need to pull back from daily production, like that of The Mandalorian, Rangers of the New Republic and The Book of Boba Fett (along with Robert Rodriguez) to take on more an Executive/Admin role, which would weaken their ability to tell stories and be creative, which is really who they are as people: Storytellers.

Step up, Dane.

Dude, while I greatly appreciate the kind words, the last thing I want to do with my life is to go back to Admin and give up creating every day.

My soul was dying while making other people's dreams come true.

I think that's why George was so good at it.

He sucked at everything else LMAO

At least tell some your buddies or acquaintances at Disney production/ creative team to add certain elements of Lucas' new trilogy treatment elements .

:D

Fair enough, and good non-emotional perspective.

KK can stay on in her current role as long as she takes a 20% pay cut (to help fund future endeavors by F&F) and stays hidden in the shadows of Lucasfilm. I feel like that is reasonable, especially considering the success Lucasfilm has had when she's not determining the course. :D

Legit can't understand why this was so hard for Kathleen Kennedy to figure out. Star Wars is not that hard to make quality content for.

That is incredible!

It’s just absolutely amazing tech and the crazy thing is that it’s still in its relative infancy, as it was developed for Favreau’s Jungle Book and used for that movie, The Lion King and The Mandalorian.

I can’t even imagine what it will be like in 5 years...

I can only imagine how much it helps the actors to see their surroundings.

I watched how the prequels were made and it shows exactly why the actors were shall we say, cold and withdrawn.

Yes, I know they weren't the best actors, but it's got to be hard to act when you are surrounded by nothing but green yet told to act like there is a lot of sci-fi shit going on around you.

I can.

Just had to have a female lead in a male-centric space fantasy.

Then hiring JJ ensured it wouldn't work.

They should have hired Rian from the BEGINNING.

Rian had the right idea (originality), he was just given shit to work with because JJ gave him nothing.

I have to sign an average of 5-6 NDA’s to even talk to them about a position, contract etc.
I have multiple 75 year NDA’s in place or it’s Leavenworth and a military trial. I worked at 5 Fortune 50 companies that got ransomware’d within a year helping them recover, not a peep in the press. I say anything, mention on the resume, bankruptcy and teams of lawyers will be unleashed in me. So needless to say..... NDA’s are no big deal to me. Just business.

Game of Thrones actors did okay with a lot of green screen. Pretending to sit on dragons etc.

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The Star Wars prequels were 90% Blue and Green screen. They had very few on location shots and rarely worked on practical sets.

It was a technological breakthrough, because no one had really ever filmed entire feature films in front of a green screen and no one else had filmed big budget feature films with Digital cameras, either.

Those movies, as panned as they were/are, really ushered in a new age of filmmaking.

That said, the actors definitely struggled with the green screen, as did Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell in Pan.

Spielberg had to work extremely hard with her because she was absolutely miserable during filming. I've never seen the film but supposedly, it's one of the worst, if not the worst, performance of her career.

Yeah, Star Wars needs to find its Feige/Lou Esposito combo.

For all the attention Feige gets, my slightly informed impression is that Lou runs a lot of interference (or at least did at the beginning) to make sure the creative vision is allowed to be set up.

You pretty much got that right on. I just looked at the credits and while most of the work was done by ILM, there are a few other vendors listed. All seem to be trusted lucas/disney/marvel insiders so the work really could have gone to any of them.

I am pretty certain there is a color pass that may have done some damage to the vfx shot on its way to the final output. Somewhere an artist is seething, going "yea we had some trouble with it, but it didn't look THAT bad!"

Here's the other thing. We're all going to have to cut some slack for work created in 2020 because, and I can speak from the experience of closing a show during this pandemic, it has never been harder. Not everyone gets to look at it at full quality because everyone is remote. Even when you do get to physically go into the post vendors to check things, their operators are remote and playback is not frame by frame or even very easy to ask for stopping and backing up. Controlling the hardware of people at home on their own systems is impossible so some monitors are terrible. I feel bad for the team that did this. Every one of those companies has top people. It isn't because they couldn't it in a normal circumstance.

Conveniently the biggest thing I missed that actually made it into theaters is only in the right eye of the 3D version. And no one is really going to see the 3D version. We fixed it for the archive of that version in case they do a rerelease after the pandemic or something.

Something I wondered about when it happened but blew off at the time because the dramatic impact of it was awesome, the Dark Troopers sensing Luke when he showed up:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sXktytrCU5A" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I didn’t watch the video, but you know, proximity sensors exist. Alarms went off in the ship. They’re obviously linked into the ship because they activated them from the bridge.

It is that simple.

This guy has quite the imagination.

The Empire can build amazingly scary and nearly indestructible battle droids but apparently, they haven't come up with LED technology or color cameras because Baby Yoda was watching Luke on an old 10" Black & White CRT.

LMAO

Of course, that was "symbolism" for those of us in the 70's that watched Obi Wan & Vader on B&W TV's on ABC broadcasts but I still found it funny.

:D

LMAO

They still use the basic lcd graphic displays in their ships while targeting in dogfights, too.

Love it.

Yeah, it's definitely part of the charm. :D

You know what I ****ing loved about the VFX in this scene?

They made the lightsabers look almost exactly like they looked in the OT.

When viewed from certain angles there was always a lot of weird distortion on how the lightsaber looked due to the rotoscoping or the flash tape or something.

They incorporated that beautifully into the finale - when there is a tendency to try to make everything look perfect instead most of the time. Like the ST.

It was particularly noticeable on the TV screens on the bridge.

Well, all I know as a fan of the OT and a person who has suffered through every damn Star Wars movie made since, I love the hell out of the Mandalorian. I know there is some deeper shit, like with the Jedi chick with the 2 swords, Mof Gidien and all that but I can tell you as a "casual" Star Wars fan, it has everything I want and more.

I'm SHOCKED at how good this thing is. Given how screwed up and incoherent all the other movies are, I was a late comer to this series. I heard about "baby Yoda" and just about puked. Then I watched it...with my WIFE...and we both love it.

Crazy good. Can't wait for the next season.

Baby Yoda works because Baby Yoda is a vehicle for the audience to enjoy the story.

We are Baby Yoda, searching for our Star Wars hero, yearning for Luke Skywalker.

JJ more or less tried the same approach with his fun new cast but it only worked for one movie.

You can't make Baby Yoda the STAR of the show. Then it gets stupid and annoying.

Imagine how awful Mando is if Baby Yoda, with no training, is saving the day constantly.

OMG its Luke. Some of it is for the camera they know is on them but then you get the real tears too.



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Honestly I could care less about Baby Yoda (I love The Mandalorian as a character)... but the wife and kids "awwweee" at every Baby Yoda scene, so that is fine with me. Beats the hell out of Jar Jar Binks.

Here's a video of a guy talking about what would happen to Grogru once he goes into training with Luke. He's addressing the idea of Ben possibly killing Grogru during the destruction on Luke's jedi temple, and he dismisses it. I don't know if he's full of shit or not because he relies on content that I never really got into:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p8Umc3EEl1s" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It's more fun for me to imagine that they sensed Luke somehow and try to figure out how that would be possible. YMMV.

I’m guessing he dismisses it because the audience would burn shit down if Kylo just up and whacked Grogu.

He goes into the ages of the two characters, their story arcs, and relevant story points from sources other than movies for Kylo Ren.

Build up a cute adorable character like Grogu, only to have him be already murdered off in a previous film? Nah. I just don't see it. That little green ****er has plot armor that would withstand a fully operational death star...

Yep. He's their biggest cash cow in years. I could see him getting his own series.

To do the a series or a franchise IMO he'll have to be the size of a normal human man or it'll be silly. Hence, my reference of Grogu wearing Mandalorian armor, and can't verse his sentences like Yoda either

So much better than CGI.

https://scontent.fmkc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...34&oe=600B1584

https://scontent.fmkc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...34&oe=600B1584

https://scontent.fmkc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...66&oe=600CFFA7

Agreed. But, what’s he done to make a difference? Gorgu has never been mentioned anywhere in the Star Wars universe. They are going to have to find a way somehow. Killing off baby yoda ain’t happening.

Lots of stuff happens around and in between the main story lines and characters. The SW universe is layered.

It'll be in the distant future like the original script treatment before Kennedy came aboard

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This is the way.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">For those who asked... We can now confirm that indeed it is real and it’s spectacular��. Moff Gideon&#39;s Light Cruiser 5’ practical shooting model from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheMandalorian?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TheMandalorian</a>. More to come... <a href="https://t.co/xY0mtwhBGy">pic.twitter.com/xY0mtwhBGy</a></p>&mdash; ILMVFX (@ILMVFX) <a href="https://twitter.com/ILMVFX/status/1342576774002065408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

It's awesome they chose not to go full CGI with the show

I think it’s an essential ingredient to its success.

Eh, maybe. I think it is a symptom of what makes it successful. I think if we are honest with ourselves, we could rewatch some of it and find scenes/sets that would be better/cleaner with additional CGI.

What makes the thing work is the care they put into it. They care about the story, they care about the characters, they care about ****ing Star Wars, man.

If you look at Mando vs the Sequel Trillogy, in Mando they're telling a story. In the ST they're trying to find pieces to fit a pre-determined formula that has to fit with the notes they want to hit. You can tell they had their formula and filled it in (with a bunch of shit). Then they started the next movie with a pile of shit and determined their endpoint and started filling in shit.

I doubt when they started Mando, they were like - WE NEED TO GET HERE [X]. Now how the **** do we get there? Just like the original Star Wars. They had some characters and told a cool ass story.

But the big thing is they give a shit about the STORY rather than hitting points on a formula. Much more art than corporate production. And the care they put into getting the story right, carries over to the look and feel feeling like Star Wars, the Easter Eggs, tie ins, all of it leads to decisions being made like practical sets. Not necessarily practical sets being reason it works.

FFS there are a lot of notes on the animated series that work.

I mean if this doesn't move the needle for you...



Bottom line is I think you're mostly right, but it isn't a reason it's successful, its a result of what makes it successful.

Wow, didn't mean to ramble on there. Christ, a direct to streaming series based on a 43 year old movie has me writing long ass posts about how I almost agree with you. I guess that's a sign of what F&F have captured here.

Robert Rodriguez Prepped for ‘Mandalorian’ by Directing Boba Fett Home Movie with Action Figures

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/12/ro...es-1234606827/

LMAO

I want to see that short movie with action figures now! ROFL

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LMAO great post:thumb:

It's really difficult to separate the VFX from the stories because they're so often intertwined.

It wouldn't be as effective to see Din Djarin wrestle with a cardboard cutout covered in fake scales as it is to see him wrestle with an amazing Krayt Dragon created by the VFX team at ILM but I also believe that this production team of Favreau & Filoni would be able to work around any limitations, just as George did with the OT. It's just that the stories would be slightly different.

It won't be long before Practical Effects are somewhere around 10% of what we see, just like On Location shooting has been eliminated due to The Volume. But the most important aspect of Star Wars, or any TV show or film in which VFX are essential to the production, is the story, the actors and the direction.

If those three aspects aren't in place, production companies could spend $500 million on VFX and lose every penny because if people don't care about the characters and their fate, why bother watching?

The VFX is essential to fight the dragon in the story. No other way to do that. But, its the characters that made Mandolorian a hit with some assist in the beginning of a baby yoda showing up.

Cantina scenes don't need CGI generated patrons. The officer mess in chapter 15 doesn't need CGI besides the laser fire. Bottom line, if you can do it credibly, don't use CGI. Save it to make stuff thats not possible without CGI to push the story along.

#ThankYouJonAndDave is trending on Twitter.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sometimes the greatest gifts are the most unexpected and something you never realized you wanted until it was given.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ThankYouJonAndDave?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ThankYouJonAndDave</a> �� <a href="https://t.co/4nNjSvbvIN">pic.twitter.com/4nNjSvbvIN</a></p>&mdash; Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) <a href="https://twitter.com/HamillHimself/status/1344394315041103872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I'm four episodes in. It's ok. The first three episodes feel like a generic western script broken into three parts. Episode 4 is your standard A-Team/Magnificent 7/7 Samurai plot. The cliched "character is about to be assassinated but is saved at the minute by a shot from off camera" bit has been used twice in three episodes.

Does the writing ever get more sophisticated?

It's Star Wars, not Shakespeare.

And when they try sophisticated, we end up with shit like Phantom Menace and Last Jedi.

Well, that's disappointing. I suppose we'll stop where we're at then.

Sophisticated? Is it supposed to be? It's a lone gunslinger space western with a Baby Yoda.

We'll soldier on without you.

LMAO

Lol

Out of curiosity may I ask what your top 2 or 3 favorite shows are?

Hmm...that's tough. I like a lot of older shows mainly. I like the original Twilight Zone quite a bit. I'm a fan of the older Trek shows, TNG and DS9 in particular. I like Gunsmoke both on tv and on radio. Breaking Bad is probably the newest show that I've really enjoyed; it was fantastic. Let's see...I also like the original run of Columbo, the first 8 or 9 seasons of The Simpsons. Those are some of the shows I can usually watch again and again.

As I said, my main problem with The Mandalorian is that all the plots (that I watched) are very familiar to me.

In five episodes you have:

- Hired gunman turns against his employer plot
- Killer becomes protector of the defenseless.(Lonewolf & Cub redux)
- Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven save the village plot
- Inevitable betrayal by younger partner plot


I do think this is the best SW product since the mid 80s. the production values are fantasic. The eclectic guest stars are interesting. But if you grew up on a diet of westerns, both traditional and spaghetti, have seen the half-dozen Lone Wolf and Cub movies, The Mechanic (1976) and assorted Kurosawa flicks it's hard to not find the show a little predictable.


P.S. They should have had Werner Herzog direct an episode instead of being a guest star. You let him direct "Mandalor, the Wrath of God" featuring a cgi Klaus Kinski squeezing the shit out of Baby Yoda and I'll sign up for Disney+ in a heartbeat.



Edit: I said that I thought this was the best SW related thing I've come across, but that isn't true; I really like the original KOTOR game.

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Funny, I was thinking the very same thing. Of course, I'm an old man and have seen these same plots (westerns) since I was a kid, but I have honestly expected to see Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson and the rest of the cast to pop up again in the Magnificent Mandalorian............or, as known back in the early 60s - The Magnificent 7....:clap:

Gawd dam that was fun. Loved this series.

Reading though this thread it’s obvious I really don’t know much about Star Wars characters and Star Wars history. Now that I have watched this I need to watch The Clone Wars and educate myself

Thanks! That's a damn good answer!

I'm only mid-thirties but I've watched countless westerns. I have no idea how many. My step-father loved westerns, and so I watched them with him, and now that he is gone I really miss those days. It was of course tit-for-tat and he had to watch all the Godzilla movies with me when they came on TNT MonsterVision. That was a big deal for me since I'd get to stay up late as a little kid... though truthfully we'd both pass out pretty early on.

Anyway, the point I am getting to is that when I watch The Mandalorian I feel a warm spot in my heart from all those tried and true well-used plots as they take me back to watching all those westerns.

Your list of shows overlaps with my own, apart from Columbo which I've never really watched, but am aware of. I am going to take a swing and probably miss but you may want to give a go at watching The Expanse. It's a damn good SciFi drama on Amazon Prime that in some ways combines The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and yes, even Columbo. It's got the seriousness of Breaking Bad, as well as a slow burn and character growth. It does start slow, but around episode 4 most people seem to get hooked.

I've heard a lot of good stuff about both the book and tv version of The Expanse. I really need to check it out.

Columbo is a little different than most detective shows; instead of a traditional "whodunit" it's more of a "howcatchem." You know who the killer is right from the start. The fun is in watching Columbo play a cat and mouse game with his suspect as he unravels the clues. What I like best about the show is how Columbo operates logically and methodically; he doesn't rely on high-tech forensics or make impossible to believe Sherlock Holmes style leaps in logic.

Some of my favorite episodes are "A Stitch in Crime" featuring Leonard Nimoy, "Swan Song" with Johnny Cash, "Any Old Port in the Storm" starring Donald Pleasance, and "Murder by the Book" with Jack Cassidy.