myrdden said:
But I don't think SW has relied too much on digital effects. I think the acting, dialogue, scripting and direction on some (some mat say many) of the scenes has been sub-par, yet the FX are extremely well done.
I certainly wouldn't argue that the FX are not well-done. They're universally spectacular -- sure on repeated viewings you can catch the occasional glitch but by and large they serve purpose.
But I think you could make a case that the reliance on digital environments DOES impact performances. Because the actors don't have a rich environment around them, their reactions are only to whatever the director TELLS them they're seeing.
You can see this pretty clearly a number of times in Ep I, at least -- when the Queen's party walk into the spaceship hanger or even in her throne room sequences. It's quite clear that the extras are not interacting with the environment in a natural way -- for the most part they just stand around having no reaction to anything.
Compare that with the shots of Gandalf riding through Minas Tirith (the medium shots, not the big crane shots, obviously) -- watch the extras. Some are only reacting to Gandalf, but they're interacting with the environment around them -- bumping against walls, tripping over loose cobbles, grabbing at stalls or whatever.
It's not something you notice consciously. Or, at least almost certainly not the first time you watch the film. But it DOES contribute to that vague sense that this isn't engaging you the same way the old films did. The world doesn't carry the same gritty reality, the same sense of locale that made
Star Wars such a memorable film.
What Lucas wants to make are animated films where there ARE no reactions that weren't specifically scripted by the creators. The problem is that he's got human actors who he can't control in every detail, and so he ends up with these flat worlds that don't seem real.
The lesson is that you have to be careful with your use of effects -- a lesson that's been known since the first days of cinema. The real world is very, very difficult to completely model. And when you're lacking some part of the real world, it's hard for your stories to carry a lot of weight.
It's one thing to have your hero fight a big ugly monster -- because we expect that the hero's attention will be entirely focused on the monster, and so we don't worry about how he's not, you know, winking at the digital girls up in the digital stands. He and the monster fight, we eat our popcorn and cheer.
But when it's the entire world that's getting generated, it's hard to create enough versimilitude to make the story real.
