A NEW HOPE low budget?

[RobertScorpio]

So I am watching STAR WARS A NEW HOPE this weekend. I remember seeing this when it came out all those years ago and being blown away by the space ship effects. I had never seen anything like them before.

But then I hear NEW HOPE was a low budget movie. Okay..I'll buy that. But then I see the movie METEOR, with all those stars in it (Connery--Fonda ect) and then I see that movie's God awful FX (they are so bad. Imagine 1950s Flash Gordon effects..in color)...and I wonder what the heck is going on...

But then it isn't only Meteor. 007's Moonraker (awful movie) also had special FX that seem twenty years old and it came out around the same time as Star Wars...

So, when other producers of other movies (METEOR for example) went to see Star Wars in 1977 and then they made their movie (Meteor came out in 1979) didn't someone at the studio say something like "dudes, the FX from Star wars, two years ago, make you effects look like they were made by the chaps who did Gumby'....

So??????????????????????? was NEW HOPE really that low budget when compared to SCIFI movies of the time?

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Hermiod]

This is because Star Wars changed the way movies are made forever. You cannot compare it to other films of the time.

Lucas hired some very smart people to invent new ways of making special effects sequences. Those people then hired people straight out of college, with no preconceived ideas, to help them.

Other films could spend ten times as much and not come close to reproducing the quality we saw in Star Wars because they just didn't know how.

 

[RobertScorpio]

This is because Star Wars changed the way movies are made forever. You cannot compare it to other films of the time.

Lucas hired some very smart people to invent new ways of making special effects sequences. Those people then hired people straight out of college, with no preconceived ideas, to help them.

Other films could spend ten times as much and not come close to reproducing the quality we saw in Star Wars because they just didn't know how.

I thought that too, Hemiod. But weren't the effects, and I mean the space ship effects, based on the tecnology that came out of 2001? The whole thing about not moving the ship but moving the camera to appear as if the ship was moving. Didn't that come from 2001? I may be wrong..

But even still. How can movies that came after Star Wars still use space effects that look pretty crappy. Superman and Superman II included. These were big budgeted movies, but Kal's journy through space to get to earth looks really low-brow when compared to Star Wars..IMO...

Rob

 

[Hermiod]

Lucas tried to hire Douglas Trumbull, who produced the visual effects for 2001, but he turned the job down. Instead, he hired Trumbull's assistant John Dykstra.

The technology that allowed ILM to create the large scale space battle sequences, the likes of which had never been seen before, is called motion control photography. 2001 laid the foundation for this, but Star Wars demonstrated the first use of a computer controlled system for motion control. If ILM had tried to just use what was laid down for them by 2001 they would not have been able to realise the scenes Lucas was trying to create.

Remember, while preparing Star Wars, Lucas used stock footage of real World War II dogfights in place of the visual effects that hadn't been created yet.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Lucas tried to hire Douglas Trumbull, who produced the visual effects for 2001, but he turned the job down. Instead, he hired Trumbull's assistant John Dykstra.

The technology that allowed ILM to create the large scale space battle sequences, the likes of which had never been seen before, is called motion control photography. 2001 laid the foundation for this, but Star Wars demonstrated the first use of a computer controlled system for motion control.

Dykstra did some great stuff back in the day. SW and BSG. Did he actually work on 2001 with Douglass, or did that come later....I'll get my SILENT RUNNING dvd out and see if he Dykstra was there too...

Which brings me to STAR TREK. When you see the standard shot of TOS enterprise (and I mean the original effects) is that ship 'really moving' or is it a camera trick??

Rob

 

[Hermiod]

Dykstra did some great stuff back in the day. SW and BSG. Did he actually work on 2001 with Douglass, or did that come later....

Rob

Dykstra and Trumbull's first work together was Silent Running in the early 70's. For the record, the motion control camera used to film Star Wars' space battle sequences is named after Dykstra - the Dykstraflex.

 

[Christopher]

But weren't the effects, and I mean the space ship effects, based on the tecnology that came out of 2001? The whole thing about not moving the ship but moving the camera to appear as if the ship was moving. Didn't that come from 2001? I may be wrong..

Which brings me to STAR TREK. When you see the standard shot of TOS enterprise (and I mean the original effects) is that ship 'really moving' or is it a camera trick??

Same answer to both questions. The technique of moving the camera past the miniature on a bluescreen stage, then compositing it to look like the ship was moving across a starscape, was used in Star Trek, which predated 2001: A Space Odyssey by several years. After all, the Enterprise miniature was twelve feet long and somewhat fragile; it would've broken constantly if it had been doing the moving.

As stated above, the technique you're thinking of is not merely moving the camera rather than the ship, but computerized motion control of the camera movements, allowing those movements to be repeated exactly over and over again. John Dykstra developed motion control not long before Star Wars, and SW was the first motion picture to make use of it.


According to IMDb, Star Wars had an estimated budget of 13 million dollars. TESB was $18 million and ROTJ was $32.5 million. Some other 1977 films: Close Encounters of the Third Kind had a $19.4 million budget; the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me was $14 million; The Deep was $9 million; Disney's Pete's Dragon was $10 million; the Roy Scheider film Sorceror, which I've never heard of, was $22 million; Woody Allen's Annie Hall was $4 million; the George Burns comedy Oh, God was $2 million and change. 1976's Logan's Run was filmed for $9 million.

So I'd say the original SW had a pretty significant budget, not huge, but not tiny. It probably saved a lot of money by going with a largely unknown cast, but there's no question that a lot of money went into the visual effects.

 

[Mike Farley]

In 1977 the average film budget was $5 million. So at $13 million there's no way to consider STAR WARS a low budget movie.

 

[Dream]

It wasn't low budget and neither were the sequels. According to Lucas it seemed he had trouble getting a bank loan to make ESB so he had to go to FOX which is really silly when you think about how ANH broke all the boxoffice records after it came out.

The bigger budget really helped ESB. If you look at ANH now outside of the amazing space battles the movie really feels like a 70s scifi movie.

 

[Samurai8472]

The technology that allowed ILM to create the large scale space battle sequences, the likes of which had never been seen before, is called motion control photography. 2001 laid the foundation for this, but Star Wars demonstrated the first use of a computer controlled system for motion control. If ILM had tried to just use what was laid down for them by 2001 they would not have been able to realize the scenes Lucas was trying to create.

my god, could you imagine if Lucas couldn't get the shots he wanted, he'd go back and add and touch up scenes 30 years later?!

it's madness to think of such a thing

 

[felixofgolden]

There's a great book called Droidmaker which documents the technological advances that occurred because of and around Lucas and Lucasfilm. I saw a talk the writer did last year . Very interesting stuff. Especially the editdroid that was the precursor to the Avid system and so on (different computers on the network were named after star wars planets!)
I believe that they did hire students, but it was for doing the grunt work, like dealing with the mattes. Harrison Ellenshaw told me (and is covered in the Tron documentary on the Tron DVD) that they considered doing the same, hiring students for a summer to do cel work, like what was done for Star Wars. But because it was a difficult and boring job, the students wouldn't come back.

 

[Christopher]

^Do you mean Harrison Ellenshaw, or is there a third Ellenshaw in the FX biz other than Harrison and Peter?

 

[diankra]

But weren't the effects, and I mean the space ship effects, based on the tecnology that came out of 2001? The whole thing about not moving the ship but moving the camera to appear as if the ship was moving. Didn't that come from 2001? I may be wrong..

Which brings me to STAR TREK. When you see the standard shot of TOS enterprise (and I mean the original effects) is that ship 'really moving' or is it a camera trick??

Same answer to both questions. The technique of moving the camera past the miniature on a bluescreen stage, then compositing it to look like the ship was moving across a starscape, was used in Star Trek, which predated 2001: A Space Odyssey by several years. After all, the Enterprise miniature was twelve feet long and somewhat fragile; it would've broken constantly if it had been doing the moving.

As stated above, the technique you're thinking of is not merely moving the camera rather than the ship, but computerized motion control of the camera movements, allowing those movements to be repeated exactly over and over again. John Dykstra developed motion control not long before Star Wars, and SW was the first motion picture to make use of it.

The technique of moving the camera, rather than the model, was even being used on the then very low budget Doctor Who during the late 1960s (The Invasion, 1968, which was, intriguingly, directed by Douglas Camfield, who's known to have have got a call from the 2001 team a few years earlier, asking how he'd pulled off some weightless effects in The Dalek Masterplan). But as Christopher points out, there's a big difference between that and the precisely repeatable computer-controlled motion control shots that underpin (almost) everything between Star Wars and CGI.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The Deep was $9 million

You get those white t-shirts in the water and they shrink right up on ya, they ain't cheap ya know?

 

[RobertScorpio]

But weren't the effects, and I mean the space ship effects, based on the tecnology that came out of 2001? The whole thing about not moving the ship but moving the camera to appear as if the ship was moving. Didn't that come from 2001? I may be wrong..

Which brings me to STAR TREK. When you see the standard shot of TOS enterprise (and I mean the original effects) is that ship 'really moving' or is it a camera trick??

Same answer to both questions. The technique of moving the camera past the miniature on a bluescreen stage, then compositing it to look like the ship was moving across a starscape, was used in Star Trek, which predated 2001: A Space Odyssey by several years. After all, the Enterprise miniature was twelve feet long and somewhat fragile; it would've broken constantly if it had been doing the moving.

As stated above, the technique you're thinking of is not merely moving the camera rather than the ship, but computerized motion control of the camera movements, allowing those movements to be repeated exactly over and over again. John Dykstra developed motion control not long before Star Wars, and SW was the first motion picture to make use of it.

The technique of moving the camera, rather than the model, was even being used on the then very low budget Doctor Who during the late 1960s (The Invasion, 1968, which was, intriguingly, directed by Douglas Camfield, who's known to have have got a call from the 2001 team a few years earlier, asking how he'd pulled off some weightless effects in The Dalek Masterplan). But as Christopher points out, there's a big difference between that and the precisely repeatable computer-controlled motion control shots that underpin (almost) everything between Star Wars and CGI.

And I still prefer Dykstra effects over CGI. Only one movie got CGI remotely right and it was the Star Wars Prequels...INSURRECTION and NEMESIS, sorry folks, had CRAPPY CGI. I can't believe how bad those effects were for both of those moronic movies. Makes TREK V look like 2001!!!

Rob
Scorpio

 

[DWF]

So I am watching STAR WARS A NEW HOPE this weekend. I remember seeing this when it came out all those years ago and being blown away by the space ship effects. I had never seen anything like them before.

But then I hear NEW HOPE was a low budget movie. Okay..I'll buy that. But then I see the movie METEOR, with all those stars in it (Connery--Fonda ect) and then I see that movie's God awful FX (they are so bad. Imagine 1950s Flash Gordon effects..in color)...and I wonder what the heck is going on...

But then it isn't only Meteor. 007's Moonraker (awful movie) also had special FX that seem twenty years old and it came out around the same time as Star Wars...

So, when other producers of other movies (METEOR for example) went to see Star Wars in 1977 and then they made their movie (Meteor came out in 1979) didn't someone at the studio say something like "dudes, the FX from Star wars, two years ago, make you effects look like they were made by the chaps who did Gumby'....

So??????????????????????? was NEW HOPE really that low budget when compared to SCIFI movies of the time?

Rob
Scorpio

Well if you saw the special edition yeah it's going to look better than the other movies, but I still like the look of the first Superman movie and Moonraker. The visual effects on Space:1999 still look good to me as well and that show predates Star Wars. Alien still looks good too. and I do think that Star Wars was a low budget movie, that's one reason why it was filmed in Britian and Africa to keep the costs down, had it been filmed here it would've cost alot more money.

 

[EnsignRicky]

I never really thought of ANH as low budget. And I probably never will.

 

[felixofgolden]

^Do you mean Harrison Ellenshaw, or is there a third Ellenshaw in the FX biz other than Harrison and Peter?

Yes, Harrison. My mistake.

 

[Davros]

In 1977 the average film budget was $5 million. So at $13 million there's no way to consider STAR WARS a low budget movie.

That's what I was thinking.

 

[Manticore]

And I still prefer Dykstra effects over CGI. Only one movie got CGI remotely right and it was the Star Wars Prequels...INSURRECTION and NEMESIS, sorry folks, had CRAPPY CGI. I can't believe how bad those effects were for both of those moronic movies. Makes TREK V look like 2001!!!

Rob
Scorpio

I disagree. I vastly prefer the smoother animation and better specular highlights of modern CGI to most (though hardly all!) motion control effects. Okay, Insurrection was crap, but so was most CGI before 2000 or so. Nemesis, for all its faults, actually had some pretty good hardware CGI. Outside of TMP, I've never seen any starship motion control footage which looks as good as what was in Nemesis, let alone movies that are being released today. The trick is that the two methods have different faults; CGI is harder to light properly and realistically, while motion control is vastly harder to animate smoothly and effectively.

That said, I think that it comes down largely to what you're used to. I've grown up with CGI effects, and that's what I've grown used to. From what I understand, you grew up with motion control effects, and that's what you're used to.