A NEW HOPE low budget?

[J.T.B.]

It wasn't low budget and neither were the sequels.

Agreed, however ANH had a fairly modest budget for an effects-heavy film. 2001 had taken over $10 million to finish in 1967-68, so the initial Star Wars budget of $11 million in 1976 wasn't extravagant. But low budget, no.

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.

That's a bit surprising. What '70s movies does it compare to? Because IMO Star Wars really stood out, unlike anything else at the time. Not only the visual effects, but the innovative sound design, the documentary-like camera work, the kinetic editing, the realistic, lived-in look of the art direction, the classic-movie-era score.

--Justin

 

[AviTrek]

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.

Different scenes call for different techniques. For closeups of slow moving capital ships CGI can't come close to matching the detail and realism of a good model. For a dynamic dogfight with fighters, models aren't agile enough to be convincing. A producer that cared about visuals would make sure the right tool are used for the right scene instead of forcing everything into a single style.

 

[chardman]

$5million was the average cost of a Hollywood film in the mid-70s, but that was for a rather straight-forward film shot which utilized contemporary sets, locations, costumes, and few if any special effects.

So while ANH's $11million to $14million budget might seem pretty high for the time, for a really accurate look one has to compare it to other high-end effects-laden action films of the mid to late 1970s.

"Close Encounters" - $19 million.
"ST:TMP" - $43million (adj for assholish studio padding - still $20mil or more.
"A Bridge Too Far" - $26million.
"Airport '77" - $20million.
"King Kong" - $26million

About the only high-end action/stunt/VFX film of the mid to late 70s which came in as cheaply (or cheaper) than ANH was "Alien", at $11million. Keep in mind that "Alien" director Ridley Scott hadn't directed any film longer than about 60 seconds at the time (He made television commercials for a living), and that Dan O'Bannon's only prior writing credit was for co-writing the ultra-low budget student film "Dark Star". That said, I'm guessing that the studio set the budget of "Alien" at a sum that was suitably small to risk on a first-time director, and the script of a largely unproven author.

Another thing to consider is that the mass media of the time seemed to feel that the budget for ANH had been relatively smaller than usual. So small, in fact, that there was hardly an article about the film that didn't feel the need to mention it repeatedly, or marvel at what Lucas had accomplished "on such a small budget".

Late in 1977, People magazine did a special Star Wars issue. Lawrence Kasdan (who had yet to become a screen writer) wrote an article about George and Marcia Lucas, and their Alaskan Malamute, Indiana Jones. In this article, Kasdan repeatedly refers to that $14million budget as a "shoe-string budget".

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I think that the original Star Wars film really was a kind of a low-budget film.

 

[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.

Different scenes call for different techniques. For closeups of slow moving capital ships CGI can't come close to matching the detail and realism of a good model. For a dynamic dogfight with fighters, models aren't agile enough to be convincing. A producer that cared about visuals would make sure the right tool are used for the right scene instead of forcing everything into a single style.

Oh, definitely it takes the right tool for the right job. It's just that I've rarely seen model-work set in space that matches the CGI work I've seen in space, even for capital ship flyby's. Only TMP, Generations, FC, and Star Wars 4-6 (to an extent) match/exceed post-2000 space CGI, IMO.

That said, model work is almost certainly better for stuff on a planet's surface. Again, I've almost never seen CG buildings that look half as good as models or similar structures. Compare the Romulan Senate on Romulus from Nemesis to, say, the Palace on Naboo, or Isengard from Lord of the Rings.

I guess what I'm saying is that for situations calling for harsher lighting, CGI is generally better, but when you need softer diffuse lighting, such as in an atmosphere, physical model work is better...assuming equivalent skill in both, of course. This may be because incorporating atmospheric models into CG renders adds buttloads of time to the render, while model-work comes with it free of charge!

And, on one final note, organic stuff is hard as hell, no matter what technique you're using.

 

[Hermiod]

About the only high-end action/stunt/VFX film of the mid to late 70s which came in as cheaply (or cheaper) than ANH was "Alien", at $11million. Keep in mind that "Alien" director Ridley Scott hadn't directed any film longer than about 60 seconds at the time (He made television commercials for a living), and that Dan O'Bannon's only prior writing credit was for co-writing the ultra-low budget student film "Dark Star". That said, I'm guessing that the studio set the budget of "Alien" at a sum that was suitably small to risk on a first-time director, and the script of a largely unproven author.

They didn't exactly have to invent much for Alien. The ships weren't performing strafing runs on a giant space station, for a start. It had a cast of what ? Six or seven ?

 

[Mike Farley]

About the only high-end action/stunt/VFX film of the mid to late 70s which came in as cheaply (or cheaper) than ANH was "Alien", at $11million. Keep in mind that "Alien" director Ridley Scott hadn't directed any film longer than about 60 seconds at the time (He made television commercials for a living), and that Dan O'Bannon's only prior writing credit was for co-writing the ultra-low budget student film "Dark Star". That said, I'm guessing that the studio set the budget of "Alien" at a sum that was suitably small to risk on a first-time director, and the script of a largely unproven author.

Scott directed The Duelists two years before Alien and had worked in television--not just commercials, but actual episodic televison--for more than a decade. He was far from a first time director.

 

[chardman]

I stand corrected about Scott.

Sort of.

While I knew "The Duellist" had been made before Alien, I don't really think it counts, as Fox had already committed to and budgeted "Alien" before "The Duellist" was actually released. So, while he technically was an experienced film director when he began work on "Alien", he had literally no reputation as such, and still would have been considered untried by most film studio execs at the time the decision to hire him was made. (And besides, "The Duellist" was a $900K art film, and wouldn't have served as any indication to Fox of what to expect of Scott on a more "mainstream" release with a proper budget.)

And yes, I admit I didn't know about the dozen or so episodes of British television he directed between 1965 and 1969, but really, can you blame me for overlooking them? I'm a big fan of British television, with particular interest in productions of the 1960s, and I'd never heard of any of them. And keep in mind that his most recently directed show had been "The Troubleshooters" way back in 1969, some 7 or 8 years prior to the greenlighting of "Alien". In many circles, if you haven't worked in a field for the better part of a decade, it no longer really qualifies as relevant work experience.

So, while I'll admit I was wrong about the facts, per se, I still feel I might be correct in principle: With only one unreleased film under his belt, and a dozen or so obscure television gigs almost a decade earlier, Ridley Scott would have been regarded by Fox as an unproven asset, with a reputation based almost entirely on his international advertising work.

ETA: I just remembered an interview I once saw w/ Scott where he talked about the budget for "Alien". As I recall, Fox originally gave him a much smaller budget, which they later upped, just prior to production, when "The Duellist" performed well at Cannes in 1977, where the film was nominated for a "Golden Palm" award, and won in the category of "Best First Film".

 

[AviTrek]

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.

Different scenes call for different techniques. For closeups of slow moving capital ships CGI can't come close to matching the detail and realism of a good model. For a dynamic dogfight with fighters, models aren't agile enough to be convincing. A producer that cared about visuals would make sure the right tool are used for the right scene instead of forcing everything into a single style.

Oh, definitely it takes the right tool for the right job. It's just that I've rarely seen model-work set in space that matches the CGI work I've seen in space, even for capital ship flyby's. Only TMP, Generations, FC, and Star Wars 4-6 (to an extent) match/exceed post-2000 space CGI, IMO.

That said, model work is almost certainly better for stuff on a planet's surface. Again, I've almost never seen CG buildings that look half as good as models or similar structures. Compare the Romulan Senate on Romulus from Nemesis to, say, the Palace on Naboo, or Isengard from Lord of the Rings.

I guess what I'm saying is that for situations calling for harsher lighting, CGI is generally better, but when you need softer diffuse lighting, such as in an atmosphere, physical model work is better...assuming equivalent skill in both, of course. This may be because incorporating atmospheric models into CG renders adds buttloads of time to the render, while model-work comes with it free of charge!

And, on one final note, organic stuff is hard as hell, no matter what technique you're using.

I caught Wrath of Kahn in HD recently, and the ship shots were stunning. They blew away any space cgi I have ever seen.

 

[Manticore]

And, on one final note, organic stuff is hard as hell, no matter what technique you're using.

I caught Wrath of Kahn in HD recently, and the ship shots were stunning. They blew away any space cgi I have ever seen.

Honestly? I think that the new shots are decent, especially considering the budget, but modern CGI blows them away. Again, I think that it all comes down to what you're used to.

The recycled footage from TMP? That's a whole different ballpark. Much as I usually worship the ground that ILM...walks on?, they ruined that model when prepping it for blue-screen, instead of the contrast matte method that Trumball used.

A variant of the white matte method that Trumball used is used in modern CGI for matting, incidentally. Alpha mattes aren't identical--obviously--but it's closer to that than blue-screening.