GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek?

[ReadyAndWilling]

okay, so, last night i was watching star trek nemesis. i thought it was quite good and i enjoyed it. earlier today i was watching star wars: episode 2 and wow, i'm blown away by the special effects difference. the CGI is on a completely new level. so many great scenes, whether it's jango vs obi wan in space, the droid battles or the jedi against dooku.

compared to Ep2, nemesis is just ... well, there's no comparison. i saw somewhere that quoted lucas as saying "we make this for one tenth of the cost anybody else does." how does he do it? both movies were made in the same year so they both had the same technology at their disposal.

 

[Gepard]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Because AOTC cost twice as much as Nemesis, and Lucas owns ILM. That's it. Paramount simply didn't pony up enough money to make Nemesis look better than it did.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Eh?

According to Box Office Mojo, the Battle of the Shitty Sci Fi Franchise Movies works out accordingly:

Star Trek: Nemesis
Production Budget: $60 million
Wordlwide Gross: $67,312,826

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
Production Budget: $115 million
Worldwide: $649,398,328

Lucas doesn't make movies more cheaply than Star Trek, but he sure knows how to make shitty movies that make money regardless.

i saw somewhere that quoted lucas as saying "we make this for one tenth of the cost anybody else does."

Who the fuck is making movies for ONE BILLION DOLLARS?

 

[sojourner]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Cheaply?

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

^Indeed. The Trek films, bar 11, were some of the shoestringiest blockbusters (or would-be blockbusters) of all time. It makes you wonder if the mad Trek 11 budget might have turned some of them around.

Not Insurrection, of course. You've gotta nuke that one from orbit.

 

[Australis]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Who the fuck is making movies for ONE BILLION DOLLARS?

(Sorry, couldn't resist. )

 

[Checkmate]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Yeah, when you own a massive special effects company, you get your own special effects pretty cheap. Relatively speaking.

However, the fact that those movies cost twice as much as the Star Trek ones, they should have been spectacular. Personally, I didn't see it. More convoluted and wasteful with tons of unnecessary "added effects," sure. But the actual effects themselves weren't that much more convincing to me than anything I saw in the recent Trek films. Certainly not to the extent that they should have been considering he does own the company and obviously doesn't have to pay as much for them.

It's how you use what you have, not what you have to use. Lucas is a wasteful hack. And it shows. "Watch the little flying cars whiz by in the background (and don't pay attention to the dreadful dialogue and story in the foreground while you're doing so)!" That's pretty much his method.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Lucas uses real droids. Once you get past the initial development cost and start mass production, droids cut down on overhead significantly. Droids don't need craft services or their own trailers. Droids don't have to know their motivation in the scene, they just do. The Hayden Christiansen droid alone saved tens of millions. Not the most lifelike performance, though.

Nemesis also had two "droids," but they were both just Brent Spiner with makeup on, hence it being twice the cost of Attack of the Clones if we're dealing with the Monopoly money/real currency exchange rate.

Whatever question the OP asks, it always comes down to droids eventually. I'm just cutting to the chase.

Nemesis had a lot of problems, but FX never came across as one of them to me. I never noticed anything that stood out to me as being a noticeably bad effect.

 

[O'Dib]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

I think the OP is mistakenly referring to GL's desire to produce the live action TV series at 1/10th the cost.

 

[Gepard]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Whatever question the OP asks, it always comes down to droids eventually. I'm just cutting to the chase.

Winnar.

Nemesis had a lot of problems, but FX never came across as one of them to me. I never noticed anything that stood out to me as being a noticeably bad effect.

I thought the CG ships were pretty dire. Not as awful as they could have been, I suppose, but nowhere as good as I would have expected given the years of development between INS and NEM, and the FX being done by Digital Domain.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Great special effects can be created on home computers these days. There's no reason for movies to cost over a hundred million dollars. A dozen good movies could be created for the price of one bad one.

 

[Mach5]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Why is it that Paramount dumped Digital Domain for ILM anyway?

 

[Gepard]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Great special effects can be created on home computers these days. There's no reason for movies to cost over a hundred million dollars.

Then you don't understand how VFX houses work. We essentially do create effects on home computers with off-the-shelf software. But any effects company that wants to be deliver a product on time needs a building to house all the workstations, hundreds of people to get all the CG done in a reasonable amount of time, servers to coordinate it all and render the images, catering to feed the employees – and all that has to be paid for. Plus much of the expense of making a blockbuster comes from other sources anyway, like these little things called "actors" and "sets" and "location shooting." Claiming otherwise is just ignorance.

Why is it that Paramount dumped Digital Domain for ILM anyway?

ILM is better, I guess. I've heard DD tends to overcharge for effects work, compared to the other big houses. Plus, Paramount didn't "dump" DD anyway; ILM had been the go-to VFX house for TWOK, TSFS, TVH, TUC, GEN and FC. Really, going to them for Trek XI was a return to form.

...unless you got the company names swapped, in which case, I have no idea.

 

[Mach5]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Yeah, my question works both ways, I guess. But Star Trek isn't the only franchise that dumped ILM at a certain point. ILM used to do Harry Potter, but they don't any more.

Also, there's Avatar. James Cameron wanted ILM on board from the get go, but they had "irreconcilable differences" - ILM was dead against the performance capture thing, and Cameron insisted on it. I'm not sure that he's been 100% right about that, Davy Jones was done the ILM way (keyframing is what I think it's called), and his facial expressions look far more real (life like) than the Na'vi (IMO).

Eventually, WETA was way behind schedule, and ILM was called in to help them meet the deadline.

 

[Gepard]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

But Star Trek isn't the only franchise that dumped ILM at a certain point. ILM used to do Harry Potter, but they don't any more.

I imagine it's money. There's a lot of talent in smaller houses these days, now that there's a market for so much CG work, and I bet productions can get quality work for cheaper by going with a less famous company. ILM, DD and others are "name" houses and I'm sure they charge accordingly. Back when the Narnia films were higher-budgeted, they had FX by ILM and Rhythm & Hues. After the budget got slashed on Dawn Treader, they went with a mix of British FX houses I'd never heard of before, and got results that looked just as good.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

I think the OP is mistakenly referring to GL's desire to produce the live action TV series at 1/10th the cost.

Something that Lucas discovered was easier said than done...

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Also, a bulk of Nemesis' production budget went into Patrick Stewart's and Brent Spiner's pockets. Which is all and good, a Star Trek movie shouldn't be about effects it should be about plot. I'd rather Nemesis had the production values of TOS if it managed to pull off a story and plot that was half as good as an episode of the series.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Great special effects can be created on home computers these days. There's no reason for movies to cost over a hundred million dollars.

Then you don't understand how VFX houses work. We essentially do create effects on home computers with off-the-shelf software. But any effects company that wants to be deliver a product on time needs a building to house all the workstations, hundreds of people to get all the CG done in a reasonable amount of time, servers to coordinate it all and render the images, catering to feed the employees – and all that has to be paid for. Plus much of the expense of making a blockbuster comes from other sources anyway, like these little things called "actors" and "sets" and "location shooting." Claiming otherwise is just ignorance.

Luckily, I never claimed otherwise. I'm obviously aware of what the cost entails. However, you have just said yourself that equal quality can be obtained from smaller companies. A hundred or two hundred million dollars for a movie is crazy; I'm sure either one of us could make a better movie than Lucas or Abrams for a half million or less.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

Who the fuck is making movies for ONE BILLION DOLLARS?

(Sorry, couldn't resist. )

If he actually were making a one-billion-dollar movie (frikken lasers on a frikken army of frikken sharks!) it would be worth seeing. In 3-D!!!

Lucas uses real droids. Once you get past the initial development cost and start mass production, droids cut down on overhead significantly. Droids don't need craft services or their own trailers. Droids don't have to know their motivation in the scene, they just do. The Hayden Christiansen droid alone saved tens of millions. Not the most lifelike performance, though.

Oh NOW it finally all makes sense!

Also, a bulk of Nemesis' production budget went into Patrick Stewart's and Brent Spiner's pockets. Which is all and good, a Star Trek movie shouldn't be about effects it should be about plot.

How did Stewart and Spiner help the plot? (And whatever help they gave, it clearly wasn't enough.)

 

[Kegg]

Re: GEORGE LUCAS: How does he make SW so cheaply in comparison to Trek

I'm sure either one of us could make a better movie than Lucas or Abrams for a half million or less.

A bold claim, that. It's easy to say one can make a better film than Lucas or Abrams, harder to do it. As valid as fan criticisms could be of either producer, they do have considerable experience and practical know-how and the odd hit title to their names. That fans armed with enthusiasm could best them at their own game strikes me as a pretty long shot.

(I doubt I could make anything half as good as Michael Bay, for the record.)

Yeah, when you own a massive special effects company, you get your own special effects pretty cheap. Relatively speaking.

This.

Lucas was presumably referring to hypothetical films with an equivalent number of special effects shots, not a specific film like Nemesis. Attack of the Clones has far more special effect shots than Nemesis, after all.