I recall various behind the scenes specials for classic Star Wars showing the 1970's version of Lucas' "pre-vis" for space fighter battle scenes being clip compilations of various WW2 films and actual gun camera footage. He wasn't shy about his inspiration for the first film at least.
So I decided to watch some classic scifi this week...
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I recall various behind the scenes specials for classic Star Wars showing the 1970's version of Lucas' "pre-vis" for space fighter battle scenes being clip compilations of various WW2 films and actual gun camera footage. He wasn't shy about his inspiration for the first film at least.
Well, thanks to this very thread, the BD of “Wings” is on its way to me. I had no idea it would be worth watching.
Thanks y’all!
Thanks y’all!
Marcia Lucas talked about this at a panel I attended at the Academy in 2019.
Hit THIS LINK to go right to her talking about it. She says it was about 6 minutes of stock footage that she worked from.
The video does not show you what was upon the screen above her, which was the actual workprint with the stock footage she describes!
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Yet more proof that Hollywood has never had an original idea.
Not sure how far back you'd have to go to find an original story. Cave drawings?
Everything is a remix.
Buster Keaton is another genius who is almost completely forgotten. I saw "The General" in "Elements of Film" when I was an undergrad and was blown away by the camera work and the overall product. It was also gut bustingly funny.
I know it’s considered his greatest film, and it is very funny, but I would much rather watch Go West.
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Amazon Prime has a whole bunch of complete old serials.
So far I've found:
Commando Cody in Radar Men from The Moon
Spy Smasher
Jungle Queen
The Adventures of Captain Marvel
All they have for Flash Gordon are the movie versions rather than the serials. How different are the two version of the Flash Gordon ones?
So far I've found:
Commando Cody in Radar Men from The Moon
Spy Smasher
Jungle Queen
The Adventures of Captain Marvel
All they have for Flash Gordon are the movie versions rather than the serials. How different are the two version of the Flash Gordon ones?
I'm not sure how they differ. I'd hope that they're just the serials spliced together with the credits and previous episode recaps (assuming they had them) removed. Thanks for the links! I think I'm most excited about the Captain Marvel one thought Commando Cody vs the Radar Men from the Moon has a nice ring to it as well. I just rewatched some more fan films this weekend after watching the Neutral Zone Studios walk through to see if I could recognize which rooms they were filming in so the fan film vibe is fresh in my memory. I wonder if I'll get the same feel from these old serials.
I watch the first episode of Captain Marvel and it was definitely interesting. I'd say it reminded me more of similar era B&W westerns moreso than the fan film vibe I got from Flash Gordon but that could be specific to the first episode due to both the cringey setting/depictions as well as the action. I really was impressed with the flying effects though as they were quite good. I researched how they did it and it was quite inventive and much better than the IIRC cartoon cutscenes that superman would have a decade later.
Well, 7 years.
Apologies for the necro but I'm always curious to see what is entering the public domain (at least here in the US) and both this film (Wings) and the seminal scifi film Metropolis entered into public domain today. Yay! I'm curious to see what intrepid film makers will make of both in the years to come.
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