Movies - Take Two. Action!

[Scott Bails]

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edited to add: perhaps you already know this (of course you do... I'm talking to GuitarGeek) but the reason why the actors are out in the vacuum of space with no suits is that the suits that the costume department designed for them were apparently so uncomfortable that the actors refused to wear them in a show of defiance.

I would love to see that play-out in a real-life scenario

[GuitarGeek]

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edited to add: perhaps you already know this (of course you do... I'm talking to GuitarGeek) but the reason why the actors are out in the vacuum of space with no suits is that the suits that the costume department designed for them were apparently so uncomfortable that the actors refused to wear them in a show of defiance.

Actually, (Johnny Carson mode) I did not know that! (Johnny Carson mode off). I'd have to dig out the old issue of Starlog with the article on the movie, as I wonder if that would be mentioned. The thing I recall was all the early sort of concept drawings of Maximilian, VINCENT, etc that weren't used in the finished film. I probably read the article once over 35 years ago, so most of the details I don't really remember.

(Oh, and no, I'm pretty sure I don't actually still own the old issues of Starlog I begged my mom to buy at the drug store for me when I was like 8 or 9 years old, but the magazine's entire run is archived, in pdf form on the Internet Archive site, so one can pull up any given issue and re-read it as if one had actually taken good care of the magazines one had during the first half of the 1980's).

But that sounds like something I saw George Takei say about one of the unpleasant things about the first Star Trek movie: the costumes made impossible for anyone to use the bathroom without assistance. So the cast basically said that either costumes were redesigned or they wouldn't be doing any sequels.

[GuitarGeek]

I really liked The Black Hole too. I've seen it ages ago. It's not considered a great sci-fi movie by the large audiences though, right?

"Great movie" and "entertaining movie" aren't always the same thing. Some movies aren't there for "entertainment" or "fun" purposes. They're there for either informational purposes, either to tell about unpleasant episodes in history (e.g. almost any movie dealing with WWII, Nazis, the Holocaust, etc), or some obscure "artistic" expression (e.g. the work of Jean-Luc Godard, and Michelangelo Antonioni)

So yeah, The Black Hole is no Solaris or even Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, but it's a picture I enjoy watching once in awhile. I can forgive the scientific inaccuracies, Slim Pickins, etc because I think it's a well paced picture that gets the job done. I just wish I understood what the last 10 minutes were supposed to be about.

I saw The Black Hole once. Not only scientifically atrocious, but plot holes you could float an aircraft carrier through without touching either side.

OK, I have to ask: what were the plotholes? The only one I could think of was why was the Cygnus destroyed, but not the probe ship?

[Hal...]

Can't remember who first recommended 1922 but I've had it on my list for quite a while. Finally watched it yesterday. It was a good psychological horror movie. Wouldn't say it was great, tho.

Re-watched The VVitch last night, too. I remembered it being a great movie but it's better than I remembered. This is now my new autumn/Halloween tradition and I'd venture to say that this is the perfect Halloween movie.

[Painter]

(Oh, and no, I'm pretty sure I don't actually still own the old issues of Starlog I begged my mom to buy at the drug store for me when I was like 8 or 9 years old, but the magazine's entire run is archived, in pdf form on the Internet Archive site, so one can pull up any given issue and re-read it as if one had actually taken good care of the magazines one had during the first half of the 1980's).

Wellll... I did purge all my old Starlogs many many years ago, then when I realized that I do like having them to periodically look at, I downloaded the pdfs of those key issues from those formative years and printed them out. I always fear that that archive will go *poof* for some reason or another. Have them in plastic sleeves in a binder downstairs. Not every single article, just the key ones that I would endlessly look at back in the day.

I don't think I read that (about the actor's discontent with the suits) in Starlog. Starlog never printed anything negative about a film or TV production because that would have probably severely limited their access to future film/TV shoots and the filmmakers themselves. Cinefantastique, on the other hand, had no problem being severely critical.

I probably read that tidbit on the Interwebs somewhere and it does seem plausible.

[GuitarGeek]

Wellll... I did purge all my old Starlogs many many years ago, then when I realized that I do like having them to periodically look at, I downloaded the pdfs of those key issues from those formative years and printed them out. I always fear that that archive will go *poof* for some reason or another. Have them in plastic sleeves in a binder downstairs. Not every single article, just the key ones that I would endlessly look at back in the day.

I've got something like the first 7 or 8 years stored on my computer. If I want to look at one of them, I can pull it up at a moment's notice.

I don't think I read that (about the actor's discontent with the suits) in Starlog. Starlog never printed anything negative about a film or TV production because that would have probably severely limited their access to future film/TV shoots and the filmmakers themselves.

Yeah, I could see that. It's like watching talk shows where they have political types on, and the host asks like he's trying to not upset an angry pit bull or whatever. I could see how Kerry O'Quinn might have been worried if he printed something about the cast being upset about their costumes on The Black Hole, they might be allowed "full access" on the next big Disney sci-fi/fantasy/whatever picture.

Cinefantastique, on the other hand, had no problem being severely critical.

I never did read Cinefantastique. As I recall, they had ads in the back of Starlog (so did Fangoria), but I don't remember ever seeing it in any of the stores around here, though.

[dropforge]

I really liked The Black Hole too. I've seen it ages ago. It's not considered a great sci-fi movie by the large audiences though, right?

Blows 'em all away except Star Crash.

[dropforge]

I never did read Cinefantastique. As I recall, they had ads in the back of Starlog (so did Fangoria), but I don't remember ever seeing it in any of the stores around here, though.

Cinefantastique is awesome. It's more of a "journal" than a "rag" like Starlog and Fangoria (which I liked to read, but never really bothered with Starlog).

(WHOA! Sorry, just confused Cinefantastique with Cinefex. But Cinefantastique's still badass.)

[Painter]

I've got something like the first 7 or 8 years stored on my computer. If I want to look at one of them, I can pull it up at a moment's notice.

That works. I just like the tactile nature of flipping pages.

I never did read Cinefantastique. As I recall, they had ads in the back of Starlog (so did Fangoria), but I don't remember ever seeing it in any of the stores around here, though.

Cinefantastique had some incredible and in-depth articles on the making of those classic sci-fi and fantasy films. Including a double issue on The Black Hole. Then when it (Black Hole) came out, their review was this side of scathing.

The only mag that was more thorough in terms of detailing the SFX processes was Cinefex. Back then, the SFX artists had to be real inventive in order to get the shot. I could lament about how computers and digital have tainted SFX, but then I'll start sounding like Skullhead.

[Painter]

Cinefantastique is awesome. It's more of a "journal" than a "rag" like Starlog and Fangoria (which I liked to read, but never really bothered with Starlog).

(WHOA! Sorry, just confused Cinefantastique with Cinefex. But Cinefantastique's still badass.)

Cinefex is the pinnacle in detailing SFX production.

[Painter]

Blows 'em all away except Star Crash.

Clearly is on a level of sophistication way beyond 2001: A Space Odyssey

[dropforge]

Clearly is on a level of sophistication way beyond 2001: A Space Odyssey

[Painter]

Caroline Munro, right? She definitely fueled more than a few of my teenage fantasies...

[dropforge]

Caroline Munro, right? She definitely fueled more than a few of my teenage fantasies...

[GuitarGeek]

I could lament about how computers and digital have tainted SFX, but then I'll start sounding like Skullhead.

Or me. That's actually how I feel. That's why I still love all those Ray Harryhausen movies, as well as things like the old Godzilla pictures, as well as the work of people like Douglas Trumbull, Dennis Muren, and Carlo Rambaldi. Those guys were true artists in every sense of the word.


Now, I like some digital effects, I thought the effects in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy were amazing, for instance. But I remember when Jurassic Park came out, and everyone was jumping up and down about the CGI dinosaurs, and every time I saw a clip on TV, I thought, "Well, it is impressive, but is it really better than what Harryhausen did in Jason And The Argonauts or what the guys at Toho did?". Also consider things like Yoda (I mean the real one, the one who was in The Empire Strikes Back, not the theoretically bad ass one who appeared in the prequels), Jabba The Hut, E.T. him/her/itself, the visuals in movies like Alien, Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey or Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, all of that stuff was pre-CGI!

Similarly, I prefer traditional animation over computer generated animation, though there's more computer animation stuff that I like. The Pixar stuff I've seen I think is fantastic. I remember watching Monsters, Inc, and realizing about half way through the movie that Sully is what a stuffed animal would look like if it came to life. Look at his fur! It actually moves and behaves something like a real animals does! You couldn't do that with traditional animation (and as a side note with that picture, I laughed my ass off when I heard the name of the restaurant in that movie!). But then I go back and watch the old Disney stuff like the original Fantasia, or even later stuff like Heavy Metal or Rock And Rule and I realize how much of an achievement those pictures were without the use of computers (well, Rock And Rule and Heavy Metal used motion control cameras for certain scenes, but virtually everything you see on screen is hand drawn or somehow created in the real world, not a computer generated image).

My dad worked with both Roddy McDowell and Maximillian Schell back early in his career (and theirs), so that also made it of interest to me.

What did your father do?

I somehow remembered that Roddy McDowell was credited but Slim Pickens wasn't - maybe I'm wrong and as GuitarGeek says neither was credited. Anyway, both of their voices are so familiar it was just a treat

Interesting. I never thought about their voices being sort of similar, though obviously they have different accents. Roddy speaks with that sort of "proper" English stage actor diction, while Slim Pickins sounds more like a cowboy actor (as he always did, apparently he lived life as if he were a character in a cowboy movie, the crew on Dr. Strangelove apparently thought he was a "method actor" and had arrived on camera "in character", but in fact that's the way he was "in real life"). But it makes sense that you would cast two actors with similar vocal timbres, since VINCENT and OLD BOB are supposed to part of the same product line or whatever, so you'd want their voices to be "similar but yet different".

And yes, they're both uncredited, I can assure you, I read the closing credits very carefully.

I think the whole "lost ship and missing crew" story is pretty cool too, even if the ending is a weird sort of Disney WTF

Yeah, the ending is really strange. Is that supposed to be Hell? Is Reinhardt spending the rest of eternity trapped inside Maximilian's shell (pun not exactly intended)? Are the cloaked figures also seen the Cygnus crew? What's the deal with teh shot of the angel flying through what appears to be a cathedral window? Why does the probe ship not get destroyed? Has the probe ship emerged in Heaven? Have traveled into some distant area of space? An alternate universe? WTF?!

(For what it's worth, according to Wikipedia, there was a comic book adaptation that continued the story, albeit only for a couple issues, where the probe ship emerges in an alternate universe, where they meet mirror universe versions of Reinhardt, OLD BOB, and Kate's father, Frank McCrae).

[GuitarGeek]

As for Caroline Munro, what can one say? Model. Actress. Bond Girl. I would post a few photos from her Lamb's Navy rum ad campaign, but the ones I tried, I'm told are too big for posting here, and I just don't have the energy to fiddle with the pictures to get them down to the correct size. But if you Google "Caroline Munro Lamb's Navy" you'll find most of the better ones.

According to some sources, it was the Lamb's Navy work, particularly the ones showing her in a wetsuit, unzipped, and wearing a diving knife strapped to her thigh, that got her job as Naomi, the murderous helicopter pilot in The Spy Who Loved Me. Kinda interesting, then, that her helicopter is blown out of the sky by Bond, from his submersible Lotus Espirit, who then engages a battle with Stromberg's frogmen.

[Klonk]

The Void

80's practical effects, horror fans unite! This was a nice throwback to classics like Hellraiser and The Thing. In a nutshell, a small group of people get surrounded inside a hospital by some bizarre cult. The characters aren't well developed and the story doesn't really go anywhere, but for me at least that wasn't necessary with a flick like this. It's just fun. If you like those old school make-up effects and fucked up satanic creatures, you'll have fun here like I did. Just don't expect to figure anything out

[Painter]

Or me. That's actually how I feel. That's why I still love all those Ray Harryhausen movies, as well as things like the old Godzilla pictures, as well as the work of people like Douglas Trumbull, Dennis Muren, and Carlo Rambaldi. Those guys were true artists in every sense of the word.

Now, I like some digital effects, I thought the effects in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy were amazing, for instance. But I remember when Jurassic Park came out, and everyone was jumping up and down about the CGI dinosaurs, and every time I saw a clip on TV, I thought, "Well, it is impressive, but is it really better than what Harryhausen did in Jason And The Argonauts or what the guys at Toho did?". Also consider things like Yoda (I mean the real one, the one who was in The Empire Strikes Back, not the theoretically bad ass one who appeared in the prequels), Jabba The Hut, E.T. him/her/itself, the visuals in movies like Alien, Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey or Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, all of that stuff was pre-CGI!

I am in complete agreement. I love Trumbull's work. The natural variation that you see with the light-beams through smoke in the CE3K UFOs, the lens flares...

I really would like to see what Phil Tippett could have done with go-motion (Dragonslayer) had it been expanded and refined.

The one area that digital is inarguably superior is in compositing: the layering of the various SFX elements/green-screen/blue-screen work. Stuff that required an optical printer in the past. Trumbull has said as much in various speeches and seminars he has been part of.

Robert Abel and Associates did a lot of groundbreaking effects work in the seventies, stuff involving high-contrast negatives and positives, etc, for commercials like Levis and 7-Up.

Similarly, I prefer traditional animation over computer generated animation, though there's more computer animation stuff that I like. The Pixar stuff I've seen I think is fantastic. I remember watching Monsters, Inc, and realizing about half way through the movie that Sully is what a stuffed animal would look like if it came to life. Look at his fur! It actually moves and behaves something like a real animals does! You couldn't do that with traditional animation (and as a side note with that picture, I laughed my ass off when I heard the name of the restaurant in that movie!). But then I go back and watch the old Disney stuff like the original Fantasia, or even later stuff like Heavy Metal or Rock And Rule and I realize how much of an achievement those pictures were without the use of computers (well, Rock And Rule and Heavy Metal used motion control cameras for certain scenes, but virtually everything you see on screen is hand drawn or somehow created in the real world, not a computer generated image).

You ever see The Thief and The Cobbler by Richard Williams? All hand-drawn and without a doubt, the single greatest feat of animation bar none. It is legendary to animators. The background story of the production is a story in itself. Wiki it. There is also a documentary called Persistence of Vision about the whole thing.

I do like the "dimensional" animation like Coraline and Box Trolls. Henry Selick is a big name in that. But the process is LABOR INTENSIVE!!

Can't say I mind CG animation like in the upcoming Grinch movie and Pixar's stuff. It is simply another medium, similar to say watercolors and oils. There is room for both. And CG isn't necessarily any less labor intensive.

[GuitarGeek]

The one area that digital is inarguably superior is in compositing: the layering of the various SFX elements/green-screen/blue-screen work. Stuff that required an optical printer in the past. Trumbull has said as much in various speeches and seminars he has been part of.

Yeah, true.

Robert Abel and Associates did a lot of groundbreaking effects work in the seventies, stuff involving high-contrast negatives and positives, etc, for commercials like Levis and 7-Up.

I was reading on Wikipedia about how Abel ended up being fired off Star Trek: The Motion Picture, because after months of work, he hadn't delivered any material, with Trumbull replacing him.

You ever see The Thief and The Cobbler by Richard Williams? All hand-drawn and without a doubt, the single greatest feat of animation bar none. It is legendary to animators. The background story of the production is a story in itself. Wiki it. There is also a documentary called Persistence of Vision about the whole thing.

Not familiar with that piece but I'll look for it.

I do like the "dimensional" animation like Coraline and Box Trolls. Henry Selick is a big name in that. But the process is LABOR INTENSIVE!!

Haven't seen either of those yet.

Can't say I mind CG animation like in the upcoming Grinch movie and Pixar's stuff. It is simply another medium, similar to say watercolors and oils. There is room for both. And CG isn't necessarily any less labor intensive.

I would agree you have to put a lot of work into making CG look good and to take advantage of the benefits. Things like the face plate in Buzz Lightyear's helmet (you see reflections and his breath as would with a real face plate), or Sully's fur, you have to reckon they must spend forever watching how that stuff works in real life, and then they figure out how to map it inside the computer so that you can see something which, as I said, you won't ever see with traditional hand drawn animation.

BTW, talking of Pixar, I always liked their early short films, like Tin Toy and Luxo, Jr.

[Painter]

Yeah, true.

I was reading on Wikipedia about how Abel ended up being fired off Star Trek: The Motion Picture, because after months of work, he hadn't delivered any material, with Trumbull replacing him.

There are apparently two sides to the story, with Paramount constantly changing the script and adding effects, and Abel really not being equipped to handle a motion picture effects job, especially one with the then-record level of FX shots.

Abel's shop had some pretty innovative ideas. I can't find the site now, but there was an article about what they were planning on some site called "Unseen Trek" or something like that.

EDIT: Found it. Forgotten Trek: http://forgottentrek.com/interview-with-richard-taylor/

Here's another fairly balanced article on the fiasco: http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/R...%26_Associates

I would agree you have to put a lot of work into making CG look good and to take advantage of the benefits. Things like the face plate in Buzz Lightyear's helmet (you see reflections and his breath as would with a real face plate), or Sully's fur, you have to reckon they must spend forever watching how that stuff works in real life, and then they figure out how to map it inside the computer so that you can see something which, as I said, you won't ever see with traditional hand drawn animation.

Apparently, Luxo Jr took three hours a frame to render. Now, with the advanced technology and massive render farms, Pixar's movies now take... three hours a frame to render.

BTW, talking of Pixar, I always liked their early short films, like Tin Toy and Luxo, Jr.

This doesn't really count as an early short, but check out their Lifted. Funny funny concept

[Hal...]

You ever see The Thief and The Cobbler by Richard Williams?

I recognized the name Richard Williams and looked him up. And just as I thought, he was the director of the animated short, A Christmas Carol, that I saw in 1971. It was narrated by Michael Redgrave (Vanessa and Lynn's father) and starred Alistair Sim as Scrooge. I loved that cartoon when I was a kid and managed to track down a DVD of it a number of years ago. Unfortunately, the son-of-a-bitch who sold it to me said it was region free, which I'm not sure is true. I could watch it on my PC but not in a DVD player.

[hippypants]

Cinefantastique: archive.org

[Scott Bails]

I recognized the name Richard Williams and looked him up. And just as I thought, he was the director of the animated short, A Christmas Carol, that I saw in 1971. It was narrated by Michael Redgrave (Vanessa and Lynn's father) and starred Alistair Sim as Scrooge. I loved that cartoon when I was a kid and managed to track down a DVD of it a number of years ago. Unfortunately, the son-of-a-bitch who sold it to me said it was region free, which I'm not sure is true. I could watch it on my PC but not in a DVD player.

Rip it.

I remember that one, too.

[Painter]

I recognized the name Richard Williams and looked him up. And just as I thought, he was the director of the animated short, A Christmas Carol, that I saw in 1971. It was narrated by Michael Redgrave (Vanessa and Lynn's father) and starred Alistair Sim as Scrooge. I loved that cartoon when I was a kid and managed to track down a DVD of it a number of years ago. Unfortunately, the son-of-a-bitch who sold it to me said it was region free, which I'm not sure is true. I could watch it on my PC but not in a DVD player.

Yup.

His most famous work is Who Framed Roger Rabbit . All the animation. Obviously Zemeckis directed the entire film.

[Hal...]

Rip it.

I will, Jed. I just haven't gotten around to it, yet.