Originally Posted by unlurking:
That's because you're an idiot. It's not about how close they got to making it look like Cushing, it's about how far away they got from it looking like CGI.
If you're bragging about your CGI detection abilities, congrats. You're now the ultimate dork. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
...
It didn't make the movie worse, but it made it different and not in a way that was demonstrably better. As such, I think I'd have avoided it outright.
Agreed. It was still a great movie, and even though the CGI was obvious, Tarkin is a great character. It just felt odd. [Reply]
Maybe the older you are the less this shit bothers you. If I'd grown up watching Jackson's Lord of the Rings instead of the original Star Trek perhaps I'd be pickier. But I was a wide-eyed 11-year-old the first time I saw Star Wars, and I remember the shit that passed for special effects in movies prior to that. This just doesn't bother me. They did their best and put a lot of care and attention into it, but it's not like they can go back in time and snatch up Cushing to provide a few extra lines of dialogue. The guy sounded the part, and the CGI made him look the part. It wasn't perfect. So what? [Reply]
Possible age related. Never saw the originals in the theater. For me it was jarring. Everything else about the movie was amazing, but then all of a sudden something seemed out of place.
This argument reminds me of some of my older relatives who swore they couldn't see the difference between SD and HD video almost 20 years ago. I'll step off you off your lawns and let you all get back to reminiscing. :-) [Reply]
I didn't know there were any CGI characters going into the movie but immediately could tell with Tarkin(then again, you know he'd probably be dead by now so it's hard not to look at him closer. It was CGIish and I was hoping they'd have been able to make it look better with current technology. It did slightly pull me out of the movie just because I was paying close attention to him. [Reply]
IMO - They pushed Tarkin's character too far. I don't believe he had that many lines in any of the other movies.
The scenes where he was talking into his reflection would have sufficed. It would have amazed the fan boys and not be noticeable to the casual viewer. They kinda blew it there. [Reply]
He was portrayed by a human and his dialogue was performed by a human.
They chose a man that not only has the same build as Peter Cushing but that could also imitate his inflections and voice.
VFX were only applied to his face and had he been an original character and not a recreation of a man that died in 1994, there'd be little discussion about his inclusion. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud:
People, Tarkin wasn't a "CGI character".
He was portrayed by a human and his dialogue was performed by a human.
They chose a man that not only has the same build as Peter Cushing but that could also imitate his inflections and voice.
VFX were only applied to his face and had he been an original character and not a recreation of a man that died in 1994, there'd be little discussion about his inclusion.
And?
I don't thing the verbiage is what's at issue here. The question is how much, if any, Tarkin should've been included and whether his character added enough to the story to be worth a somewhat jarring bit of cognitive dissonance.
I think my answer is that it was too much fan service and not enough substance to justify the intrusion. It struck me as a VFX team tasked with working around some lazy writing. [Reply]
I don't thing the verbiage is what's at issue here. The question is how much, if any, Tarkin should've been included and whether his character added enough to the story to be worth a somewhat jarring bit of cognitive dissonance.
It's not "verbiage". Tarkin wasn't created in a computer. He was a living, breathing human being. It was the actor's facial expressions - those weren't created in a computer or by VFX artists.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
I think my answer is that it was too much fan service and not enough substance to justify the intrusion. It struck me as a VFX team tasked with working around some lazy writing.
And I thought his inclusion was absolutely necessary and didn't mind the VFX. I fully disagree about "lazy writing". Leaving Tarkin out of Rogue One would have been a mistake, especially considering his importance in ANH and to The Emperor and Vader.
Now, I can understand why you didn't care for the portrayal but to leave him out entirely wouldn't have made sense in the grand scheme of the Star Wars Universe. [Reply]
Call it whatever you want, but everybody RAVED about Star Wars getting back to practical effects for characters. There is a reason for that, as even prosthetics and makeup look more realistic than CGI overlays. Just because an actor uses motion capture to record motions and sounds does not mean that it looks real once those motions are translated into CGI graphics.
Yes, the performance was not CGI, but the overlay was. Golum and Caesar were both great performances by a living, breathing human being, but in no way did they seem "real". But in the context of those movies and the fact that the final screen product is not supposed to be human, it works.
For me, it wasn't a huge bother, but it did take me out of the moment and really affected my appreciation of the scenes he was in as it became something my mind focused on. In that regard, I'd rather he was used much more sparingly. At the same time, I love the Tarkin character and his backstory in the novel. I don't have an answer about what would have been a better solution, and I'll probably not be bothered by it on my next viewing. On first viewing in the theater though, I found it to be very distracting. [Reply]
Originally Posted by unlurking:
Wow. Maybe it's me, but I thought it was totally noticeable. Here's a side by side...
...and here is an image from Final Fantasy: Spirits Within...
That's 2001 CGI, looking just as good as the Tarkin CGI in 2016 (actually better IMO). The same smoothness to the features. Take away the non-CGI background, and I don't see anything better about Tarkin. The only thing that makes it better than a cartoon is that there is so much static background and zero interaction with anything else. No flowing hair, etc. They did a very minimalist job to help hide the fact that it's CGI, but it is still very noticeable CGI. At least it was to me.
Maybe if I hadn't heard all the raving reviews about the CGI going in I wouldn't have had such high expectations and looking for it. I don't know, was just a major (and really the only for me) disappointment.
EDIT: I'm not saying it was bad in comparison to other CGI stuff, just that it was noticeable, and I would prefer not to have CGI people in a live action film. Takes me "out of the moment" and ruins the mood.
For reference, I'm going to compare the post effects shot of Tarkin to a picture taken from the OT that has a better resolution and not taken from a downward angle.
