As if Peter Jackson’s upcoming King Kong doesn’t look juicy enough, Josh Rottenberg’s feature in the upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly (check PopWatch tomorrow night for a sneak peek of the cover) contains a little behind-the-scenes drama, too. Here’s my favorite excerpt from the story:
Skull Island, Kong’s jungly home, was created almost entirely in miniatures; there are twice as many miniatures shots in Kong as in all three Rings films combined. At one point during postproduction, [Star Wars director] George Lucas dropped by the set for a hush-hush visit. Alex Funke, supervising director of visual-effects photography, proudly showed off his miniatures department’s handiwork, which was meticulously crafted down to the tiniest piece of plastic jungle foliage. ”George said, ‘Of course, we could do all that digitally,”’ Funke says. ”We said, ‘Yes, of course you could. So?”’
Suh-nap! Okay, PopWatchers, are you awaiting King Kong with breathless anticipation? And (shameless plug alert) how ’bout EW’s Kong cover?
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Binks. Enough said.
You could do it digitally and then all of the actors could like they were walking around in a cartoon! I am a fairly big Star Wars fan but the digital world never looked as good as the miniatures, models, rubber suits and puppets of the originals.
I’m a big fan of digital images, but I also love miniatures. A combination of the two seems ideal. Alex Funke is great…he reminds me of my uncle. I guess that’s neither here nor there.
I am so psyched to see this flick… George Lucas is superb!
Lucas is so stupid. As Jake said, it’s easy to spot digital work. Having actual sets, whether it be miniature or life-size, makes it more real and believable and makes the viewer believe in the world created and be into the movie instead of being distracted at things that look obviously computer generated.
George could create an all digital cast if he wanted….why bother hiring actors anymore?!?!?
I think Lucas relies too much on digital special effects, and the heart and soul of the original trilogy was lost in episodes 1-3.
The LOTR trilogy was SO much better on all levels. I thought the miniatures (or bigatures as Peter calls them) looked incredible and a hundred times more realistic than anything on Star Wars 1-3.
I can’t wait to see Kong!
The minute Lucas started prattling on about Joseph Campbell’s theories back around the time of Empire Strikes Back (the only good Star Wars movie), trying desperately to add substance to a substance-free bunch of movies, he lost me. At least when Jackson used CGI in LOTR he knew how to integrate the imagery with the actors. Lucas never had a clue. As someone said below, if he could digitize actors he would. Let the hermit go back to his cave and play with his toys.
I think you’re being a little hard on George. I agree that Lucas couldn’t make a better Kong than Jackson. However, digital movies are his medium. It would be no different than Ralph Bakshi saying he could do it in rotoscope or Monet could do it in watercolors. I’m not sure I’d want to see the results, but any artist should be free and encouraged to put their spin on another’s work (yes, Lucas is an artist…look at how he inspired your responses!).
Not much professional courtesy on Lucas’ part. That’s like walking up to someone who just baked a cake from scratch and saying “Y’know, you could have bought that at a store.” You’d think he’d have greater respect for craftsmanship.
Or maybe he was trying to line the pockets of ILM with more high-profile work.
There’s a lot to be said for practicle effects. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
i am sooooo excited for king kong!! i think there is room for both digital and miniature work in hollywood…but the LOTR films are visually better than star wars 1-3. sometimes digital stuff looks cartoonish if one is not careful.
We weren’t there so I won’t comment but to say that if KK doesn’t perform at the BO, PJ will be crying over the extra budget created by making minatures. GL is not a tool but only a man who lacks the ability of character definition in his scripts. Otherwise, he is beyond being a genius. PJ and Funke are equally talented but GL certainly helped to define the genre they are in. However, on another note, I’m just not “feeling” this movie for some reason. The trailer did nothing for me. I love what PJ did with the LOTR trilogy but something is lacking here. There are very good actors attached but not necessarily ones who will make me come out to the theater. I know the talent attached to LOTR weren’t BO draws but the premise was oh so enticing. Seeing dinosaurs may have flattened my interest….
Frankly, the biggest problem I’ve had with all three of the Star Wars prequels was the CGI. I’m sorry, but it’s so easy to tell it’s digital. Three dimensional puppets, no matter how bad the puppetry, still provide a sense of realism that digital can’t touch. That takes me out of the story. I applaud anyone that is willing to do something that’s more expensive, just because it looks more realistic. For that, I’m definitely going to see King Kong.
The problem with George Lucas, with Steven Spielberg, with all the “big time visionaries” of Hollywood, is that they go through perfecting their craft and become so used to hearing how good they are that they fail to try things that are new or recognize that what works for them doesn’t work for everyone. And in the end, if they are a mainstream visionary (let’s face it, to be visionary they must be mainstream for the masses to embrace), they have to have the audience in mind first, not themselves and their “art”.
Has anyone ever noticed that the two people who can’t shut up about all things digital and CGI(Lucas and Robert Rodriguez) are two filmmakers who have zero idea how to use that technology to craft anything resonant? Interesting.
Funny that George Lucas thinks CGI can somehow make up for bad scripwriting or poor acting. And as old school as miniatures are, they are no where near as lame as those fake azzed looking CGI shots. Message to Lucas: The games on my playstation look more real than the backgrounds in your recent star wars movies (and except for ep III they sucked big time). If Lucas wants to talk smack about other peoples’ productions, he might make some products of quality. So long as he is still milking his 1977 cash cow without anything truly original to give us anymore, he should keep his mouth shut and go count his billions.
Geez is it runting season already?
Lucas gotta be worreid about the new kids on the block (WETA) to be smacking a colleague like that. When ever you get a new kid on the block there is always an older dude tryin to mess with him. Lucas has talent no doubt, and he has some great ideas, but man, there is enough room on the playing field other talented people.
I wonder how much CGI he will use in Indiana Jones iv.
Star Wars is old…and dead….Kong is waiting in the wings..
Long Live the King….
I read the quotes, and it sounds like juicy gossip, but there’s also a lot of room there for interpretation. I don’t think either was intentionally rude, nor do I think the language is in any respect rude. And even if it was, how do we know if wasn’t playful banter? Answwer: we don’t.
Ok, Lucas playing with CGI has make us enjoy the digital cinema also he improve one or two technologies but, personally, I think that in the episodes 1-3 all the digital actors (except some of Yoda in eps. 2-3) doesn’t seems to have a soul in there. What makes me a big fan of Jackson is that he takes every technology available, bigatures, paintings, CGI, etc. and produces an amazing movie, with characters, backgrounds, landscapes that really have a soul and a meaning. I think that Kong will be a wonderful movie (more even after see the last Kong trailer). P.S. There are dinosaurs there because the original Kong story!
Miniatures are just extraordinarily awesome, CGI is okay for the really complicated stuff but even then Peter Jackson will still try to create a miniature of even the most complicated creature. This makes him a true master of films and a hard worker. Unlike Gorge, Peter knows when to incorporate CGI into his work and make it look good and not FAKE!! I praise Peter Jackson for the extra time, and yes money, that he invest to make the miniatures because it’s that reality that makes us believe that Middle Earth is part of this earth.
All I can say is George Lucas’s obsession with CGI was his downfall with the new Star Wars movies he directed. The acting wasn’t that great. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy puts Lucas’s Star Wars to shame. Jackson really knows how to make a great movie. King Kong is looking awesome. I can’t wait to see it and anything else he happens to make. I know that he’s going to be producing Halo but hopefully he’ll end up directing it as well.
George Lucas needs to take notes from “Lost” and get his focus back on storytelling – rather than special effects – and “Lord of The Rings” proved that fact!
Even though Harrison Ford is sucking applesauce through a straw, he would be wise to write an intelligent script for “Indiana Jones 4 and The Lost City of Atlantis” …and then let Steven Spielberg run wild!
The id and I – “The only Pedigree we have are Choice Cuts in Gravy.”
STAR WARS IS ALIVE AND WELL, AND MORE POPULAR THAN EVER. Revenge of the Sith, like it’s fellow prequel The Phantom Menace, sit higher on the all-time biggest grossers list than ANY of the Lord of the Rings Movies, and Sith is far and away the biggest grossing movie of the year, like it or not. I do like Lord of the Rings, but the CGI is just as obvious, and in some cases far worse. Spare us your posturing Jackson-lovers, there would have been no Lord of the Rings if it had not been for Gearge Lucas, a fact that Peter Jackson has made very clear. We will see how Kong does at the box office, since most people I know have no intention of sitting through a 3 hour film with a hairy ape.
Peter Jackson has a fraction of George Lucas’ imagination. George actually created his story, whereas every hit Jackson movie has been an adaptation of someone else’s story, like Lord of the Rings (Tolkein), and King Kong, which at the end of the day is just another remake and an example of Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy.
No anticipation for Kong here, and it’s sad that EW insists on continuing to plug their anti-SW rhetoric, when it is so passe now after fans embraced Sith. The funniest part is that EW gave Batman their summer movie cover when there was no chance in the world it was going to beat Revenge of the Sith. Pathetic, really.
The top 10 Films of all Time (source: Box Office Mojo)
1.) Titanic $600.8 million
2.) STAR WARS EPISODE IV $461.0 million
3.) Shrek 2 $436.5 million
4.) E.T. $435.0 million
5.) STAR WARS EPISODE I $431.1 million
6.) Spider-Man $403.7 million
7.) STAR WARS EPISODE III $380.3 million
8.) Lord of the Ringworms: Return of Sam loves Frodo $377.0 million
9.) Spider-Man 2 $373.4 million
10.) The Passion of the Christ $370.3 million
Seeing how the Star Wars prequels have outperformed Lord of the Rings, it’s pretty obvious this debate is pointless. GO LUCAS!!!
The top 10 Films of all Time (source: Box Office Mojo)
1.) Titanic $600.8 million
2.) STAR WARS EPISODE IV $461.0 million
3.) Shrek 2 $436.5 million
4.) E.T. $435.0 million
5.) STAR WARS EPISODE I $431.1 million
6.) Spider-Man $403.7 million
7.) STAR WARS EPISODE III $380.3 million
8.) Lord of the Ringworms: Return of Sam loves Frodo $377.0 million
9.) Spider-Man 2 $373.4 million
10.) The Passion of the Christ $370.3 million
Seeing how the Star Wars prequels have outperformed Lord of the Rings, it’s pretty obvious this debate is pointless. GO LUCAS!!!
CGI is not entirely bad. If used right, it can be awesome. But what Lucas did with the prequals was basically what pixar did with all their computer animated movies, only Lucas used a couple of ‘real’ actors here and there. There’s no doubt the best use of CGI is in certain areas where it is entirely impossible to use anything else, such as Terminater 2, Titanic, parts of LOTR. But when overused, it can take away from the legitamacy of the movie, as in star wars 1-3.
CGI is not entirely bad. If used right, it can be awesome. But what Lucas did with the prequals was basically what pixar did with all their computer animated movies, only Lucas used a couple of ‘real’ actors here and there. There’s no doubt the best use of CGI is in certain areas where it is entirely impossible to use anything else, such as Terminater 2, Titanic, parts of LOTR. But when overused, it can take away from the legitamacy of the movie, as in star wars 1-3.
I love Star Wars and I love LOTR. I think Lucas and Jackson are two of the greatest theatrical minds making movies right now. I tend to agree with the people that love the minatures – but i like Lucas’s attempt to expand beyond the boundaries of normal film making. I wonder if 30 years ago when the first Star Wars came out people argued over how they did or didn’t like the minatures that Lucas used in the first Star Wars films because they liked another type of film making. I think that Digital is awesome and Lucas new that he had to use it to tell the Prequel Trilogy the way he imagined it in his head. And those of you who say digital sucks and LOTR rules…. think about everything in that movie that would not be there if there was no digital. No Golum. No battle of Minas Tirith (even though the city itself was an incredible minature). But I digress. In conclusion – Peter Jackson and G. Lucas rule – Digital and Minatures need to learn to coexist – and King King is going to be awesome because its got dinosaurs in it.
Go check the “making of” on Star Wars Ep3. You can see that they are also doing a lot of things with miniatures, especially the landscapes of the lava-planet… Of course you can do everything digitally these days, but George Lucas still didn’t so, I think everybody is just overrating the comment…
Lucas used just as many miniatures in the Prequels as Jackson did in Rings. The reason George Lucas’ world looks “faker” is because it shows us unearthly things, while Rings just has various sized people and a couple beasts here and there. I mean, is there any bright blue skin in the Rings universe? I think not. Star Wars is colorful and fantastic while Rings is dirty and old world. The artistry behind both cinema worlds is amazing.
Lucas used just as many miniatures in the Prequels as Jackson did in Rings. The reason George Lucas’ world looks “faker” is because it shows us unearthly things, while Rings just has various sized people and a couple beasts here and there. I mean, is there any bright blue skin in the Rings universe? I think not. Star Wars is colorful and fantastic while Rings is dirty and old world. The artistry behind both cinema worlds is amazing.