Art of Film Creates a Spectacular Video on The VFX of Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The guys over at Art of the Film, an ongoing series of videos celebrating movies, have taken scenes from various Behind The Scenes, On The Set videos and Featurettes and have put together a spectacular video on The VFX of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Check it out!
The video shows a visual effects breakdown of the sequence in “The Force Awakens” where Rey and Finn escape Jakku in the Millennium Falcon.
Another video at their website shows a featurette titled ‘The Sound of Star Wars’ that takes the viewer on quick watch and listen while highlighting the sound design from all 7 films.
See more about Star Wars: The Force Awakens visual effects and sound design by purchasing the film on Blu-ray, DVD or digital HD download.
It’s funny how CGI is kind of taken for granted these days. So much work went into this. I love that there were countless times I had no idea it was CGI. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not citing the who practical versus CGI. I mean like at the Oscars… Ex-mach was certainly a good movie but I just can’t think it’s CGI efforts were as grandiose as all this.
I was actually just going to say, that crashed destroyer is a giant middle finger to everyone who has ever acted like CGI is somehow less demanding model-making than practical.
If that’s something about the Force Awakens that they did right it was the visual effects, both practical and computer generated. All of it worked so well and flowed together seamlessly. I think this hybrid approach which blends both, is the best of both worlds.
Practical effects are not immune to criticism, there have been some truly horrendous practical effects in films. None of the practical effects in TFA were bad imo though. The worst was probably the little alien that pops up when BB-8 is fleeing from the First Order. It just looked a little too fake and was unnecessary to me.
I thought that hippo-pig and bird looked just as bad. I mean, the hippo-pig looked like cloth, didn’t even open it’s mouth, and we’re meant to believe it’s drinking water.
The hippo rhino thing doesn’t have a mouth that’s why. I just rewatched that scene and it has just these two little tusk things on the sides, but no visible lines for a mouth. It looks like it has a giant sack of skin for a mouth, which absorbs water through the bottom. The bird just looks very stiff and moves awkwardly, so yeah that was probably the worst of the practical effects.
Still think the riding thing Teedo or whatever its name is, is the worst – Rey saves BB8, then because that thing is just two guys in a heavy suit, it takes literally forever to get any distance away from her.
*Luggabeast*
I LIKE the birds! They feel very Dark Crystal to me- yeah, they’re dorky, but they feel SOOOOOOOO right.
I love that alien! Yes, it looks like a puppet, but I love the jerky dorkiness of it. JJ said in an interview a while back that others suggested replacing it with CGI, but he wanted to keep the puppet because it looked similar to some in the OT, in all its jerkiness. I’m glad he kept it!
That thing was intentionally janky, as per JJ Abrams’ instructions about it – the idea was to use some really simple techniques to evoke a bit of the feeling of the OT, and that head-on-a-stick was a deliberate choice.
It reminded me of the Dianoga in ANH. An obvious puppet that adds a bit of 70s atmosphere to the production.
To be honest, with the possible exception of the Music, TFA did not deserve to win any of the awards for which it was nominated other than visual effects which were easily a greater achievement than those in Ex-Machina. It was disappointing that they lost the award to that film.
1:23 WE JUST LOST STAR-1!
It was cool to see the enitre saga (so far) all together in the sound design video..that seismic charge from AOTC still till this day is my #1
I can easily admit the music and sound of the prequels were phenomenal.
Matt Wood seems like a nice guy, but he’s no Ben Burtt.
That montage seems similar to the one you posted months ago but I kind of like the Midi sounding version of The Force/Obi-Wan’s theme in this one.
this is a friendly reminder that practical vs. cgi is nonsense nowadays
This is amazing. I give props to all the computer techs and graphic artists in film period. They work hard to try to immerse us into different worlds to make storytelling more dynamic and I think they are disrespected too much. The FX in TFA were spectacularly done. I loved the prequels, not a fan of the acting a lot of time – I’m a fan of the story and I can keep it right there without ranting like a baby about how terrible Lucas was. ANYWAY most of the CGI sequences in the prequels still look amazing even to today’s standards.
Oh, definitely.
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/3061/9959/original.jpg
AMAZING.
WASN’T THERE A DELETED CHEWIE SCENE??? Can’t find it on the Blue Ray. He was supposed to rip an arm off.. Was that just a false rumor?
That really happened in the novelization, but the VFX were probably unfinished.
YES THERE WAS BUT THEY DON’T SEEM TO HAVE INCLUDED IT OR THE TUNNEL SCENE UNDER THE CASTLE.
Sorry, I thought this was “Everybody yells” morning.