CG Television Clone Wars Trailer Released

Ant writes "The official Star Wars site has up the one minute and 50 second trailer for the upcoming computer rendered Clone Wars." I'm still not sold on the CG, but the models seem to be somewhat based on Genndy Tartakovsky's designs from the original Clone Wars series. Wikipedia offers a bevy of details on the series.

Well obviously...

[aarku]

It's not supposed to be photorealistic CG. Whether or not they successfully stylized it is the question. It's just like how Pixar decided to make more cartoony CG and was wildly successful with it, while things like the Final Fantasy movie tried photorealism and failed. I can't make up my mind based on a low bitrate low resolution trailer.

CG WTF?

[Thumper_SVX]

Why is everyone making a big deal that the CG looks crap? BFD! It's about the stories, not the CG. I couldn't care less if it's done with bits of paper on a glass sheet background so long as the stories are written and voiced reasonably well.

No, the CG doesn't look real... you really want it to? I'd prefer something with a little style, a little "not real". Have you watched Polar Express? The characters looked real, and moved realistically alright... but they also looked like propped up corpses because despite all the work of the artists they STILL couldn't quite get it real enough.

There's only so far you can go along the path of making CG realistic. At a certain point you have to start thinking about the look and the flow of the thing instead of whether or not you're rendering 1000 different pores on a human nose. I personally liked the trailer, I think it looked pretty good. The CG doesn't look realistic, and I for one am glad of it. It gives the CG animated series a certain flair.

Did anyone here watch TMNT at the theatres recently? I did with my 6-year-old son and loved it. The story was strong, the characters were well rendered... but realistic it wasn't. It was stylized, but in a way that to me and my son made the characters MORE believable. It's hard to accept an unreal world when there are real people up on the screen. Similarly, it's hard to accept the real world with unreal characters... we use what's called willing suspension of disbelief in order to take some aspects on faith.

Now, whether or not they can actually get some good stories in this is open to be seen. I won't make any quick judgments; sure Lucas has created some tripe like Episode 1... but mostly because it was more about him experimenting with what he could do with CG than writing a good story. Episodes 2 and 3 both improved on this formula but still didn't quite match Empire Strikes Back (though I still think Episode 3 was better (or at least equal) in almost every respect than Return of the Jedi). Since this is going to be all CG, there are no limits and nothing to prove. The only thing he CAN prove with a CG Star Wars is that he can still write. If he can't, the show will fail since there are million and one "also-rans" in this race.

I'll wait and see. The trailer gives is little to go on as far as whether or not the writing is better here than in the prequels. Lucas has written good stuff in his life; look at THX-1138. If he can do it again, this'll be good. If not, then maybe it'll get an audience with the current pre-teen crowd who enjoyed the prequels. However, without strong stories you'll lose them and there'll be no "rewatching" ability.

well...

[SuperDre]

at least you can give lucas credit for continuing his streak of creating junk.... the original trilogy is still unsurpassed (I guess it has something to do with him not directing ESB and ROTJ and not having the 'creative' tools like he has now)..

Re:CG WTF?

[Icarus1919]

I believe you are experiencing the Uncanny Valley Effect [wikipedia.org] when you speak of your preference for less realistic and more stylized story telling. Most people agree with you. CG characters that are almost but not quite real enough are weird and slightly creepy.

I don't get it

[mgabrys_sf]

Why wouldn't the series act as a bridge between III and IV instead of padding between II and III?

Is Darth Vader boring?

Re:I don't get it

[gaderael]

I think it has to do with the fact that they're in the process of making a video game that is going to bridge III and IV for the next gen consoles. They even say on the website that both LucasArts and Industrial Light and Magic have been working on this game. The Official site is here: http://www.lucasarts.com/games/theforceunleashed/ [lucasarts.com]

Re:I don't get it

[moderatorrater]

According to the timelines I've seen, they had to spend years tracking down and killing all the jedi. Some seriously kick-ass battles are possible with Darth Vader hunting down random jedi.