Eve Of The War
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50s Special Effects Vs Pendragon Special Effects
http://www.focusgaming.co.uk/eveofthewar/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14
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Author:  Leper Messiah [ Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:10 pm ]
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so of what we've seen of Pendragons special effects ability, i believe these two films may actually be in competition. Ive always thought the 50s special effects were pretty darned impressive and to this day theyre not unwatchably cheesy, and since Pendragons destruction of London scene seems to be in competition with computer games rather than films the question must be asked, will the 50s special effects hold stronger than Pendragons?

Author:  Sam [ Thu Jan 13, 2005 7:36 pm ]
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I will be extremely disappointed if the special effects are of the same standard as the 1953 classic. Its not that the 53 effects wer'nt good, they were brilliant. Its just after 52 years of technological advancements i hope to see some better effects !!

Author:  Leper Messiah [ Thu Jan 13, 2005 8:34 pm ]
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well its a matter of what can be afforded really. what we've seen leads me to believe the 53 version has the edge

Author:  Sam [ Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:12 pm ]
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That is pretty bad..

Author:  willorwell [ Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:52 pm ]
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There are some interesting problems with George Pal's special effects. It does not stop me from loving this film, as I have since its national tv debut in 1966 or 1967. <br /><br />1: the flying wing footage comes from a commercial film produced by the Northrop Corporation to keep the idea of the flying wing before the US public. The flying wing never, ever, dropped a real atomic bomb inasmuch as the bombs in the late 1940s were too big to fit into the bomb bay. So, although the flying wing was to carry the atomic bomb in the Pal movie, it is never shown dropping it on the Martians outside Los Angeles. In addition, the flying wing depicted in the Pal movie was a goner by 1953. The Air Force had canceled the project in 1949, ordering all existing flying wings destroyed. One survived, the YRB-49 until about 1953 sitting on the tarmac at Ontario Airport in Southern California for about 2 years until the Air Force ordered it destroyed. The first flying wing jet by Northrop, the YB-49, was destroyed during a high speed taxi test. The 2nd flying wing jet by Northrop, a YB-49, was destroyed when it crashed in the Antelope Valley north of Muroc Air Base. <br /><br />2. Look carefully, you can see the wires holding up the Martian ships.<br /><br />The sound effects from this film, along with ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, were the basis of the sound effects used in STAR TREK (the original series) as well as the TV movie THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA which premiered on ABC on Oct. 31, 1975.

Author:  Martian Myster The New Ma [ Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:08 pm ]
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Well its hard to critisize the special effects at this point as the trailer was such lo-res that it might have made them look poo. <br /><br />Also bare in mind that when you use models as special effects they can sometimes look superior to CGI. Prime example for this is Star Wars vs the new Star Wars films. I think the new star wars films have lost their edge, and a lot of it is down to being unbelievable.<br /><br />I think the tripod look good, and the big ben scene look ok, but as I said its difficult to judge with such a lo-res trailer.<br /><br />Boo-Ya-Ka-Sha :aliean:

Author:  Leper Messiah [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 12:15 am ]
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judging from other wotw fans online the lo-res argument is a popular one, and indeed if you compress the Paramount teaser down to the same size as the Pendragon trailer then ive no dount that the same degradation in the sfx quality would occur.

Author:  King of Sand [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 12:02 pm ]
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The tripods in the Pendragon version looks great and I think that if Tim Hines use the same skill in the rest of the movie, then it will be a blast!! The -53 movie really looks bad now I think... I see the wires holding up the ships and when the ship is crashing into the building it really looks corny...

Author:  Sam [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 5:23 pm ]
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Cool, maybe this film isnt going to be as bad as first expected...

Author:  gavv8 [ Sat Jan 15, 2005 7:49 pm ]
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I think the 53 version still looks ok and it still makes me jump when the slimy alien puts his mit on the girls shoulder, but hopefully the hines version will have moved on a bit from then, but as a good way to kill a few hours i think the 53 version holds up pretty well.

Author:  AmD [ Sun Jan 16, 2005 5:34 pm ]
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The only effects shot in the Pendragon trailer which looks reasonable is the tripod leg shot. But even this is no where near the standard of companies such as ILM or Weta Digital.<br /><br />I was going to respond to this topic by saying something like.. "Well Pendragon of course". However the shot of the falling star in the Pendragon trailer is extremely bad, barely matching the similar shot in the 50's film. The Big Ben shot is also not very good. Not just the look of the shot but also the completely unrealistic animation. Its ludicrous.<br /><br />I have zero faith in Pendragon. But I still expect the effects in their film to top the 50's one... but I am not sure.<br /><br />There is one BIG difference between the effects of the two films however. In 1953 the effects of the George pal film were state of the art. Today Pendragons effects are not. If Tim Hines claims otherwise he is deluding himself. Look at what Weta did with LOTR or what ILM did with Star Wars... THAT is state of the art.

Author:  Leper Messiah [ Sun Jan 16, 2005 6:37 pm ]
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Hines never claimed his sfx were state of the art, as far as i know all he wanted was for them not to be embaressing. The trailer seems to be a pretty unreliable indication of what we will see in the finished version, but if they were to stay at this standard the fifties version and Pendragon would be in pretty serious competition.

Author:  The Curate [ Mon Jan 17, 2005 12:23 pm ]
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:( Lets not get too 'hung up' over special effects.Yeah,coarse we love them.I believe its how close it is to the original novel that matters.If Mr Hines can give us that.........and the effects are reasonable....then everyones a winner. :D

Author:  gavv8 [ Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:20 pm ]
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Like i've said in other posts, the effects shown in parts of the pendragon trailer point to something really special, the cruise version is bound to be effects heavy and will no doubt look amazing but i think hines is trying to create something a little more challenging than that with the dark moodiness, chrome and metal technology against an austere victorian background and a slight awkwardness to the acting which reflects the stiffness of victorian life.<br />some parts of the trailer made me grimace but some made me genuinely excited in way i can't about the cruise version.<br />The cruise version will be well worth waiting for but i think the hines version will be what we've all really been waiting for.

Author:  Fenris [ Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:15 pm ]
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Quote:
Look carefully, you can see the wires holding up the Martian ships.
<br /><br />I made this remark on the previous forum, but since it's still a topic of conversation, I'll make it again; <br /><br />No matter how hard I look, I can't see the wires in the 1953 movie. And trust me, I've really, really looked.<br /><br />Everybody else has seen them. I've tried to see them. I want to see them. But I don't see them.<br /><br />Is something wrong with me?<br /><br /><br /><br /> <br />

Author:  Slopmaster [ Thu Jan 20, 2005 5:10 am ]
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Fenris wrote:
I made this remark on the previous forum, but since it's still a topic of conversation, I'll make it again; No matter how hard I look, I can't see the wires in the 1953 movie. And trust me, I've really, really looked. Everybody else has seen them. I've tried to see them. I want to see them. But I don't see them. Is something wrong with me?


I am glad you can't see them because I see them everytime I watch it. I'm hopeing in the gold old american corporate greed Paramount will release a special edition of the '53 movie with those wires erased from existance.

Author:  Jon T [ Tue Apr 05, 2005 7:10 pm ]
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i to have seen those dam wires. no doubt paramount will be re-releasing a special edition version of the 53 film. if it makes them more money then its a cert.

Author:  McTodd [ Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:03 pm ]
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Willorwell, I don't think it's really fair to criticise Pal on the grounds that the YRB-49 never dropped an atom bomb - after all, Martians never really invaded Earth!<br /><br />Pal probably only picked it because it looks dramatic and sleek, maybe he could only get footage of that bomber because it had been cancelled, and film of new bombers was classified?<br /><br />In any case, Wells refers to the 'Thunder Child' as a torpedo ram, whereas by 1896, when he started writing WotW, the last (and only) torpedo ram, HMS 'Polyphemus', was off the navy list having been built in the early 1880s!<br /><br />Hmmm, the similarities between Polyphemus and the YRB-49 are legion...<br /><br />As for wires, I can always see them but they don't bother me. I'd also rather they not digitally paint them out on any new DVD - God knows it was bad enough George Lucas mucking about with the original SW Trilogy... And where would it stop? Digitally stopping Kong's fur rippling in the 1933 classic? Or in those frames where one can see a stick holding up an off-balance animation puppet (such as the Kong-Tyrannosaur scrap) painting out the stick? Getting rid of the wires in the Flash Gordon serials? Is nothing sacred?<br /><br />Now, as for Pal v PP, frankly the one and only decent fx shot I've seen is the tripod legs striding over the artillery - and that lasts about a second. The new picture of the two tripods in London is unbelievably shoddy, and I pray it's just a pre-vis, because God help us if it's in the film.<br /><br />Frankly, I always find poor CGI unbelievably grating, it just looks like a cheap video game. Poor miniature work is far more forgivable.<br /><br />And yes, it might be bearable if it's reasonable quality, because at least it's trying to stay faithful to the book, but, and this is the big but, so far Hines has shown no evidence apart from a one second shot, that there will be even half-resonable effects, and that will sink it. That and the shoddy acting (and I can't see how that can be defended by putting it down to emulating Victorian mannerisms, shoddy acting is shoddy acting).

Author:  willorwell [ Sat Apr 09, 2005 8:29 pm ]
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"Willorwell, I don't think it's really fair to criticise Pal on the grounds that the YRB-49 never dropped an atom bomb - after all, Martians never really invaded Earth!<br /><br />Pal probably only picked it because it looks dramatic and sleek, maybe he could only get footage of that bomber because it had been cancelled, and film of new bombers was classified?"<br /><br />I have to admit that it is, perhaps, a few months since I posted. I would never have said the YRB-49 because the footage in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS is of the YB-49. And it's probably of the YB-49 #1, which was flown by then-Major Robert Cardenas from Muroc to Andrew AFB on 2/9/49 among other times. Cardenas retired as a brigadier general and is very active in veterans' affairs. He also piloted the B-29 which carried Chuck Yeager and the X-1 into the sky the day Yeager broke the sound barrier on Oct. 14, 1947. YB-49 #1 was destroyed in an accident during a taxi test on the runway. The YB-49 #2 crashed in a terrible accident on June 5, 1948, killing its crew. There is still a debris field in the Antelope Valley, California, north of the air force base, from the crash. <br /><br />My understanding, from someone who knew, was that Pal put the footage in the film, essentially, because the flying wing looked cool. <br /><br />I do not recall critizing George Pal for anything, I probably noted the facts. Those were: the YB-49 did not actually ever drop an a-bomb and the footage in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS does not show it dropping an a-bomb on the Martians. No criticism intended. The other major planes competing for the Air Force contract for a jet to be used to deploy atomic bombs were the B-36 and the B-47. The B-36 was a monster plane built by ConVair and the B-47 was built by Boeing. The B-47 was the forerunner to the B-52, as well as the jet that ultimately became the 707, the first major USA commercial passenger jet (also known as the "dash 80" initially). The B-36 and the YB-49 story is a fascinating one because of how it figures in Jack Northrop resigning from his own company. <br /><br />Yes, I know that the Martians never invaded earth.

Author:  Loz [ Sat Apr 09, 2005 10:33 pm ]
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Could you say that again?

Author:  Lonesome Crow [ Sat Apr 09, 2005 10:40 pm ]
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Loz wrote:
Could you say that again?


NO!

Author:  McTodd [ Sat Apr 09, 2005 11:06 pm ]
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willorwell wrote:
I do not recall critizing George Pal for anything, I probably noted the facts. Yes, I know that the Martians never invaded earth.


With respect, Willorwell, writing that there is a 'problem' with the special effects is a criticism, is it not? I mean, fair enough if you want to criticise Pal for using stock footage when he should have staged the whole thing with miniatures, but then explaining how the YRXB49B or whatever never actually dropped an atomic bomb in real life is a bit off the point, really - it's a work of fiction. And my comment on the Martians was ironic, I didn't really assume you didn't know the invasion was fictional.

Author:  The Improved Trog [ Sun Apr 10, 2005 8:08 am ]
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McTodd wrote:
As for wires, I can always see them but they don't bother me. I'd also rather they not digitally paint them out on any new DVD - God knows it was bad enough George Lucas mucking about with the original SW Trilogy... And where would it stop? Digitally stopping Kong's fur rippling in the 1933 classic? Or in those frames where one can see a stick holding up an off-balance animation puppet (such as the Kong-Tyrannosaur scrap) painting out the stick? Getting rid of the wires in the Flash Gordon serials? Is nothing sacred?


Hey dont critize Lucas! What would SW be without the added dancing aliens? That scene is soo cool. Yeah, Im allways too late. At least Pendragon got Tripods. B)

Author:  Loz [ Sun Apr 10, 2005 10:30 am ]
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I just rewatched the old Movie and I enjoyed the effects a hell of a lot. The sound effects are amazing.<br />I wonder why he didn't use stock footage of the A-Bomb?

Author:  McTodd [ Sun Apr 10, 2005 10:36 am ]
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There probably wasn't any of good enough quality.<br /><br />Or probably his fx men just wanted to muck about with pyrotechnics!<br /><br />I mean, who wouldn't? :smoking:

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