Since the wording in the part of the video dealing with deepfakery has been over-interpreted a few times, a clarification: What I mean when saying AI performances are "driven" by algorithms is that the *transformative* element of, say, the recreated face of a young Mark Hamill is automated - we're watching algorithmic interpretation of an image. Yes, it's an interpretation mapped onto a base layer that involved a human, but the final product is *processed,* not animated or acted. (Which is why it feels so flat and lifeless.) I can see there being a semantic argument here, but the point is that this method takes a meaningful human element out of the thing. Hope that clears things up for those who were taking it to imply there were never any humans involved at all. Still welcome to disagree about the end result, of course.
I mean, what if Andor was a show BEFORE this movie. My god, it would have made Rogue One so much more impactful. We could have glimpsed younger jyn connected with saws rebellion, feel the empire tightening it’s grip around the universe, even watching the power struggles within its ranks, like we are seeing now. And then we have to watch them all perish😩 It would have given this movie so much more life. Now they are creating a story worth telling posthumously, which cheapens it. Rogue One will always feel a little disconnected, algorithmic and dead because it was a cash grab, a story designed to capitalize on what the old movies were, instead of patiently world building what the Disney Star Wars could be.
@@thr33shadows Disney Star Wars has been all about duping the already very impressionable and mercurial fanbase with glimpses of what the saga used to be, buried underneath layers and layers of things that are foreign to it, like Jar Jar Abrams and his "mystery boxes", Rian Johnson's misplaced whodunnit sensibilities (which are now being put to better use elsewhere) and the trademark lifelessness of the mouse brand. and I know that not all of us Star Wars fans are like that, but when you remember that Force Awakens sits at the top 10 all time box office and that the newer shows have a good chunk of the fandom mesmerized over small cameos and references, it's pretty hard to reach any other conclusion.
George Lucas predicted the rise of films with dead actors in the 80s. He was pretty spot on. The only thing he was wrong about was he thought computer movies wouldn't be commercial. He was pretty prescient in a lot of ways. A very shrewd businessman and incredibly intelligent. When the technology didn't exist he spurred it forward, he created it. With his companies and employees.
@@lastjedi-1 From inventing ILM to create new innovations in visual effects in the ‘70s, all the way to pioneering digital film-making in the ‘00s, and everything in between, he’s always at the forefront of something new and exciting.
"These movies exist to serve an algorithm, not humans" I cannot express to you how many times I've heard management at my job try to say that algorithms should just replace everything. It's extremely short sighted.
A really good algorithm would replace management. It eventually would require actors, writers, producers, musicians, composers, set, prop, and costume designers, etc. But the computers would crunch the numbers, obviating the suits in the suites.
I’ve been saying it forever, the issue with Disney Star Wars simply, is that it doesn’t have a soul. It’s an empty shell, all dressed up in the finest clown makeup modern technology can offer. But the fans of Star Wars in my experience have never been vain. We’ll take campy and low budget special effects with a human heartfelt story over a high budget blockbuster film written by an algorithm any day.
@@lastjedi-1 Anybody been rewatching Rebels lately? It hits so much harder now, in this dry spell of human SW content. (Although Andor + The Bad Batch are both really good)
@@lastjedi-1 I mentioned Rebels because it came out in the Disney era, while CW is the last Lucas-brand product. Rebels may not be perfect, but it has character-work that puts the rest of Disney SW to shame. Even the Bad Batch has yet to get to that level.
Honestly. Some of the most insightful and thought intensive content I’ve ever seen. Legitimately made me feel more connected to my emotions over the franchise as a whole, and helped put into words what I could not. In a phrase, give me the right questions to ask myself. To make a long comment short; yeah this stuff is baller. Keep posting W’s king.
The line about artists being a set of instructions really resonated with me. It revealed to me all the thinking that's wrong with the attitude of Disney, trying to push innovations just because they can, when there's nothing wrong with the existing way of doing things. Artists really deserve to be treated with more respect.
I think Disney feel they have to push innovation in movies because that was one of the things Lucas was know for. They are following a set of instructions on how to make a Lucas type film without understanding the themes and art that Lucas made his stuff so appealing. Just like Hollywood made all those crappy scifi films after Star Wars.
@@obiwankenobi687 No it's muuuuch deeper ;) In fact it's A BAD SIGN. And the beginning of DEEP FAKE MOVIES. Or maybe the algorithm of concern in the production of this video really was the RU-vid algorithm.
I would like to see more filmmakers go the opposite direction and make films with little or no CGI and plenty of old-school practical effects (even cheesy "low-budget" ones). It's much more satisfying to watch a spaceship explode (for example) in a film if you know that the creators were blowing SOMETHING to smithereens (usually a detailed miniature) IRL and filming that, rather than just creating a series of images on a computer screen.
What is “wrong” with the existing way of doing things? Why, profit maximisation, of course. Corporations exist solely to generate profits. There’s no legal way, in the US, to avoid that sole responsibility.
I remember thinking, "Gosh, I don't want to be mean, but the voice actor they got to play young Luke is giving such a wooden performance." Learning that they didn't even bother hiring a voice actor is a little distressing, but it certainly explains things.
I really appreciate you respecting the knowledge of your audience, that use of the "I know" line delivery from Harrison Ford to prove what actors can bring to their character was great.
Your opening made me think: Disney doesn't understand that the Skywalkers are not heroic but tragic figures at their core. The Skywalker line is fundamentally tragic in their nature, hence the focus on redemption and choosing ones own destiny. The irony is that they ended up finishing the tragedy by having a Palpatine, the creators of the tragedy, co-opt the heroic part of their destiny. So they got there in the end, from a certain point of view. Using Luke as an example, part of his journey is that every time he gets what he thinks he wants he pays a cost he didn't want and Luke actually figures this out in RotJ. His throwing away his lightsaber and refusing to fight is him refusing the destiny of a hero he originally thought he wanted, and the unexpected result is that his father saves him and sets him down a new path. The act of letting go of his desires and expectations, denying the sith in the star wars trope which is ruled by desire, leads him to becoming a true Jedi and awakening that aspect of his father long dormant. Luke ended the tragedy there, Leia on the other hand hasn't crossed that bridge yet. The sequels didn't understand that lesson and had Luke go backwards without any real explanation and Leia take his place without giving an arch that explains how she got there as if one pays attention Leia is the one most like Anakin and Luke is the one most like Padme.
I've always argued that CGI Tarkin would've played better as a full-size hologram throughout the film. The blue tint and jumpy, static-y nature would've hid a lot of the flaws. It would've also read as him purposefully refusing to see Krennic in person, lowering the latter's status in the process, until Tarkin swoops in to steal the Death Star project from under him.
Wow. I was kinda defensive at first because I love Rogue One (and I still do) but after hearing you out, you’re right. You pinpointed the unhuman, empty feeling I’ve felt watching certain Disney movies and shows. Excellent essay!!
Same! Rogue One is still my fav Disney Star Wars material but I'm def willing to admit it's faults esp since I'm very critical of other Disney Star Wars such as Kenobi
Yeah, ironically I still think that Rogue One feels the most human and authentic (and most like Star Wars) out of all the films Disney Lucasfilm released, but there are still elements to it that make it more of a product of the machine than a piece of art... and the use of the motion-capture technology to reconstruct real people is probably the most serious example of this. I still appreciate the movie, and it still affects me emotionally, but it has its issues and So Uncivilized hit them right on the head.
That plot hole about the Death Star's weakness truly isn't a plot hole. Lucas based the idea on how pilots would target naval ships' exhaust ports to trigger chain reactions, causing massive damage to these impressive ships, which often were nuclear. He decided that despite the Death Star being so much bigger than most ships, it still would feature a structural feature that smaller vessels had that could then be exploited, but might be so hard to find, they needed the plans for the station's designs.
Yeah and it's so weird to act like the flaw was some totally unknown thing to the Empire. It wasn't, they covered it with ray shielding. They just didn't imagine that a small one-man fighter would be able to penetrate their defenses and launch a proton torpedo down a two-meter exhaust port while hurtling at top speed toward a dead end. It was literally just a subtle design flaw.
Thank you! I keep saying the thermal exhaust port is a plot point not a plot hole: The Empire dosn't belive one man can make any difference, or is of any value. That's why The Death Star doesn't have anti-fighter guns and TIE fighters are cheap and fragile.
Ironically Rogue One only corrobated your point and is compatible. If one listens to Erso's message intended for Jyn, he asserted that the reactor module was the exploitable component to destroying the station, since he sabotaged the system. Rendering it more vulnerable to pressurised explosions to any part of it. No mention of the exhaust ports - Erso never implemented them. They were clearly part of the design. Necessitated by the immense thermal energy and radiation generated by the reactor core. That needs to be funneled away from the reactor regardless, and any explosion to vital components result in chain reactions, as you asserted. In actuality, the film implicates that without a sabotaged hypermatter reactor system, it would have been even more difficult to destroy the Death Star, which is a testament to how fortunate the Alliance was - this already being evident within ANH. The film only reinforces Lucas thematic intention through adding it's own expansion on the Death Star's history. It's not necessary, however it may enhance ANH and there's a neat historical parallel with Galen Erso and the scientists, whom were instrumental in ushering the atomic/nuclear age.
@@AshanBhatoa The whole reason a thermal exhaust port is such a weakness without any additional tinkering is because of all the thermal energy and radiation generated by the reactor core of a machine that could destroy planets. Given how much energy is needed to produce a planet destroying blast, the equal reactive energy created for the attack has to be dispersed somewhere, out exhaust ports, which provide the necessary recipe for chain reactions to turn the Death Star's own produced energy back on itself (a webcomic done with Legos pointed this out years before Disney did Star Wars). Since those exhaust ports are such good targets for destroying the Death Star, there was no needed tinkering from the station's designer (who should've been a Genoshian, not a human, but they were likely trying to ignore or retcon the Prequels). There were likely multiple exhaust ports but the one focused on in A New Hope was likely the easiest to attack
@@mustlovedragons8047 I utterly love how incompetent the Empire is, which is so realistic like real-life villains who create societies that function horribly for their people. The best examples are how cheap and ill-trained the storm-troopers are compared to Clone Troopers, how little the Empire cares for its own men with the likes of non-shielded tie-fighters, and the fact the Emperor keeps funneling his budget into making Death Stars, which are wildly inefficient tools of war. Palpatine makes them because of his power addiction, using the Death Star to not just obliviate enemies but attempt to rule through fear. A smarter evil overlord would wipe out the populace of a planet so as to acquire and use the planet's raw resources, replacing rebellious former inhabitants with loyal subjects, giving the planet as a prize, but Palpatine being the power-mad despot he is, stupidly destroys a resource rich planet like Alderaan as a form of flexing. An. Entire. Planet. Of. Resources. It's mind-boggling to even attempt to think how much resources were lost from Alderaan's destruction, even relative to the galactic scale. Ironically, such an attack seemed to further unite divided factions and spur them on to more militant actions against the Empire (there's a great line from the radio drama when Leia screams at Tarkin and Vader that they have declared war on Life itself). Palpatine was a wonderfully crafty schemer, manipulating an entire galaxy into civil war so as to rise to absolute power, but once procurring that power, he horribly mismanaged ruling his galactic prize. He was doomed to fail, purely because of his own immoral nature ruling so many peoples.
I am so in love with your videos that it feels like childhood Christmas whenever I see a new one! Can't wait for the LOTR video essays. I have a feeling they're going to be next level!
I love how you explore this hidden concept that no one had talked about before. Most people just say things like, "this movie is good/bad" or "this is how the story should or should not play out". Very impressive
Excellent video. Your analogy about "deepfake movies" really hit the nail on the head. It's truly a shame that the general public don't seem to see any problems with these artistically devoid, soulless products. Film studios have discovered that they can do the absolute bare minimum and still make huge profits and hold huge appeal. As long as that continues, I don't see things getting better anytime soon. I can't wait for your next video. Please keep up the great work!
It’s no wonder Disney is hemorrhaging money given how they’ve essentially allowed an algorithm to write all their recent movies and shows. Hopefully Andors success in the SW community will encourage them to put more effort into their properties
Corporations have realized that they can appeal to the lowest common denominator andmake reliable profits. Appealing to intelligent viewers is a lot harder and more time consuming.
I think there is quite a bit of growing awareness amongst the public. Many of these "deepfake movies" have received horrendous reviews (although they do seem to be box office successes a lot).
@@nigeltheoutlaw agreed, however, as of late, that business mode has proven to be less and less reliable and profitable. Cooperations like Disney need a renaissance of creativity for their properties and soon, or else they’ll bleed them dry and have nothing to show for it
"The general public don't seem to see any problems with these artistically devoid, soulless products". The people normalizing this dangerous technology: "Well, you have to start somewhere".
One of your most thought-provoking videos yet. And I'm excited to hear about the additional media you're publishing. One thought--the new Avatar sequel (partial spoilers) feels like a very literal embodiment of these "deep fake movies" , because even the plot itself brings back characters who died in the first one. I think there's an interesting dialogue there. I hadn't realized the Tarquin actor was that on-point in real life. They absolutely should have just used traditional makeup and maybe prostehtics/wigs. He wouldn't have needed much at all.
Personally I don't have the same qualms with Avatar 2 (even more spoilers ahead) - I think it's a greater exposition on the themes of the first one, but it's also a natural progression. In the first movie we see extractive colonialism, in the second movie it's progressed to settler colonialism. In the first movie we see the opening stages of an anti-colonial war, in the second we see it's progression into encompassing the whole planet. The genocidal methodologies of the humans also progress further. Most importantly though, I think the second movie is about pacifism. Jake and Neytiri flee the forest to escape being hunted, the Metkayina are adamant they are not involved in the war, and the Tulkun are the ultimate species-wide pacifists. All 3 scenarios change by the end. Jake and Neytiri realise they can't keep their family safe by running, the Metkayina realise that they have to stand and fight to save their Tulkun, and Payakan is the ultimate exemplification of the overturning of Tulkun pacifism when he saves the Na'vi during the climactic battle. Cameron's message throughout the third film is rooted in the idea of just war, that to rebel is justified, and that these conflicts cannot be avoided or fled from - they have their way of finding you. In a way it's a parallel to the overall environmental message as well - in an interlinked global ecosystem (both on Pandora AND on Earth), harm to the system has knock-on effects on us all that cannot be escaped.
I feel like the passion, care, and time that went into avatar 2's creation makes it anything but a deepfake movie...maybe if you isolate out the plot but...
One crucial thing not mentioned here is the fact that make-up departments are unionised while CG artists are not. Tarkin absolutely could've been achieved with the makeup we have today, but CG artists are cheaper, so it's easy to see why they went with CG, beyond just being able to flex the tech.
Incredible essay and analysis. The way you tied deepfake animations to deepfake movie, not to mention how animation is meant to breathe, not reanimate. Great points!
George Lucas did say to a fellow USC graduate that he should give up acting and going to animation because he didn’t like dealing with actors. Excellent video is always my friend. Thanks for making my day.
What you said about Rogue One not having any new vehicles struck a chord with me. I was watching a video recently about how in the sequel movies the Resistance X-wings and First Order Tie Fighters have exactly the same silhouette as the ones from the Original Trilogy, whereas George Lucas's films always featured ships that had major differences in their silhouettes, even if one ship was a precursor to another (like the ARC fighter being a precursor to the X-wing). I think, and I know this will be a hard pill for us to swallow, this is a consequence of the Clone Wars in a weird way. In the Clone Wars, the screenwriters and showrunners were operating within a very limited timeframe, so logically the Republic and the Separatists would be using the same ships for most of the Clone Wars. Most of the Disney movies and shows take place in the same two parts of the Star Wars universe: After the Original Trilogy, and Between the Prequels and the Original trilogies. After the sequels and Solo, it seems like Luke and Han have been cut out of as many Star Wars projects as possible, and the focus has been more on side characters that made their appearances in the Clone Wars like Ahsoka or the Mandalorians. I think this is because Disney wants to use characters like memories it can just bring up to make us think it's respecting Lucas' legacy. The stories they make with the characters are designed to be simple, modular plots where characters can be plugged in as cameos to perform a mundane task and then leave. Will a series between the Original Trilogy movies like the Clone Wars ever happen? There's certainly material there, story arcs you could fill in the details of like Han's choice to become a rebellion general, or plot holes to patch in like how Luke got a kyber crystal to make his second lightsaber (or why he hasn't met Ahsoka to train with her), but I hope Disney doesn't do this because I know it will end up being full of filler and cheap attempts at nostalgia-baiting if it doesn't totally discredit and overshadow the OT characters like the sequels and Kenobi and Solo did.
@@thomaslange9480 U-Wing, Krennics Shuttle, Rogue One Zeta shuttle, Occupier tank, TIE Striker, TIE Reaper. Some of these might be more or less OT-derivative designs, but that is mostly on the era the film is set in and they have still done more to make themselves distinct than the ships within the OT (just slapped different wings on the same TIE cockpit while in RO the entire ships body is just as different as the wings). It's far more distinct from TFAs approach where every new design was purposefully as ugly and utilitarian as possible and tucked away into the background as fast as possible to make way for X-Wing, TIE Fighter and Millenium Falcon.
@@Grandof-the-PentastarAlignment I completely agree. This was a great video, and definitely made me re-evaluate certain aspects of Rogue One further, such as the character dynamics and development, which were really good, as a rudimentary basis, however they were not meaningfully expanded upon to fulfill the potential they had as characters. Simultaneously, I also perceive these films through a practical lens. Asserting that the film had no new vessels is an odd argument. I don't believe one can sustain it far, before individuals cite the U-Wing, TIE Striker, TIE Reaper, the barges, shuttles, combat vehicles and etc. They are all derivative, however sufficiently different. I also disagree that one cannot understand Jyn's motivations.
@@daegnaxqelil2733 There were tons of vehicles. I didn't pick this up in the video but if he said it then it's plain bonkers. What they didn't do is the "LOOK AT THIS BUY THE TOY" type introduction that we get sometimes. They did it the right way.
I find your adherence to calling the deep fakes and animated characters ‘things’ intriguing. It’s simple language handles like this that will be increasingly important for us to maintain a grip on reality.
You say, “I am allowed to do anything”-but not everything is good for you. You say, “I am allowed to do anything”-but not everything is beneficial. 1 Corinthians 10
The voice, the editing, the script, this is such an amazing RU-vid channel. Somehow your videos recapture the magic of Star Wars more than Disney ever could.
@@sukitron5415 >wow, so you hate people who actually want to do what they do. Proudly. Those who wax poetic about how great it is for creatives to make what they want to make would never be okay with *me* making what *I want* to make. I am simply returning the favor. >Also anti corporatism isn't communism Never said it was. However, anti-corporatism is very often bound up in anti-Americanism and economic illiteracy. I simply know what side my bread is buttered on.
You never disappoint with your reasoning! I had never really looked at Rogue One like that, because like many others, I was just happy that Disney finally managed to pull off something that felt a bit like Star Wars again... but looking back at it like this, I must admit that you hit the nail on its head. It was not that Disney suddenly understood how to make Star Wars, they were just lucky with their algorithms for once. They are still dead inside 😕
The algorithmic movie argument is valid to a lot of projects out there, but I really don’t think it applies to Rogue One. Gareth Edwards is just a huge huge fan of the original trilogy and that’s why there’s so much nostalgia in the movie. Whether you liked it or not, Rogue One is undoubtedly a passion project from a very dedicated fan. You can call it simple or uninspired, but it’s definitely not the result of a heartless algorithm.
And even there characterization of the characters is close to what Edwards did: these characters are always witnesses of events more important than themselves. Just Monsters. Even on nostalgia, I don't find Edwards as complacent as Abrams (while both are fans of OT) according to me, the micro-reference that So uncivilized points to is closer to the "upside down" he had underlined in another video that the complacent wink
Wow, I usually dont watch philosophical videos, specially not for Star Wars for a while. But this one was so honest, that kept me watching after the first 30 seconds. You are very original!
I still cannot understand why this channel has only 130 thousand subscribers, it should have at least 200 thousand units ready with a million more well on the way! But seriously, this channel is spotless and magnificent and you are doing beautiful work!
I thought that was a brave choice. It's not the "safe" approach. But I think the emotional impact of the film would be blunted if Jyn and Cassian are able to escape at the last minute.
That was always my thinking. It's a brave choice, sure but it also made me honestly never feel the need to rewatch the movie again in a way I can't ever really explain. Personally I would have had the monk and droid survive but that's just me.
Every time I start a creative project (movie/game/animation), I record all the data: Analyse the market, review competitors, measure saturation and audience retention and feed it to a probability algorithm to calculate how much money it will make. Only projects that have a high probability for success are greenlit for production. You've made me realise that I don't make projects for my fans or even myself anymore... I make them for an algorithm.
I like how you present your opinion and then ask the viewers to decide for themselves instead of trying to push them strongly one way or another. It gets me thinking about movies where I agree with you and movies where I don't and not always for the same reasons.
That literally is what happened with this movie. Disney disagreed with Gareth Edwards and has several reshoots done, so some of the more algorithmic scenes are probably a result of the studio getting between the artist and the film.
Seriously, some of the best Star Wars and generally video content on RU-vid. It shows that you really understand the impact cinema has, and we all appreciate that.
I used to really like Rogue One, I honestly did, but as the years went by, the film ultimately rang somewhat hollow to me - the characters were surface level, the aesthetics were reused, and the film's existence was meant to solve a 'plot hole' that wasn't actually a plot hole.
@Darth Doofus As you said - Star Wars is about the evil within, not the exterior evil. But it's also about the good that can return from evil. I like your idea - in a sense, having Galen Erso being the main character of a film like Rogue One could have made for a much more captivating story. You mentioned the parallel to Einstein - it's also a similar parallel to Oppenheimer. You mentioned them being a 'Confederate' scientist - do you mean that the scientist would have been on the side of the Separatists in the Clone Wars, only to be recruited by the victorious empire to build their new tech? (not unlike Operation Paperclip irl?) I meant to say, I haven't been working much on the speculative outline for episode 9 recently due to educational work, novel work, and a fun alt history side project about Rome, so sorry if there's not much major to discuss about it at the moment. Though I will say.... I happened to be watching a random re-write of the sequel trilogy recently. It was actually rather good, but what caught my attention was a point made about the opening to episode 7. It was about how, to keep in line with the established victory of the Rebellion in ROTJ, the opening shot of Ep 7 would show not another Imperial Star Destroyer, but instead a New Republic ship. The opening, dominant ships of each trilogies beginning do show the state of power in the galaxy. Ep 1 has the focus be on the Republic ship, Ep 4 has the focus on the Star Destroyer. They reflect the ones in charge. It wouldn't make sense for the domineering Star Destroyer to occupy the shot once again when, narratively, we last saw them crashing down in ROTJ. This causes me to think and again return to the other idea of how to poetically structure the sequels - by having them appear as natural sequels to the OT than just inverting the PT (remember, last line in 3 was from C-3P0 so we open with him and R2 as the beginning characters in 4, so the last line in 6 was from Leia so we open with her and Han as the beginning characters in 7)
@@daegnaxqelil2733 he’s not bashing the director, just critiquing some of the methods used that Disney ended up leaning on too heavily later. Still life
Among everything else, I'm glad that you took the chance to point out the "something more" aspect of movies, acting, and life itself. It's a good reminder. Excellent video. Looking forward to sharing it with my friends.
Please keep making videos about what you love! Don’t just do what’s trendy. We love your insights, keep following your authenticity! Honestly, I would watch you about shows, books, or movies I hadn’t seen, because I gain so much insight into art and story when I listen to your essays, no matter the topic. Can’t wait for the LOTR’s video.
Not just Disney, but a lot of studios fell into this mindset when nostalgic filmmaking really took off in the 2010s, and maybe even a little before. But most prominate in franchise films that try to mimic the iconography of the previous films and meet audiences expectations for bigger and better effects driven nostalgia films while missing the fact that those films were made at a time when, yes they were hyper-marketed and sometimes trash but were always made with human imperfections.
Interesting video. I happen to like Rogue One a lot, although I fundamentally disagree with their choice of doing digitally de-aged Tarkin and Leia. I'd have much rather seen Tarkin recast as Guy Henry, who is also an excellent actor and would've honored Peter Cushing's performance. Hiding his face does a disservice both to him and to Peter's legacy. The scene with Leia was just unnecessary as a whole, but they could've recast her as well. We have so many talented young actors who could fill these roles, that resorting to digital fakes is such a creatively bankrupt thing to do. Sebastian Stan, for instance, would make an amazing Luke Skywalker, yet he's not given the chance to do so. It's a pretty awful thing that studios are doing, and I hope it stops.
Saying that "it's just an algorithm" is wrong. Saying that "there's not an actor, or even an animator driving the performance" is beyond factually incorrect. Deepfake, at the time of filming the Mandalorian, was not able to create a performance (even a bad one) on its own, it rather attempted to match the performance of a real person. So, literally, objectively,.. however you want to say it, the performance was driven by a real actor.
you can never get something right if your motivations are wrong. people may not notice that something is off if off things is all they get but if you have something with the right heart to compare it to (just as there are living breathing humans you can compare deepfakes to) you will always be able to tell kudos on another fantastic video, looking forward to your future projects!
Personally I disagree with you, but Im glad you didnt just bash the movie and presented a really good argument. I wish there was more discourse like this among the community.
Rogue One is just serviceable at best, being "the best Disney Star Wars movie yet" is a patheticly low bar. And this comes from someone who enjoyed it at first.
In Rogue One it honestly worked really well. I was happy to see Tarkin expanded more onscreen, and as you said the actual standin was just as good (if not potentially better) than CGI. But it really is just a crutch now, like refusing to recast young Luke Skywalker despite having perfect actors (like Sebastien Stan) to put in the role.
Sebastian Stan costs more than Mark Hamill at this point. Disney want to do everything on the cheap. Like the new movie's director not having made a feature film before. Easy scapegoat for its failure, and cheaper than someone established.
Literally stayed at my job last night hours after we closed talking with two of my coworkers/friends about the troubling future of our civilization [which included a long tangent on Deep Fakes] and how we will have to further doubt everything we are presented and how that amongst other pressing issues will collapse us within our lifetime 😬
I feel like calling the entire movie a deepfake undermines the passion and creativity of those working on the movie. At the end of the day, a movie, even a deepfake movie, is created by people, many of which probably really care about what they’re making. Very thought-provoking video
Nailed it. I always liked Rogue One because it was SUPPOSED to be a gritty war movie, not because it actually delivered on that promise in an interesting way. Ironically, my favorite piece of media that came from Rogue One was the leaked teaser trailer they showed at Star Wars Celebration 2015, with Obi Wan's OT monologue about the rise of the Empire before cutting to panicked Rebel soldier radio chatter. Watching and hearing that teaser makes me clearly imagine what the movie was SUPPOSED to be.
The moisture vaparotors on the beach and the goofy cameo really make it seem like an AI generated movie. Like 7 fingers on a person in AI generated art. It's familiar but just a couple notches off the mark.
I just perceived it as that these individuals were literally miles from the open water and therefore resorted to vapourators to collect their water. Our planet is also substantially water, however we still have mechanisms to collect, purify and process it.
Yes blue milk and moisture collectors and a home in the ground with a space kitchen is in this movie. This does give you a certain vibe but it is really a problem? Is there a need for Galen Erso to use plumbing and pumps and filters to get water for his family and his crops or could the moisture collectors just be a suitable option for a small scale farm when there is a moist atmosphere? People have kitchens and maybe humans generally prefer the same type of wilk like on our planet? You can otherthink all these things or you can for your own good consider getting a life. Seriously half of all this sh*t is only an issue because we are bombarded with Star Wars material. Nobody would give a cr*p if we hadn't the opportunity to constantly compare the new thing to the best scene from the 9th thing and it has to be exactly like this because we have seen it 20 times before or exactly not like this because we have seen it 20 times before already... It was a good movie and the CGI characters were good enough in my opinion. They had less than 4 minutes of screen time. Big deal!
Moisture vaporators are a piece of technology to extract water from a planet. It's not that multiple stress just think that it would be used on other planets besides Tatooine.
Your videos are perfect. The editing, the topics, but most of all, how you say and relay things. I don’t know anybody who is better at explaining and describing things. You’re shaping our worlds in places we don’t fully understand ourselves or what needs to be understood for us and others. It’s not biased, but truth, you can really feel it in your videos. Thank you for using your time to breathe the life and understanding in the worlds we’d come to love so much in our lives as well as those we struggle to understand or describe to others when they ask.
I personally feel the uncanny valley works WELL for Tarken. He is supposed to be an unsettling character, so that effect arguably enhances that bit of the preformance. Leia probably shouldn't even have shown up though given that the exact opposite is true for her.
I think that would have been fine with just the actor. I'm honestly a bit sad that Solo flopped at the box office, because Lucasfilm has gone on record saying that they consider the reason to be that there was no deepfake. That doesn't bode well for future projects
@@officialmonarchmusic KK is a dumbass who doesn't understand the movie flopped because of The Last Jedi... At the same time she was advertising the return of Ewan McGregor 🤣 the irony
I don't like that they did Tarkin this way, but for me, there's a certain humor to it. I see Peter Cushing primarily as Victor Frankenstein. They've frankensteined Frankenstein himself.
Very good video! it's funny that you refer to this as a DEEPFAKE movie... because back in 2016-2017, I started referring to ROGUE ONE dismissively as a TEMP-MOVIE (similar to the term TEMP TRACK) I enjoyed the movie the first time, but it did not survive a theatrical rewatch (I completely dozed off halfway through). And your video covers a lot of the reasons why I don't think the movie works despite all the cool ideas/concepts within it There was a Yahoo Movies UK interview with the film's editors back in 2017 where they talked about the way early concepts of the movie were comprised of clips from tons of other movies as placeholders. Even to the point they used existing clips to time out how long it should take for a door to close And something about that really made me derisive of ROGUE ONE. The interview is good. But here is the specific excerpt about the story reel that was made for the movie before a script was set: ------------------- START: Colin Goudie: I’d worked with Gareth [Edwards] previously. I cut his movie ‘Monsters’ so we’d already got a relationship and I’d actually done a couple of projects with him before that as well. So he got me on board in September of 2014 and asked me to do a story reel for ‘Rogue One’. There was no screenplay, there was just a story breakdown at that point, scene by scene. He got me to rip hundreds of movies and basically make ‘Rogue One’ using other films so that they could work out how much dialogue they actually needed in the film. It’s very simple to have a line [in the script] that reads “Krennic’s shuttle descends to the planet”, now that takes maybe 2-3 seconds in other films, but if you look at any other ‘Star Wars’ film you realise that takes 45 seconds or a minute of screen time. So by making the whole film that way - I used a lot of the ‘Star Wars’ films - but also hundreds of other films too, it gave us a good idea of the timing. For example the sequence of them breaking into the vault I was ripping the big door closing in ‘Wargames’ to work out how long does a vault door take to close. So that’s what I did and that was three months work to do that and that had captions at the bottom which explained the action that was going to be taking place, and two thirds of the screen was filled with the concept art that had already been done and one quarter, the bottom corner, was the little movie clip to give you how long that scene would actually take. Then I used dialogue from other movies to give you a sense of how long it would take in other films for someone to be interrogated. So for instance, when Jyn gets interrogated at the beginning of the film by the Rebel council, I used the scene where Ripley gets interrogated in ‘Aliens’. So you get an idea of what movies usually do. END -------------------------------- I'm sure this was very nice and helpful for the editors on the movie, but jeez.... what a PERFECT way to underline how this movie's existence feels like it was a SOULLESS series of 'algorithmic' decision-making.... on top of which, it seems like Edwards' approach worked so poorly that Gilroy claims he had to come in and save the thing to get it functioning at all And to me, the movie STILL has the problems of feeling like a mechanical hodgepodge of better movies
@@SoUncivilized414just recently started listening to Tansy Gardam’s podcast series about the making of ROGUE ONE called ‘GOING ROGUE’. That interview with the editor comes up in the 2nd episode and the host is as bewildered by it as we are… but she adds more context to it because it conflicts so heavily with Garett Edwards’ approach to directing the actual movie With THE CREATOR coming out soon, I’m really interested in seeing what Edwards does with his creative freedom and to see if his ability to direct compelling scenes between actors has improved (I’m not a fan of Monsters or Dullzilla)
I liked Rogue One overall. It's still possibly the best Disney SW film and definitely my favorite they've made. Some weird decisions with the 're-animation' you pointed out, but I think the lack of characterization on any of the characters works for the movie more than against it. By filling the cast/story with side characters, I think the story emphasizes (whether intentional or not) that even the people you think are unimportant were actually essential for the victory in the OG SW to happen. It was that context that made Rogue One my favorite, obnoxious fan service or not.
Aha, great one. I especially like that you gave your view not just on a movie, franchise or something like that, but on a relevant concept. Truly an amazing vid. Maybe your best to date. Complex and interesting, little hard to follow but an awesome point and an amazing and interesting explaination. Well done.
This is the first of your videos I've half disagreed with. I definitely think you make good points about it, but I really liked the new characters and the values they symbolized. I also love that we got to see Vader go further than he had in the Original Trilogy. I was freaking out during that moment in the theater! I think a big part of Rogue One for me is the Star Wars feel. I truly think the planets and music captured that feeling in a way that virtually no other Disney Star Wars content has. I liked the video, because even if I disagree with part of it each video you make is such great quality and your arguments are so well formed. I've been around since the beginning (just a few hundred subs) and I'm excited to see where you go next!
This video has a Rogue One review, which i respect and has great points i can agree on despite me loving the movie, an ethical doubt and a defense of human nature compared to good algoryrhms, this is why i love this channel, thank you So Uncivilized.
Implying that the latest Disney Star Wars films feel “not alive” struck me so hard. Even the prequels-as bad as they were-had a sense of life to them. There are a ton of specific things that I could touch on like Rey’s backstory in the Sequels, meaningless cameos, repeated Death Star appearances, or even strange dialogue choices in Mando and Book of Boba Fett, but at the end of the day these films and shows feel like they lack soul. Mando even started with a level of soul that Disney hadn’t managed in a long time; since then it’s kinda devolved back into nostalgia bait and strange dialogue.
Fans should have been more thankful towards George back during the release of the prequels. No wonder he was tired of star wars after the shit he got put through.
I mean I still like Rogue One, but yeah, I do agree that recasting the OG characters would be better than deepfaking them. Especially since Ahsoka is apparently doing a full-on adaptation of the Thrawn Trilogy. No way you're doing the Thrawn Trilogy with Luke Skywalker either absent entirely or relegated to inconsequential deepfake cameos.
I do think deepfake (for better but mostly worse) will become so realistic in the future that you won't be able to tell the difference. And the range of voice will be handled by an actor, maybe even the original. I'd love to have Matk Hamill voice Luke Skywalker--his voice isn't the same now so it'd require so tech but the emotion would still be there. But I'm not against a recasting either. But after Solo flopped due to TLJ sucking, I doubt they'll ever recast again.
IMHO why Rogue One works is because Gareth Edwards respects the franchise and wanted to make a movie that fits in the real Star Wars and not celebrate himself like the hacks Abrams and Johnson did. And because it has characters that they take the time to build and make interesting and relatable. And as you said yourself - it focused not on the "elite" of the Rebel Alliance but the infantry and the guerrillas and the fact that every war is dirty and no party is 100% "clean". And as Andor expands it, the movie also shows us what makes people risk everything to become fighters in a resistance to an overwhelming power. People that have nothing to lose because they already have lost everything. Ok, just as Luke in Episode IV. However I do agree that there was no reason to not recast Tarkin and Lea.
As someone who is learning Machine Learning and Deep Learning at university, the first lesson we are taught is that AI should be used only when the task cannot possibly be performed manually, like accurate weather forecasts and such. Definitely not to mimic art and animation.
It’s so anti-film and anti-art to believe that a cgi Peter Cushing is going to have a better performance than a real human being. people like the human aspect of art.
I fucking love you man, every single video of you makes me walk away with a completely new view on things. And you just casually mention these things that i had never even thought about before, thank you man keep it up
It's always nice to listen to someone intelligent propping up a treasured movie of mine, or ripping one I hate, with thought-provoking arguments. I've come to find though that criticism of movies I really enjoy gets my gears turning the most. Makes me question why I liked the movie in the first place, and realize how those likes and preferences often overshadow the same faults that I tend to criticize in other movies. I would say that rogue one should have, and maybe for a lot of fans already has, ended up as one of the star wars greats, if not for the treatment of jyn erso's character. The other non-character writing faults pointed out here don't stick out to me nearly as much as the wooden dialogue of the prequels, and I have an obsessive love for the prequels. Maybe it's just easy for me to look at a star wars female protagonist like jyn and avoid thinking on the negatives when the main competition is Rey Skywalker. The characters, writing, and dialogue felt competent almost the whole movie; and IMO was often very compelling, even when we had to assume jyn's motivations. I would also say that, ironically, this movie felt the least amount of deep fake as any star wars content Disney has produced (along with Andor). Even less than the bad batch or the Mando. It felt like the only piece of content that genuinely set out to tell a compelling story in a setting that just happened to be star wars. It wasn't trying to copy what George Lucas accomplished, it had its own message to share. Mature and dark themes, a story about the gritty reality of rebellions, the cost of preserving hope in a tyrannical dystopia for the non-skywalkers. The story was much more personal than some bothan spies just dying off screen. It evoked feelings that I only got from a few of the super dark clone wars episodes, feelings I didn't even get from episode 3. The "deep fake" content was there to ground the story into the star wars universe, not to carry the story itself. I don't think George Lucas star wars ever got close to what Rogue One pulls off in his movies, I don't think he was trying to. Yes all the "reanimated" pieces hurt more than helped, but to me it felt far from Disney trying to jam a bunch of the star wars nostalgia nuggets down my throat.
We wouldn't need deepfake Luke if they actually respected the character in the sequels and gave him a proper sendoff as a Jedi Grandmaster. Giving us a deepfake Luke is the least they can do to apologize for how they treated Luke's character.
Great video, but I can't help but disagree with a few points. You talk about how a lot of Jyn's life is passive and without much context to relationships, and to the extent of Saw Gerrera I agree. However, I think there are elements you can take away that still effectively imply relationships. Jyn watching her father's hologram and not being able to hold back tears I think gives us plenty of context to her relationship with her father, and ironically, is a very "human" moment that you didn't point out. And on the point of not knowing her thoughts on the Rebellion or the Empire, I thought that was the point? Jyn has spent her life being shielded from conflict by all her mentors, and in turn has been made apathetic and unsure. It's only when being put in a passive position and watching Saw and her father die she realizes the necessity of the Rebellion and dying for its cause. Her surrounding Rouge One team plays a part in this arc. She is surrounded by people that have their own purpose for taking part in the Rebellion: Cassian because of his sister, Chirrut for the balance of the force, Baze for his loyalty to Chirrut, and Bodhi because of his guilt for serving the Empire in the first place. Is it perfect? No, and I agree aspects like the Force user stuff are underexplored, but I think the story's intentions as a whole are clear. And your other observations of plot points feels reductive. Cassian killing that guy is to show that his main priority is the Rebellion, and will do whatever it takes to keep the fight going; it's not just a jab at Han shooting first, it's a way to characterize Cassian. Showing one scene of a Tarken line and saying "all the major scenes are built around old lines" feels pretty unfair, since many of the other moments, like the opening scene, Galen's death, and the sacrifice of each of the characters stand on their own feet. Also on some of your other points; Tarken looks pretty bad, but it's not like there aren't other experimental effects that Lucas had also experimented with that didn't age well, especially with the Special Editions. And taking a jab at Rogue One for not introducing new vehicles feels like a nitpick, especially since they DO introduce different trooper types. I think it's safe to say that there's nothing in that scene that necessarily calls for a new vehicle. Also, what does having new vehicles and gadgets have to do with being a "human" movie? Overall, I really enjoyed many of the points of this video pertaining to more soulless and algorithmic films, but roping Rogue One into that category because of the Tarken stuff feels pretty unfair. I feel like you missed a lot of the inner workings of that film's script in order to make your point.
I just wanna say that I really appreciate that despite this video being weeks old that the comment section is still alive with cordial and interested debates. Even if there are solid arguments about some of the points made by the video, you show incredible respect to the channel and SW by being respectful and intellectual in your comments👌🏼 you are an awesome fan
The missed opportunity to cast Sebastian Stan as Luke Skywalker... I think Disney got scared off recasting after the initial reactions to casting Alden Ehrenreich as Solo. It's funny how everyone has come around to it now though.
I have to be honest, I can't stand it when characters get recast especially with a nod and a wink like the MCU did. In this instance, I appreciate the ability to bring back dead actors in order to maintain continuity and look forward to being used more in the future to better and more realistic effect.
3:34 Heavy disagree, there is an impact, minor that it is. The different between their fighting styles is the blind guy closes in on enemies and fights with precision and efficiency - whereas the skeptical guy keeps his distance literally carries a heavy machine gun and just unloads round after round until everything infront of him is dead. When the blind guy sacrifices himself, the skeptical guy STOPS his suppressing fire tactic and immediately adopts his fallen friends precision tactic - he walked into the foggy arena (thereby closing the distance between him and his enemies) and took ONE SHOT PER ENEMY, hitting each enemy dead on - instead of just holding the trigger and shooting into the fog from afar like he was doing before.
I was THRILLED when I first saw Tarkin in RO. It was like my childhood came back into the spotlight for a second, seeing a formidable character come to life once more. Despite its obvious wonkiness. As for the ethics of the issue I think this quote from an article in the guardian: " As for the ethics of working with images of an actor who died in 1994, Knoll said: “We weren’t doing anything that I think Peter Cushing would’ve objected to. I think this work was done with a great deal of affection and care. We know that Peter Cushing was very proud of his involvement in Star Wars and had said as much, and that he regretted that he never got a chance to be in another Star Wars film because George [Lucas] had killed off his character.” Knoll added: “This was done in consultation and cooperation with his estate. So we wouldn’t do this if the estate had objected or didn’t feel comfortable with this idea.” Often times Deepfakes (especially poorly done ones) can harm a film BUT I don't believe this is the case with rogue one. With a person's or person's family's consent I believe there is no problem whatsoever in using these likenesses in film at all. If it is super imposed onto an actor's face then acting is still occurring, if it super imposed onto a dummy or CGI body then the voice actor is carrying out the art of speech. Every step of the way, even with deepfakes, art is still occurring and if it is consented to by those who images it is, I see absolutely no problem with this at all.
It's not just the visuals. The biggest reason Tarkin wasn't convincing is because it was not Cushing's voice and that was super distracting more than the visuals. So recasting is not really any better.
"Rogue One is a deep fake movie made by a corporate machine out of the data of the original trilogy". That's it perfectly ! I haven't ever been able to put in words what I felt was wrong for so long and that's it - you summed it up perfectly. The corporate machine isn't interested in creating a story, only in creating money.
I get a LOT of what you're saying. It's a really interesting take on the recent spate of movies that don't do anything new and just rehash the old for the sake of making a buck. But I gotta say, with the Ghostbusters Afterlife clip linking it to that idea, there's actual heart to that movie that I don't think any of these other "Deep Fake movies" have been able to pull off. But I could just be saying that as a lifelong Ghostbusters enthusiast who has core family memories tied up in that world and as someone who would never admit to still getting teary eyed at the Egon's Ghost reveal or at the words "For Harold." Nope. Not admitting that. Stop chopping onions please. Anyway, as always great work, looking forward to what's next.
Rogue One was the last "Star Wars" movie I paid to see, *because* I knew, when I saw "deep fake Peter Cushing" on the screen, Disney was about to make a series of horrible decisions. *And I was right...*
Excellent and thoughtful video as usual! You've brought points about the film I hadn't thought before that illustrates well a common issue with movies nowadays. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to the LOTR video already!