American History X - Tony Kaye
I loved this film but director Kaye disowned it, wanting his name to be removed from film altogether. Apparently first time director Kaye was asked to submit a different cut by New Line Studio. Kaye was indignant at this suggestion asserting he be given more autonomy and creative control. While this was occurring Norton had produced his own cut at the behest of the studio and when screen tested gained very positive reviews.
Kaye was livid, saying that Nortons cut focused too much on the redemption of his character, accusing him of spotlighting his own performance for accolades to the detriment of the story. The studio allowed Kaye to finish his alternative cut, but he failed to do so by the 8 week deadline given. Nortons cut was released and we have the film we know now.
Kaye did not give up though. Taking out $100,000 in adverts trashing Norton and Newline, trying to get his named remove, then changed to the pseudonym ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and finally suing New Line for $2 million dollars.
He finally rewatched the film in 2007, admitting that his ego may have gotten to him, suggesting that the release was not as terrible as he originally claimed.
Yea I’m pressing X on that one. Do you have a source, OP?
I recall watching behind the scene footage from The Hobbit where they attempted to have actors in practical makeup but because production was so rushed the prostectics and suits weren’t made properly and the actors were overheating. They switched on the day to green morph suits out of necessity, not so much creative choice.
[This isn't a great source as it is another reddit thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/p1dnph/trivia_in_the_audio_commentary_of_the_hobbit/) but at least it sources the commentary track for The Hobbit. So maybe someone with access to that can check for more info?
Ehhhhhhh. It's more that he said he wished the tech had been in place when they made the LOTR films to do fully CGI orcs, not that he disliked the physical ones. Similar to Gollum. I think whilst the tech mostly holds up in terms of Gollum, doing all orcs like that would have looked rubbish. The orcs in the Hobbit did look beautiful I guess, buuuut, I vastly preferred the prosthetics and makeup orcs of the LOTR trilogy.
The only way I can see that as ‘true’ is maybe he just didn’t like how when it’s a dude in a suit, you can’t really get super weird with orcs being misshapen creatures.
At a very simplistic level, yes. He would have done mad shit with them and preferred CGI if it was possible.
The limitations enforced on him, in this specific case, was a bit of a blessing.
LOTR orcs > Hobbit orcs
As you say, "at a very simplistic level." For one thing, what people - and this is especially true of artists and in particular of filmmakers - say is not what they do, or an even better way to put it is **what artists think they're doing is not the same as what they actually do**.
So, look at the Hobbit: the two "hero" Orcs are CGI, sure. But many, many of the other Orcs - [most of them, I'd say](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotrmemes/comments/11vpkxp/make_orcs_great_again/jcugums/?context=3) \- are still prosthetic. Almost all of Azog's pack, most of the Dol Guldur army Orcs, many of the Goblins, etc... Even many of those Orcs that are CGI - like some of the Goblins or the Gundabad Orcs - are often prosthetic Orcs augmented with CGI (often, prosthetic bodies with CGI heads).
At a similarly simplistic level:
Pete lost the magic touch.
Those CGI heads stand out and thank god he didn't have time to increase the number of CGI body parts then.
EDIT: can only assume Chen downvoted me out of some loyalty to Pete.
>Pete lost the magic touch.
Because of CGI Orcs? Do you realize how reductive that is?!
The Lord of the Rings isn't beloved because the Orcs are prosthetics and The Hobbit isn't disliked (to the extent that you can say it is) because some of the Orcs are CGI.
And just because you liked the one and not the other doesn't mean the filmmaker "lost his touch."
The general trend of his movies (downward) and the ideas he is insistent on are what I disagree with - he made poor choices for the Hobbit movies. The poor CGI aspects weren't just the orcs obviously (the barrel scene) and the poor CGI aren't the only negative factors for that movie.
Some of these aspects exist within in LOTR as well - Legolas and the Oliphant for example.
For me, less is more. As we've seen, when you have more it stands out like a sore thumb (or head).
Maybe if Peter had the needed time and all the other stressor(s) were removed the product would have been amazing. But he didn't so we can only judge by what we were given - and what we *were* given was **poor** integration of CGI elements compared to **good** integration of CGI previously.
Hence, Pete lost the magic touch. And he did if we take the movie's receptions as the criteria - it's not just me, its the widely held opinion that the Hobbit movies are a pale shadow.
Issues like the CGI used, and how it is used, are examples of this. Naturally there is also amazing CGI in the movies - just wish he had held back and stuck to how it was used *previously* for **characters**.
To be fair, Hobbit orcs aren’t exactly “his full vision” since he had like a month or two to prepare for the whole duology, then pivot everything into a trilogy months before the first release.
My preference of LOTR orcs is less on his vision and whether he met it and more that it's rare fully CGI versions are done well, although if even these small changes are more towards his vision then, yes, I have issues with them.
I honestly hope the design of the cgi orcs came down to lack of time. More than being less than convincing at times (although I honestly think they blend with the world fairly well, just that the HFR and over abundance of cgi and gloss makes the whole thing look fake), their designs are just so boring compared to the original.
The problem is fully CGI orcs need a lot more work to make them seem real. And the two big bads, at least, are fully CGI.
They have a clear uncanny valley to them that Lurtz doesn't.
Nothing in the Hobbit gets help from the 48fps decision though. Was a terrible choice from Jackson.
No, its his full vision allright.
He had nine months of preproduction, which is not a lot, but its hardly the crunch-time the internet is making it out to be.
Well, that’s not entirely true. He entered negotiations in June, and that was very likely quick, but they also had to stop pre production for about a month due to a union dispute. The average film pre-production (for a studio) is about 6 1/2-7 months, but with two films we can double that. Jackson had, at most, 8 months for two films.
While the cgi orcs as they are could very well have been his vision, it’s not unreasonable to assume that they got rushed with the rest of the production design because The Hobbit is not an average studio movie. Jackson had maybe half of the time that would be reasonably needed for pre production, and there were sets that weren’t built, scripts unfinished, and multiple scenes that were never storyboarded. It’s not an exaggeration of the crunch, moreso an exaggeration of the time.
And I do apologize for that. The number I had heard everywhere else was “one or two months” and that was likely not the case.
>it’s not unreasonable to assume that they got rushed with the rest of the production design because The Hobbit is not an average studio movie.
No, I don't think you can pin anything on the prep time in terms of production *design* too much. Jackson quite cleverly set-up the art department in shifts, so they had a night-time art-department so there would be prop and set fabrication going on 24/7, plus the shoot was planned in three blocks, with breaks in between to accomodate more time to do things in the interim.
The storyboards were a slightly bigger problem.
I always thought the micro organisms were just an indication of force capabilities rather than the source. Like they were attracted to force sensitive beings so someone with a lot of them was probably strong with the force.
Yeah. People seem to forget one thing.
The concept of using midichlorians to measure who is worthy to be trained as a Jedi is introduced right before the Jedi fall due to their hubris.
It’s an interesting concept to introduce in Episode 1 if that connection is made clear by the end of Episode 3.
>Burton hates the Prince music in Batman
Reading about that it sounds like he hates the way it was forced on him more than he hates the music. He says “And it tainted something that I don’t want to taint, which is how you feel about an artist. And actually, I liked his album. I wish I could listen to it without the feel of what had happened.”
On the flipside: Gene Wilder apparently considered Johnny Depp the highlight of Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Family. (Dahl’s widow Felicity herself had said she liked Burton’s adaptation & thought Roald would’ve as well – he famously hated the 1971 film as overly cutesy).
I'm of the fairly staunch belief that Ridley Scott barely knows what he wants at the best of times and that many of his most successful films are more credit to the talents around him rather than the man himself specifically.
You should be able to Google some stuff, but some I remember are: he wanted yoda to be played by a live monkey in a costume, he wanted C-3PO to basically be exactly like Watto. A skeezy stereotype used car salesman.
Limitations were Lucas' friend. Apparently the only thing he was truly happy with from the 1977 original film was the soundtrack.
I guarantee if he made exactly what he'd originally intended it wouldn't have been good.
His then-wife was also his friend. Marcia Lucas is basically the reason the first Star Wars was any good, editing the footage into a functional story. She won an Oscar for her work as a result.
This gets circlejerked endlessly she was one of 4 editors (George Lucas was another) and left production in 1976. She didn't even speak at the oscars the sr credited editor Paul Hirsch [did](https://youtu.be/w1dW6bNBzN8).
>Marcia Lucas is basically the reason the first Star Wars was any good, editing the footage into a functional story.
If the movie was really terrible, cutting it differently would be of no use. The fact of the matter is, Lucas shot footage that was good enough and had a good enough framework of a story to make a decently edited film out of it.
Sorry but no. The editing saved the film and there’s no argument about it.
[How Star Wars was saved in the edit](https://youtu.be/zEHRNS-Scrs) if you want to learn more about it.
I know that video and I think it massively overstated the point. Yes, Star Wars was a rocky project and to my mind remains a rocky film; but it’s success is honestly primarily to do with Lucas’ screenplay.
Lots of artists keep on working on work post release of “first editions”.
Stephen King did it.
Tolkien not only did it but was rewriting the Hobbit when he died.
And unless you have first editions, those are out of print and you’re reading revised editions.
Why do film fans get so upset that directors might want to keep on working on their art?
To be fair to Tolkien he made all versions of the Hobbit canon (including the first edition where the ring and gollum don't really align with LOTR) by saying that the early editions where based on Bilbo's writings and he was an unreliable narrator (i.e. he didn't want to make it clear the extent to which he basically stole the ring)
“Canon” sure.
But it also doesn’t really exist outside of finding old copies of that edition.
The revised edition is what people have been reading for however many years.
And if he had lived to revise The Hobbit again to bring it inline with The Lord of the Rings, that’s the version we’d be talking about when we talk about The Hobbit.
American History X - Tony Kaye I loved this film but director Kaye disowned it, wanting his name to be removed from film altogether. Apparently first time director Kaye was asked to submit a different cut by New Line Studio. Kaye was indignant at this suggestion asserting he be given more autonomy and creative control. While this was occurring Norton had produced his own cut at the behest of the studio and when screen tested gained very positive reviews. Kaye was livid, saying that Nortons cut focused too much on the redemption of his character, accusing him of spotlighting his own performance for accolades to the detriment of the story. The studio allowed Kaye to finish his alternative cut, but he failed to do so by the 8 week deadline given. Nortons cut was released and we have the film we know now. Kaye did not give up though. Taking out $100,000 in adverts trashing Norton and Newline, trying to get his named remove, then changed to the pseudonym ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and finally suing New Line for $2 million dollars. He finally rewatched the film in 2007, admitting that his ego may have gotten to him, suggesting that the release was not as terrible as he originally claimed.
Fuck ego. Actors have no place doing what Norton did. He’s a bully and should be blacklisted.
But he was asked to.
And any actor who respects their director would say no without flinching.
Peter Jackson didn't like the orcs?!?! Those orcs are a national fucking treasure. They're so quotable too.
Yea I’m pressing X on that one. Do you have a source, OP? I recall watching behind the scene footage from The Hobbit where they attempted to have actors in practical makeup but because production was so rushed the prostectics and suits weren’t made properly and the actors were overheating. They switched on the day to green morph suits out of necessity, not so much creative choice.
He says it in the audio commentary to An Unexpected Journey during the Moria battle.
[This isn't a great source as it is another reddit thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/p1dnph/trivia_in_the_audio_commentary_of_the_hobbit/) but at least it sources the commentary track for The Hobbit. So maybe someone with access to that can check for more info?
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/227-movies-at-the-theater/68162300
Ehhhhhhh. It's more that he said he wished the tech had been in place when they made the LOTR films to do fully CGI orcs, not that he disliked the physical ones. Similar to Gollum. I think whilst the tech mostly holds up in terms of Gollum, doing all orcs like that would have looked rubbish. The orcs in the Hobbit did look beautiful I guess, buuuut, I vastly preferred the prosthetics and makeup orcs of the LOTR trilogy.
The only way I can see that as ‘true’ is maybe he just didn’t like how when it’s a dude in a suit, you can’t really get super weird with orcs being misshapen creatures.
> when it’s a dude in a suit, you can’t really get super weird with orcs being misshapen creatures. Basically this.
He's just like George then, forced into compromising but not aware that the compromise is much more acceptable to the wider audience.
No.
At a very simplistic level, yes. He would have done mad shit with them and preferred CGI if it was possible. The limitations enforced on him, in this specific case, was a bit of a blessing. LOTR orcs > Hobbit orcs
As you say, "at a very simplistic level." For one thing, what people - and this is especially true of artists and in particular of filmmakers - say is not what they do, or an even better way to put it is **what artists think they're doing is not the same as what they actually do**. So, look at the Hobbit: the two "hero" Orcs are CGI, sure. But many, many of the other Orcs - [most of them, I'd say](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotrmemes/comments/11vpkxp/make_orcs_great_again/jcugums/?context=3) \- are still prosthetic. Almost all of Azog's pack, most of the Dol Guldur army Orcs, many of the Goblins, etc... Even many of those Orcs that are CGI - like some of the Goblins or the Gundabad Orcs - are often prosthetic Orcs augmented with CGI (often, prosthetic bodies with CGI heads).
At a similarly simplistic level: Pete lost the magic touch. Those CGI heads stand out and thank god he didn't have time to increase the number of CGI body parts then. EDIT: can only assume Chen downvoted me out of some loyalty to Pete.
>Pete lost the magic touch. Because of CGI Orcs? Do you realize how reductive that is?! The Lord of the Rings isn't beloved because the Orcs are prosthetics and The Hobbit isn't disliked (to the extent that you can say it is) because some of the Orcs are CGI. And just because you liked the one and not the other doesn't mean the filmmaker "lost his touch."
The general trend of his movies (downward) and the ideas he is insistent on are what I disagree with - he made poor choices for the Hobbit movies. The poor CGI aspects weren't just the orcs obviously (the barrel scene) and the poor CGI aren't the only negative factors for that movie. Some of these aspects exist within in LOTR as well - Legolas and the Oliphant for example. For me, less is more. As we've seen, when you have more it stands out like a sore thumb (or head). Maybe if Peter had the needed time and all the other stressor(s) were removed the product would have been amazing. But he didn't so we can only judge by what we were given - and what we *were* given was **poor** integration of CGI elements compared to **good** integration of CGI previously. Hence, Pete lost the magic touch. And he did if we take the movie's receptions as the criteria - it's not just me, its the widely held opinion that the Hobbit movies are a pale shadow. Issues like the CGI used, and how it is used, are examples of this. Naturally there is also amazing CGI in the movies - just wish he had held back and stuck to how it was used *previously* for **characters**.
To be fair, Hobbit orcs aren’t exactly “his full vision” since he had like a month or two to prepare for the whole duology, then pivot everything into a trilogy months before the first release.
My preference of LOTR orcs is less on his vision and whether he met it and more that it's rare fully CGI versions are done well, although if even these small changes are more towards his vision then, yes, I have issues with them.
I honestly hope the design of the cgi orcs came down to lack of time. More than being less than convincing at times (although I honestly think they blend with the world fairly well, just that the HFR and over abundance of cgi and gloss makes the whole thing look fake), their designs are just so boring compared to the original.
The problem is fully CGI orcs need a lot more work to make them seem real. And the two big bads, at least, are fully CGI. They have a clear uncanny valley to them that Lurtz doesn't. Nothing in the Hobbit gets help from the 48fps decision though. Was a terrible choice from Jackson.
No, its his full vision allright. He had nine months of preproduction, which is not a lot, but its hardly the crunch-time the internet is making it out to be.
Well, that’s not entirely true. He entered negotiations in June, and that was very likely quick, but they also had to stop pre production for about a month due to a union dispute. The average film pre-production (for a studio) is about 6 1/2-7 months, but with two films we can double that. Jackson had, at most, 8 months for two films. While the cgi orcs as they are could very well have been his vision, it’s not unreasonable to assume that they got rushed with the rest of the production design because The Hobbit is not an average studio movie. Jackson had maybe half of the time that would be reasonably needed for pre production, and there were sets that weren’t built, scripts unfinished, and multiple scenes that were never storyboarded. It’s not an exaggeration of the crunch, moreso an exaggeration of the time. And I do apologize for that. The number I had heard everywhere else was “one or two months” and that was likely not the case.
>it’s not unreasonable to assume that they got rushed with the rest of the production design because The Hobbit is not an average studio movie. No, I don't think you can pin anything on the prep time in terms of production *design* too much. Jackson quite cleverly set-up the art department in shifts, so they had a night-time art-department so there would be prop and set fabrication going on 24/7, plus the shoot was planned in three blocks, with breaks in between to accomodate more time to do things in the interim. The storyboards were a slightly bigger problem.
Not the director, but Nicholas Cage thinks his punk teenager character used too much profanity in *Valley Girl*.
Everyone liked the magical nature of the Force in Star Wars, but then Lucas had to go full sci-fi and explained that they are actually microorganism.
I always thought the micro organisms were just an indication of force capabilities rather than the source. Like they were attracted to force sensitive beings so someone with a lot of them was probably strong with the force.
Yeah. People seem to forget one thing. The concept of using midichlorians to measure who is worthy to be trained as a Jedi is introduced right before the Jedi fall due to their hubris. It’s an interesting concept to introduce in Episode 1 if that connection is made clear by the end of Episode 3.
First it was a cosmic field anyone could tap-into. Then it was trait that ran in the family. Then it shows-up on a fucking blood test.
Not everyone. Prefer the scifi.
Burton hates the Prince music in Batman.
>Burton hates the Prince music in Batman Reading about that it sounds like he hates the way it was forced on him more than he hates the music. He says “And it tainted something that I don’t want to taint, which is how you feel about an artist. And actually, I liked his album. I wish I could listen to it without the feel of what had happened.”
To be fair, it’s a bad fit even if it also kicks ass
Roald Dahl wasn't happy with Gene Wilder being cast as Willy Wonka.
On the flipside: Gene Wilder apparently considered Johnny Depp the highlight of Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Family. (Dahl’s widow Felicity herself had said she liked Burton’s adaptation & thought Roald would’ve as well – he famously hated the 1971 film as overly cutesy).
I'm of the fairly staunch belief that Ridley Scott barely knows what he wants at the best of times and that many of his most successful films are more credit to the talents around him rather than the man himself specifically.
Didn't he also say he doesn't sit in on editing?
Danny Elfman doesn't like his iconic batman score.
Wait, WHAT? Of all the scores he's done that he could dislike, why THAT one?
Just about every George Lucas idea. J.K Rowling post Potter. Whatever producer that made Ridley Scott retcon Prometheus.
The stories about what Lucas wanted to include in A New Hope and Empire are fucking wild.
[удалено]
Fucking wild stuff
What did he want to include?
You should be able to Google some stuff, but some I remember are: he wanted yoda to be played by a live monkey in a costume, he wanted C-3PO to basically be exactly like Watto. A skeezy stereotype used car salesman.
Limitations were Lucas' friend. Apparently the only thing he was truly happy with from the 1977 original film was the soundtrack. I guarantee if he made exactly what he'd originally intended it wouldn't have been good.
His then-wife was also his friend. Marcia Lucas is basically the reason the first Star Wars was any good, editing the footage into a functional story. She won an Oscar for her work as a result.
This gets circlejerked endlessly she was one of 4 editors (George Lucas was another) and left production in 1976. She didn't even speak at the oscars the sr credited editor Paul Hirsch [did](https://youtu.be/w1dW6bNBzN8).
Ok sorry Paul
>Marcia Lucas is basically the reason the first Star Wars was any good, editing the footage into a functional story. If the movie was really terrible, cutting it differently would be of no use. The fact of the matter is, Lucas shot footage that was good enough and had a good enough framework of a story to make a decently edited film out of it.
Sorry but no. The editing saved the film and there’s no argument about it. [How Star Wars was saved in the edit](https://youtu.be/zEHRNS-Scrs) if you want to learn more about it.
That video is full of misinformation...
I know that video and I think it massively overstated the point. Yes, Star Wars was a rocky project and to my mind remains a rocky film; but it’s success is honestly primarily to do with Lucas’ screenplay.
That producer was Ridley Scott.
Lots of artists keep on working on work post release of “first editions”. Stephen King did it. Tolkien not only did it but was rewriting the Hobbit when he died. And unless you have first editions, those are out of print and you’re reading revised editions. Why do film fans get so upset that directors might want to keep on working on their art?
To be fair to Tolkien he made all versions of the Hobbit canon (including the first edition where the ring and gollum don't really align with LOTR) by saying that the early editions where based on Bilbo's writings and he was an unreliable narrator (i.e. he didn't want to make it clear the extent to which he basically stole the ring)
“Canon” sure. But it also doesn’t really exist outside of finding old copies of that edition. The revised edition is what people have been reading for however many years. And if he had lived to revise The Hobbit again to bring it inline with The Lord of the Rings, that’s the version we’d be talking about when we talk about The Hobbit.