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TauntaunScout
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 Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 11:48 am Post subject: Anthony Daniel's new(ish) book |
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Not exactly cutting edge news but Anthony Daniels has a book out titled I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story. I've read it about 3/4 of the way through and so far I heavily recommend it.
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2019 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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A rather interesting few notes from the book.
George Lucas seems to have had an irrational preference for CGI during filming the prequels. Daniels noted a few times where Lucas seemed annoyed that people stepped in and moved a prop or actor into/out of camera view, instead of letting him CGI the change in later. This probably hurt the acting, as did various practices of Lucas' during shooting ANH. The overall image I'm getting is that Lucas can't read human emotions and therefore doesn't care about acting.
He really hated Richard Marquand, who really seems to have hurt ROTJ with his ego and BS. A lot of Lucas' energy on that film had to go into cleaning up Marquand's messes.
Daniels was completely ignored when ANH debuted. Makes Carrie Fisher's sense that it was Leia, and not her that was famous, seem like 1st world problems. For example, magazine captions for a movie still would say things like "Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamil) and C-3PO in 20th Century Fox's Star Wars", acting like he wasn't in the film at all. He was not invited to the screening for actors and his name wasn't on the movie poster. He was apparently pretty depressed about it and hesitated to do ESB. But he felt protective of the character and wanted to make it sure it was done right. Plus at the end of the day he's an actor and it was paying work.
Filming in the 3PO suit was dangerous and sucky. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2019 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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| TauntaunScout wrote: | | A rather interesting few notes from the book. |
Thanks for sharing. I won't get to reading this book any decade soon.
| Quote: | | George Lucas seems to have had an irrational preference for CGI during filming the prequels. Daniels noted a few times where Lucas seemed annoyed that people stepped in and moved a prop or actor into/out of camera view, instead of letting him CGI the change in later. |
That doesn't make any sense. If there was a something practical as simple as moving a prop or an actor slightly moving, there would be no need to correct simple issues with CG later. IMO, either your interpretation and/or retelling of this is skewed, or Daniels is using hyperbole (which I have noticed he has done before to much amusement in his ongoing Star Wars Insider feature he had for a while many years back). Of course, there were many choices made for CG over practical effects, but those choices were mostly in preproduction. For all three PT films, Lucas devised a budget and stuck to it. There wasn't any reckless abandonment with intention to CG everything.
| Quote: | | This probably hurt the acting, as did various practices of Lucas' during shooting ANH. The overall image I'm getting is that Lucas can't read human emotions and therefore doesn't care about acting. |
The PT had a lot of green screens everywhere which I'm sure did make it difficult for actors to act. Regarding all four of the Star Wars films he directed, it's not that Lucas didn't care about acting. But yes, I would say it is definitely true that Lucas had a failing with human performances, in both reading actors and directing them. Some actors rose above Lucas' inadequacies with human performance, some actors didn't.
| Quote: | | He really hated Richard Marquand, who really seems to have hurt ROTJ with his ego and BS. A lot of Lucas' energy on that film had to go into cleaning up Marquand's messes. |
When you say "he" I think you are referring to Daniels, not Lucas, right? Lucas said he had made a poor choice with Marquand.
| Quote: | | Daniels was completely ignored when ANH debuted. Makes Carrie Fisher's sense that it was Leia, and not her that was famous, seem like 1st world problems. For example, magazine captions for a movie still would say things like "Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamil) and C-3PO in 20th Century Fox's Star Wars", acting like he wasn't in the film at all. He was not invited to the screening for actors and his name wasn't on the movie poster. He was apparently pretty depressed about it and hesitated to do ESB. |
Sad but true. However Lucas did finally treat Daniels like an important actor of the films during the theatrical release of RotJ. Lucas awarded Daniels profit points like he had done the main stars, so Daniels finally got a chunk of the film's profits as a bonus one top of his contracted salary.
| Quote: | | Filming in the 3PO suit was dangerous and sucky. |
No doubt!
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2019 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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Daniels did not like Marquand. Apparently Marquand was kind of a jerk towards the actors and pitted them against each other. Daniels told Lucas on set, in front of a bunch of people, that he refused to do post-production voice recording with Marquand.
Daniels cited two specific examples about the CGI. In one, Lucas said "get R2 out of the speeder, we'll put him back in digitally later" because R2 was too high in the shot. One of the stage crew simply lowered R2 and Daniels said Lucas seemed disappointed.
The other was when Daniels rode in a speeder with Natalie Portman on Day 1. On Day 2, he was there on set in the suit and 3PO was supposed to ride in the speeder with Obi-Wan. George Lucas said "Don't bother, we'll just use yesterdays footage of you in that speeder and CGI you in next to Obi-Wan". They both thought that was weird and Ewan MacGregor insisted on having Daniels in the shot because "he can just sit there" in the speeder. |
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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There's a whole other element of interest too because he relates stories from all the SW stuff he did. Like The Donny & Marie Osmond Star Wars show, the more famous Holiday Special, plus all the commercials and everything else 3PO was in, the voice acting for cartoons, etc. Compared to the other actors he acted in a ton of SW stuff personally.
For example at 4:59 you can just barely see that when they boarded the spaceship and shut the ramp, the top collapsed. This is cut away rapidly for TV but in front of the live audience, Daniels improvised. It was turned into a gag by hearing 3PO say "How interesting!" from inside the collapsed ship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EhHqwPFT18 |
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Of further interest to some. He is already allowed to reminisce about his experiences shooting TRoS. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| TauntaunScout wrote: | | Of further interest to some. He is already allowed to reminisce about his experiences shooting TRoS. |
Well, I'm sure it is no coincidence that this book is on the bookshelves for the theatrical release of the last Star Wars film of this original series. Anthony Daniels is the only actor to appear in all 11 films (he was a human slave in Kessel in Solo).
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2019 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes. Apparently he wasn't sure what he'd be till he arrived on set to his trailer. With a sign on the door that said "Human Slave". |
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