first post

watching 'return of the jedi' while working on segave.com. all of the star wars films (at least the originals...i cannot make it through the stiff, horrible dialogue of the new ones) begin with the yellow, "scrolling perspective" text, then a tilt down to a planet or ship. in each of the first few scenes, the scene begins with a wide shot, follows with a medium shot, and then finishes with another wide shot. one thing i didn't really notice is the amount of transition effects from scene to scene. i think the original trilogy did a good job making the special effects look natural or earthy. the ships look especially real, mainly because they are. the films used small models with special cameras that would "fly" by the ship, giving the illusion that the ship was actually moving. another special effects process from the movies is "rotoscoping." the frame-by-frame painting of the lightsaber glows is quite a lengthy process, having done it myself on a few occasions. this movie does a good job keeping the special effects believable, at most times preventing it from being the focus of a scene.