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"If you watch the newer Star Wars movies pay attention to the transitions near the end. When they are switching between each of the battle scenes they use Power

"If you watch the newer Star Wars movies pay attention to the transitions near the end. When they are switching between each of the battle scenes they use Powerpoint style transitions. Dissolve, blinds, swipe. It’s an amateur effect in a movie that is otherwise very technically difficult and visually impressive. The skill is there, but taste is lacking." I'm sure the use of dissolves and wipes in the newer Star Wars movies had absolutely nothing to do with the previous Star Wars movies using those everywhere. I'm sure it was a lack of taste on the part of the editor. If anything those were the best parts of those movies, they were at least consistent.

rollypolly 15y ago
I think that point was completely lost on the OP. As far as lack of taste is concerned, people need to be more self critical and understand their limits. I'm a good engineer, but not so great designer, so it's a lot more cost effective for me to find a good designer to work with.
- nathanbarry 15y ago
  You're right. That was lost on me. I remembered the transitions in the original Star Wars, but didn’t think they were so over the top. Now I need to go back and watch the original films to see how bad they really are.
  - hammock 15y ago
    By the by, the wipes Lucas used in the original Star Wars trilogy were inspired by the way Kurosawa (one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, say Wikipedia) used wipes and "help evoke a kinship to old pulp science fiction novels and serials." They are supposed to be campy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipe_%28transition%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipe_%28transition%29 At some point in their career I think everyone learns that a "good taste" and artistry requires a solid knowledge of history, regardless of whether you choose to build on it or depart from it. The naive approach only gets you so far. The old anecdote about how young Picasso trained on more traditional art techniques before becoming free to go off into the deep end.
    - nathanbarry 15y ago
      It's interesting to read about where they have been used. I think the effects that bothered me the most were the blinds and dissolve transitions. "You will find as you develop in your career that a well-developed taste requires a good knowledge of history, regardless of whether you choose to build on it or depart from it." I agree completely.
- slantyyz 15y ago
  >> I think that point was completely lost of the OP. Totally agree. Here's the weird thing for me. The title "Skill doesn't matter if you lack taste" is a gross oversimplification. One that can be countered with the another oversimplification "Taste doesn't matter if the work you produce is ineffective". The two points he makes (Star Wars and Local TV ads), while tastefully written, don't seem to be (to me at least) fully fleshed arguments that support the post's thesis.
- bicknergseng 15y ago
  I agree and might go so far as to say the transitions were in good taste. "Taste" seems to me like a fairly generic word that can be easily misused. To me, taste implies consistency with tradition as well as good design, etc., but the OP seems to think that taste is directly synonymous with good design. If he really wanted to use an example of bad taste from the new Star Wars movies, it seems like everything Jar Jar would have been the easy target.
  - ionforce 15y ago
    How do you feel taste is different from good design?
    - bicknergseng 15y ago
      For what I just mentioned. Taste encompasses more than just design. Wikipedia actually describes it pretty well in my opinion: "Taste as an aesthetic, sociological, economic and anthropological concept refers to a cultural patterns of choice and preference." I would say design only really addresses aesthetic. Tomato tomahto maybe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_(sociology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_(sociology)
  - nathanbarry 15y ago
    True, but that would be talking about script and character development rather than design.
    - bicknergseng 15y ago
      Ah, but that's our point I think. You mean to talk about design, but taste is not synonymous with design. If you mean to say that the SW screen wipes are terrible design even if they're properly implemented, I think you'd have less people squawking. But you said they were bad taste, which is subjectively incorrect because they are in keeping with the older films.
- kenrikm 15y ago
  Site does not render well on the iPad and a really poor choice of fonts for the title were what lost me. Never criticize condem or complain, people in glass houses, well.. I'm not trying to be overly negative I'm just pointing out a few things I noticed *palmslap bad Kenrik.
  - nathanbarry 15y ago
    I'll have to check out the rendering on the iPad. Thanks for pointing out that bug.
  - dhugiaskmak 15y ago
    It's pretty awful on a desktop, too. Here's what I see on my 1280x1024 screen with a browser taking up nearly all of that vertical space: http://imgur.com/Z6aeQ http://imgur.com/Z6aeQ Where's the content?
drzaiusapelord 15y ago
To add to this, those wipes are very deliberate homages to the Flash Gordan serials and other films from that era that George Lucas watched as reruns when he was a child. Those exact wipes were in the originals too. Its just a fun little thing they put in the movies to give this quick-paced serial feel to them and to pay homage to 30s sci-fi no one really cares about. I'm so sick of this Lucas bashing. He is incredibly talented and his unforgivable crime was growing older and not having the fire, drive, and hunger his younger self had. Instead he gave us good sound, amazing video games, all manner of extended universe fun, etc. Its just amazing the swipes people take at him. I noticed these people don't swipe at the Stones or Dylan for producing lack luster content in their golden years. Funny how that works. Hell hath no fury like a nerd scorned...
- ebiester 15y ago
  Part of that is because Dylan produced two great albums (Love and Theft and Modern Times) in the last decade, and Together Through Life wasn't half bad either. And plenty of people have remarked that the Stones haven't been relevant in forever. But I think more people are angry that he won't leave the original trilogy alone.
- neilk 15y ago
  Some people argue that the real reason the latter movies all sucked was that Marcia Lucas, his partner, creative collaborator, and film editor, left him. George might have had a thousand goofy ideas, but by some accounts Marcia had all the taste. Chrome is flagging this link as malware, but I assume it was some bot infection they've cleared up. I don't see anything bad happening when I view the page load in a debugger. http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/marcialucas.html http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/marcialucas.html
billpatrianakos 15y ago
That was my first thought and you're totally right but lets not miss the point here. Let's just assume the author didn't know this about the Star Wars franchise and let it go. I'm glad people brought it up though because I'm a huge Star Wars fan and I couldn't let it go either. Despite this mistake I'm the post his point still stands. People learn all these skills but fail to understand when to properly use them. A lot of visual design tools like Photoshop have the ability to let you create incredibly complex, technically challenging works but just because you can doesn't mean you should. This seems like a newbie mistake. Newbie learns cool new thing and them uses it everywhere because he can. Usually the cool new thing is more difficult and complex than other things newbie knows and somehow people begin to think harder is better. We're essentially talking about how to use tools. As you fill your toolbox with new tools it's important to remember that every tool has its place and just because you've added a more powerful tool to your box it doesn't mean that from now on that tool should be used in lew of the others. If that were the case then you'd only need one tool. Each time you got a new more powerful tool you'd throw away your old ones and that's exactly what happens a lot of times. I think that phase passes for most of us though and I don't think it's taste that makes people do this too. Rather than taste being the issue I believe it's a matter of skill. Learning how to use more complex and powerful tools is a good skill but an often overlooked skill is learning how all those tools work in concert and knowing when to use which combination. People who work in design especially usually have good taste to begin with, so it isn't taste that's lacking. Instead they're just so enamoured with their growth that they lose the forest for the trees whenever they level up.
novalis 15y ago
That sort of cluelessness from the author of the post and the craptastic generic looking site it was on, really helped determining the importance of the article.

rollypolly 15y ago

I think that point was completely lost on the OP. As far as lack of taste is concerned, people need to be more self critical and understand their limits. I'm a good engineer, but not so great designer, so it's a lot more cost effective for me to find a good designer to work with.

nathanbarry 15y ago
You're right. That was lost on me. I remembered the transitions in the original Star Wars, but didn’t think they were so over the top. Now I need to go back and watch the original films to see how bad they really are.
- hammock 15y ago
  By the by, the wipes Lucas used in the original Star Wars trilogy were inspired by the way Kurosawa (one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, say Wikipedia) used wipes and "help evoke a kinship to old pulp science fiction novels and serials." They are supposed to be campy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipe_%28transition%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipe_%28transition%29 At some point in their career I think everyone learns that a "good taste" and artistry requires a solid knowledge of history, regardless of whether you choose to build on it or depart from it. The naive approach only gets you so far. The old anecdote about how young Picasso trained on more traditional art techniques before becoming free to go off into the deep end.
  - nathanbarry 15y ago
    It's interesting to read about where they have been used. I think the effects that bothered me the most were the blinds and dissolve transitions. "You will find as you develop in your career that a well-developed taste requires a good knowledge of history, regardless of whether you choose to build on it or depart from it." I agree completely.
slantyyz 15y ago
>> I think that point was completely lost of the OP. Totally agree. Here's the weird thing for me. The title "Skill doesn't matter if you lack taste" is a gross oversimplification. One that can be countered with the another oversimplification "Taste doesn't matter if the work you produce is ineffective". The two points he makes (Star Wars and Local TV ads), while tastefully written, don't seem to be (to me at least) fully fleshed arguments that support the post's thesis.
bicknergseng 15y ago
I agree and might go so far as to say the transitions were in good taste. "Taste" seems to me like a fairly generic word that can be easily misused. To me, taste implies consistency with tradition as well as good design, etc., but the OP seems to think that taste is directly synonymous with good design. If he really wanted to use an example of bad taste from the new Star Wars movies, it seems like everything Jar Jar would have been the easy target.
- ionforce 15y ago
  How do you feel taste is different from good design?
  - bicknergseng 15y ago
    For what I just mentioned. Taste encompasses more than just design. Wikipedia actually describes it pretty well in my opinion: "Taste as an aesthetic, sociological, economic and anthropological concept refers to a cultural patterns of choice and preference." I would say design only really addresses aesthetic. Tomato tomahto maybe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_(sociology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_(sociology)
- nathanbarry 15y ago
  True, but that would be talking about script and character development rather than design.
  - bicknergseng 15y ago
    Ah, but that's our point I think. You mean to talk about design, but taste is not synonymous with design. If you mean to say that the SW screen wipes are terrible design even if they're properly implemented, I think you'd have less people squawking. But you said they were bad taste, which is subjectively incorrect because they are in keeping with the older films.
kenrikm 15y ago
Site does not render well on the iPad and a really poor choice of fonts for the title were what lost me. Never criticize condem or complain, people in glass houses, well.. I'm not trying to be overly negative I'm just pointing out a few things I noticed *palmslap bad Kenrik.
- nathanbarry 15y ago
  I'll have to check out the rendering on the iPad. Thanks for pointing out that bug.
- dhugiaskmak 15y ago
  It's pretty awful on a desktop, too. Here's what I see on my 1280x1024 screen with a browser taking up nearly all of that vertical space: http://imgur.com/Z6aeQ http://imgur.com/Z6aeQ Where's the content?

drzaiusapelord 15y ago

To add to this, those wipes are very deliberate homages to the Flash Gordan serials and other films from that era that George Lucas watched as reruns when he was a child. Those exact wipes were in the originals too. Its just a fun little thing they put in the movies to give this quick-paced serial feel to them and to pay homage to 30s sci-fi no one really cares about. I'm so sick of this Lucas bashing. He is incredibly talented and his unforgivable crime was growing older and not having the fire, drive, and hunger his younger self had. Instead he gave us good sound, amazing video games, all manner of extended universe fun, etc. Its just amazing the swipes people take at him. I noticed these people don't swipe at the Stones or Dylan for producing lack luster content in their golden years. Funny how that works. Hell hath no fury like a nerd scorned...

ebiester 15y ago
Part of that is because Dylan produced two great albums (Love and Theft and Modern Times) in the last decade, and Together Through Life wasn't half bad either. And plenty of people have remarked that the Stones haven't been relevant in forever. But I think more people are angry that he won't leave the original trilogy alone.
neilk 15y ago
Some people argue that the real reason the latter movies all sucked was that Marcia Lucas, his partner, creative collaborator, and film editor, left him. George might have had a thousand goofy ideas, but by some accounts Marcia had all the taste. Chrome is flagging this link as malware, but I assume it was some bot infection they've cleared up. I don't see anything bad happening when I view the page load in a debugger. http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/marcialucas.html http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/marcialucas.html

billpatrianakos 15y ago

That was my first thought and you're totally right but lets not miss the point here. Let's just assume the author didn't know this about the Star Wars franchise and let it go. I'm glad people brought it up though because I'm a huge Star Wars fan and I couldn't let it go either. Despite this mistake I'm the post his point still stands. People learn all these skills but fail to understand when to properly use them. A lot of visual design tools like Photoshop have the ability to let you create incredibly complex, technically challenging works but just because you can doesn't mean you should. This seems like a newbie mistake. Newbie learns cool new thing and them uses it everywhere because he can. Usually the cool new thing is more difficult and complex than other things newbie knows and somehow people begin to think harder is better. We're essentially talking about how to use tools. As you fill your toolbox with new tools it's important to remember that every tool has its place and just because you've added a more powerful tool to your box it doesn't mean that from now on that tool should be used in lew of the others. If that were the case then you'd only need one tool. Each time you got a new more powerful tool you'd throw away your old ones and that's exactly what happens a lot of times. I think that phase passes for most of us though and I don't think it's taste that makes people do this too. Rather than taste being the issue I believe it's a matter of skill. Learning how to use more complex and powerful tools is a good skill but an often overlooked skill is learning how all those tools work in concert and knowing when to use which combination. People who work in design especially usually have good taste to begin with, so it isn't taste that's lacking. Instead they're just so enamoured with their growth that they lose the forest for the trees whenever they level up.

novalis 15y ago

That sort of cluelessness from the author of the post and the craptastic generic looking site it was on, really helped determining the importance of the article.