Remember Lucas' Lesson! (Longish)

In 1969, George Lucas cofounded American Zoetrope studio with Francis Ford Coppola as part of an effort to help free filmmaking from what he perceived as the 'oppresive' Hollywood Studio system. Many popular, ground-breaking, and critically acclaimed films came out of Zoetrope over the years, including classics like 'American Graffiti', 'Apocalypse Now', and 'Lost in Translation'.

In 1973, Lucas began work on the original 'Star Wars' film. It was far too grandiose a project for American Zoetrope, but Lucas' success with 'American Graffiti' and his willingness to settle for merely the licensing rights to the film convinced Fox Studio's executives to fund his work.

Lucas not only made a sizeable fortune off Star Wars merchandise, but the movie was, at the time, the most financially successful film ever. The income repaired Fox Studios' damaged finances and positioned Lucas to create another studio, Lucasfilm, solely to produce his own projects, including the many Star Wars sequels and prequels.

'Star Wars' was was inspired by the works of director Akira Kurosawa, theatrical 'cliffhanger' serials, and science fiction comics including Flash Gordon. Lucas' vision for the film was simply impossible to create at the time, so he and his collegues at Fox, and then later at Luscasfilm furthered existing special effects techniques or invented entirely new special effects processes in order to create the movie. Still, what moviegoers saw on the screen represented only part of Lucas' total vision, due to the limited time and budget allotted to the film.

Regardless, Industrial Light and Magic, the visual effects division of Lucasfilm is among if not the most respected effects house in the business.

In 1994, Lucas begin initial work on the Star Wars prequels which would eventually draw wide criticism on many fronts, but most notably for the overuse of special visual effects. The paramount difference between 1973 and 1994 in filmmaking was the availability of powerful computer graphics technology that could render entire scenes that previously had to be matte painted or modeled in miniature. For the first time, Lucas was able to cram most of his vision into the film.

What his viewers discovered was that adversity in the creation of the first Star Wars movie bred beauty. The effects used were profoundly moving in part because they were expensive in terms of time and money, required careful attention to detail on the part of the creators, and needed very careful editing in order to fit in the context of the film. They were hard, so they were used sparingly, and only when necessary to further the plot of the film.

By comparison, Lucas' wealth and the availability of all the computer power he could buy meant that no such limitations were placed on the prequels. Each and every idea Lucas had could not only be filmed, but computer-rendered. His actors spent less time talking to each other and more time talking to a green screen or stand-ins. The audience is treated to massive sequences of computer animation containing no cuts with real actors.

The 'beauty bred from adversity' present in varying degrees in the first three films is simply absent in the last three.


'Now', you ask, 'What does this all have to do with me? More importantly, why are you posting this in the General Discussion area rather than the Culture area?'


City of Heroes players have been granted many powerful creative tools during the game's history. None, bar the original Character Creator, have been as powerful or had such a profound visual effect on the game as Power Customization. Players can pour more of their ideas for character creation onto the screen than ever before.

Just as with George Lucas' prequels, however, we have lost a bit of that 'beauty bred from adversity'. No longer need costumes be carefully matched to power colors. Likewise, visual abominations now stalk the streets of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.

'Why is your fire Green and Purple rather than the yellow, orange, and red shades we normally associate with flames?'

"Why are your shadows red? Aren't shadows usually dark?'

If the answer to these questions is merely 'Because it looks cool', you might think back to the kinds of effects used in the original Star Wars movies. They were there because they advanced the plot, characterization, or setting, and used pretty sparsely.

If, however, your answer is something like, "My character is a nature sprite, and her fire encompasses all seasons, including spring and fall" or "My shadows are red because my character is a vampire and they're infused with the blood of his victims", you're using the new power customization features to further your character's personality.

Remember, kids, just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD. The next time you go into the character creator, remember the lessons that George Lucas has, purposefully or not, been so kind as to teach us.

Okaaaaaay?



I was just glad to be able to put orange and blue onto the normally pink psi/mind sets. After all the character's based on Portal, so blue and orange fit her to a T.

I'm not really sure how the rest of that fits with this game, but the lesson is definitely well-said: think before you color.

EH, i am always hesitant to tell people that they are using something wrong if it isn't outright harming me. I joke a lot about the colors i use on my characters, and have made some outlandish ones, no question, but in general i try to keep things coherent, but that is my enjoyment, you know. If someone wants to make all their controls bright because they love bright colors, its really not my place to say wether or not they have justified it enough. people wear skintight spandex and yet are invulnerable, and their bio never explains why the bullets dont tear them to ribbons, They pick swords that dont really make sense with the timeframes of their costumes(a knight with a riktisaber, for instance) I mean if something were to be so egregiously bad that it offended my eyes, id politely leave, because I would acknowledge that the issue lies with my aesthetic sensibilities, and its best to find more agreeable compatriots. PC Has increased the game tenfold in my eyes, and i want to see people using it to the fullest of their expression.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

People that didn't really care about RP before aren't gonna suddenly care about RP now... People also made garish outfits before with no issues. Sure, it'd be best to have a reasoning of some sort, but I don't think it's as serious as you make it sound (then again, the new star wars movies still made him a fortune).


IMO, the analogy doesn't really apply too well, as you'd be using the exact same amount of special effects whether or not you have an RP excuse. Sure, having a reason is great, but it's really not required...

And what about my Fire/Thermal Corruptor... She's had the exact same costume since I made her:


But now with Issue 16, I can customize the powers to make it look cool, logic be damned:


Sure, it's be fairly easy to explain blue & black fire realistically... but how many people would ever actually know unless I flat out tell them? Does spiderman go around saying 'I got bit by a mutated spider!' or superman spam his globals saying 'I CAME FROM ANOTHER WORLD!!!!'... Sure, silly examples but... okay, I just wanted to say something silly

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

The lady (?) said it well. I doubt Superman has a reason his underwear are on the outside. It's just the way the character is. (Though, maybe it's so he doesn't have to change them as often.)

Not only is it cool, it's new and shiny. Everybody wants to play with the new shiny. The character I have been playing most was created when I couldn't customize my powers, but I want to play with the new shiny. Does regular, garden variety Dark Melee suit her concept perfectly fine? Yes, it does (aside from the obnoxious Soul Drain glow). But, new shiny....so I customized my Dark Melee a bit to match my costumes.

Give it a few months. By then there will be a whole slew of characters running around with concepts built on power customization, instead of a bunch of characters with the new shiny tacked on to existing concepts.

I kept reading Lucas as Lusca...

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I write (pretty damn good) backstories in my characters' profile section to explain their powers, appearance, and general raisons d'etre. If I then want to give my Blaster blue fire just freakin' because I feel like it, I do believe that's my prerogative.

I say the OP should pick better battles. There are loads of people in this game who justify next to nothing about their characters.

I still want in-game weather effects, like rain.

And the ability to colorize it to pink.

So new avatars should be Ewoks and not Gungans?

I just wish PC came with a new shiny random button MUHAHAHAHAHA.

I have pink forcefields because... well, they're forcefields. Whos to say what colour they're supposed to turn out? Besides, the character who wields them has a penchant for pink fashion, so it works on there too!

I do like to associate power colours with the chararcter though, either with their personality, as in Little Jenny's case, or the source of their energy (Like sinister red storm summonings). For me it has to make some kind of logical sense to be a certain colour (or little colour at all in the case of my regen) since ultimately the power customisation is an extension of who they are.

I disagree with the spirit of this thread. The Star Wars prequels sucked because of BAD WRITING, not because of excessive effects. Really, this Luddite notion that effects somehow take away from the "spirit" of a film is something that has always bugged me as a concept, and I see it said by "old school" directors in pretty much every documentary on movie history I watch. So, what, does that mean that animated and 3D movies are inherently inferior? Animation Age Ghetto, anyone? A good movie does NOT require real actors speaking to each other in front of REAL sets. As something like Wall E demonstrated, you barely require actors at all. JUST effects, be they many or few, take away nothing from a movie. If a movie is written well, it will ALWAYS be better with more effects. If a movie is written poorly, it's going to suck no matter how much money you chuck at it.

This carries over to this game, as well. Who CARES why a certain power looks the way it does? Who cares if it makes sense? When people without mouths spit fire, does it matter if it's green, blue or black? When can take a rocket to the chest and not even stagger, does it matter if they glow red, blue or pink? The Rule of Cool applies - as long as something looks cool enough, it doesn't matter if it makes sense or not. Sure, it's nice to have a neat and tidy explanation, but at the end of the day, those are still just making things up. My fire is blue because it's actually a manifestation of the power of destruction. So why blue, then, and not red or black? Because blue looks cool, ultimately.

I really, REALLY want to avoid trying to chastise people and corral them into only using certain concepts because they make sense or look good to me. In my experience, some of the best works of art and fiction are those who take the worst, most absurd, most ridiculous concepts and make them work and be cool. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, anyone? Who CARES if it's stupid and doesn't make sense? IT WORKS! In fact, it worked twice over.

To make a long story short, I find artistic license to be the most important thing, and something which shouldn't be limited by notions of what things SHOULD be, but only by the reality of what can be made.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Silly me, I forgot we're making movies here, not super hero avatars for us to play.

It's bloody super heroes we're talking about. We have a prerogative to be as flashy as humanly OR superhumanly possible. It's not just our right, it's our DUTY!

More seriously, though, those 'hardships' in creating characters because I need to artificially look out for the colour of their powers didn't make me feel any closer to any character, ever. In fact, I'd wager most people felt their characters were actually more foreign to them because they didn't have as much control over them. Now that I can make characters with blue fire, I can make characters closer to what I envision, and thereby characters that I enjoy playing more.

We are not creating characters to make a commercial success and appeal to as many people as possible. We make characters that appeal to ourselves, that we don't get tired of looking at after a few hours and then delete.

Remember, we're not just the creators, we are also our own target audience. Mr Lucas may face the risk of losing millions by getting as close to his vision as possible, but all I get from getting as close to my vision of my characters is greater enjoyment of the game. NCSoft gets the same fifteen dollars, but I get just that tiny bit more fun.

Lastly, if I wanted didn't want to create my toons as I see fit, I'd go back to Ye Olde Generic Fantasy MMO and dress up like a hobo just like my twenty million identical twins. More character customisation is NEVER the wrong thing.

I completely agree with Sam

The trouble with the prequel trilogy was that Anakin Skywalker came across as a whiny half-wit and that Obi Wan was too dense to understand the balance of the Force. At the end, there were 2 Sith and 2 Jedi. The Chosen One had brought balance. The end.

I'll enjoy me crimson and orange fire/fire tanker and my green and gold fire/fire blaster. Perhaps you should close your eyes?

I am a wild rebel by joining PUGs with my cold/ice defender whose ice shields are still the original color.