Allrighty, in ROTJ we have Luke in Palpatine’s throne room.
Palpy, of course, is trying to tempt Luke to the Dark Side of the Force. At one point, Luke gets angry, spins away from the window, pulls his lightsaber, and then seems to take a swing at Palpatine. That swing, of course, is blocked by Vader’s lightsaber.
So, Luke gets angry, swings at Palpatine, and Vader blocks. Sure, that makes sense. However, if you look at the lightsabers shown clashed in front of Palpatine’s face, you can clearly see that Luke’s saber is on the Palpatine side of the clash.
So, did Luke change his mind at the last moment? Did the FX guys screw up? Any other insights on that?
It’s not an FX error. The FX guys just lay the sparklies over whetever in already on frame. It’s more of a blocking error. The director should have caught the mistake while they were still sparring with the plastic rods.
It wouldn’t be the first center-line error in that film. I think it was edited by monkeys.
The original version of Return of the Jedi had an egregious example of center-line error, where a person is looking off-camera to the right at something that should be on the left.
Jabba’s Palace: a bounty hunter has brought Chewbacca in, and presents a thermal detonator. Boba Fett draws his laser pistol with his left hand. This is because the film was swapped left-to-right to preserve the center line. Unfortunately, Boba Fett’s costume is asymmetrical — one red bracer, one yellow; and he has an antenna thing on only one side of his helmet. The change is painfully obvious once you know it’s there.
Fast forward to Special Edition: Boba Fett is seen quite clearly walking away from the dancers and crossing the center line. Now the shot where he draws his gun is swapped back to its original configuration and he’s right-handed again.
Slight hijack; is there still a little black bloby thing to one side of the emperor’s face in close-ups where some sort of flaw has been obscured a frame at a time? I remember seeing this in the original theatrical release of “RotJ”.
As for the centerline thing - I had no idea there was a term for it.
The most egregious example is, IMO, in the end of ESB when you’ve got Piett and flunky standing around waiting for the Falcon to get tractored. It’s obviously flipped since their rank insignia is now on the right side of their chests…
Since searching keeps sending me references to Center Line, Michigan, can someone give a definition of “center line” in this context? I can pretty much figure the meaning here, but just want to be sure.
Someone more versed in cinema can be more precise. I’ve heard the term used before but I can’t be positive if I’m using it correctly.
I’ve heard it described as the technique whereby the director (or editor) preserves the sense of “space” by making sure characters are facing off-camera in the right direction to unseen other characters.
Take a standard A-B dialogue shot (A is in the foreground talking to B in one shot, in the next shot it’s reversed and B is in the foreground talking to A). You’re looking over A’s left shoulder and B’s right shoulder to preserve the center line.
If you draw it on a piece of paper, you’ll notice that in both shots, A is facing to the left and B is facing to the right.
If they ever do a closeup of A, they’ll usually shoot A so he’s still facing slightly more to the left, and vice-versa for B.
There’s another one that’s almost as good (and does not appear to be a flipped negative error); when Han Solo is offering the Millenium Falcon to Lando “Colt .45” Calrissian is wearing a blaster across his chest, tanker-style. When you first see it, the harness goes from right to left for a right hand draw. The the camera cuts to Han, and then back to Lando, who now has the harness going left to right. Back to Han and returning to Lando again, the harness has now returned to the original configuration. After that, Lando walks up the ramp toward the Falcon, but he has slow down suddenly because he’s going to walk right into the background matte painting.
Whatever talents Lucas posesses, detail in the editing booth is not one of them. Thelma Schoonmaker could run circles around him with a razor blade and a 10W light bulb.
I have just reviewed both the Special Edition DVD and the normal theatrical release. Luke activates his lightsaber and swings it off-camera to the left. It enters from the right.
Either you mean he swung it to the left and in a reverse shot (different POV) it looked like he was swinging to the right…which would be correct. If you swing off to your left to me it looks like you’re swinging to my right.
…or, you’re saying that he swing to the left and in another shot it came back in on the right.
Shot 1. Luke, alone, in front of Death Star window. He is facing left of screen. He activates lightsaber and lunges. The lightsaber disappears off-screen left.
Shot 2. Palpadine, alone, in chair. Luke’s green saber enters from the right and clashes with Dark Vader’s lightsaber.
Regardless of left-right problems, it always appeared to me that the red blade was on the wrong side of the Emperor (closer to the camera) to be parrying a swing at said tyrant.
If you think that’s bad, watch the star field track past outside the window behind Palpatine’s throne. Then watch it again as the shot cuts away and then back to Palpatine. And again. It’s THE SAME FRAGGIN’ EFFECTS SHOT used each time!
I wonder if Luke wasn’t actually swinging at Vader. Sure, the Emperor was taunting Luke, but vader was, after all, the real reason he went there in the first place.
If you think that’s bad, Palpatine has a window which means he’s right at the surface in a room that’s orientated 90-degrees to the surface of the Death Star. He also has a shaft that extends “down” from his room to the center of the Death Star. Assuming that he’s not at the north or south “pole” of the Death Star (and the view of the battle he has suggests that he isn’t) then a shaft to the center would be more horizontal rather than vertical.
Actually, I think the error that you are referring to would be due to a mistake in the rotoscoping of the shot. Which is a post effect where each frame is edited with a masking technique to make the light sabers, well, light up. It appears (from the description of your shot–I am at work and cannot view it) that the person doing the rotoscoping made an error and rotoscoped the wrong blade into the foreground.
I’ll check it later, but I am almost certain that this is the problem.