Put away the green screen!

This is one of my all time favourite photographs -

I am not focusing on Harrison Ford here but what he is sitting by. A full size, fully constructed prop of an X-Wing fighter, the greatest of all star fighters. Not only that, it is a full size, fully constructed prop of an X-Wing fighter, the greatest of all star fighters in a full size fully constructed set of a hangar on the ice planet Hoth, filled with other full sized fully constructed props of other space ships including a full size fully constructed Millennium Falcon.

Now I'll apologise for the repeating of the words full, size and constructed but that is what I am wanting to emphasise. These sets and props were all actually built with such painstaking detail, every scorch mark, every little component made to look like it served a very specific purpose in making those ships fly in space. This is for me, what gives films character and what I love about the original Star Wars films. And it's not just the sets and ships, the alien costumes as well. As you first enter the cantina in Mos Eisley and see the eclectic mishmash of alien races all congregated there. Not a single one looked ridiculous or cheesy and they were all real. There was no computer generated monsters filmed on a green screen. The actors aren't talking to empty space pretending there is some exotic creature listening intently to them. They are interacting with a physical thing, be it an actor in costume or puppet of some description. For me this is what made Star Wars great.

Then came the prequel trilogy and I could't help but feel they were using CGI for one reason only; because they could. This was one of the things, among others, that ruined them for me. The films had none of the organic character of the originals, the acting suffered because not only were half the characters they were meant to be interacting with not really there, but neither were the sets. I have nothing against CGI if it is used when genuinely necessary, but when I'm watching a scene set in what is basically a hotel suite and it is clear the only things actually physically there are the actors I can't help but feel it's being taken too far. When you're creating a CGI sofa, it's getting to be a bit much.

And it's not just Star Wars, many films have been over using the technology and the actors themselves have said how it is sucking the joy out of film making. That the most enjoyable part of acting is interacting and how that is disappearing in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres. I recall recently watching an interview with Ian McKellen where he recalled being reduced to tears whilst filming The Hobbit. The effects to make him appear larger than the dwarves meant he filmed the majority of the film on an empty green screen set alone.

There are exceptions however. The recent Star Trek reboots are for me an example of the perfect balance of CGI. You can see the sets have been constructed, aliens are only done in CGI where necessary. The films have genuine character because they went through the effort of creating a physical and tactile environment that you can believe the actors are a part of.

So this is my appeal to current and future film makers of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Bring back the carpenters, the set builders, the model makers, the creature artists, the costume designers and keep that green screen for when it's genuinely needed.