'Star Wars' saga set for 3D release starting 2012

[Deberg_1990]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...92835d50e86a3a



Big news on the 3D front.

Sources indicate that George Lucas is set on rereleasing the "Star Wars" franchise in new 3D conversions beginning in 2012. Although 3D versions have been rumored for some time, Lucas purportedly was waiting until there were enough screens available to make the release a sizable event.

Fox, which released all six original "Star Wars" films, also would release the 3D versions.

Episode I, "The Phantom Menace," would be first out of star-dock during early 2012. After that, each film would be released in order at the same time in consecutive years, depending on how well the first rerelease does.

Each conversion takes at least a year to complete, with Lucas overseeing the process to make sure each is as perfect as possible. He has said that the "Avatar" experience convinced him that "Star Wars" is ready for the state-of-the-art 3D treatment.

Starting with "Phantom Menace," Lucasfilm would use several higher-end conversion houses to work on the project. By late winter or early spring in 2012, the exhibition industry should have all the 3D screens anyone could want for such a release.

At present, pics are limited to 2,000-2,500 3D locations owing to an insufficient installed base of projectors and screens. Movie theaters are adding 3D screens at a clip of 500 a month in the U.S. Foreign exhibitors also are pushing into 3D as quickly as possible now that financing for the installations is flowing.

Also pushing the timetable is a potential breakthrough in 3D TV technology. With Samsung penetrating the market with 50,000-plus 3D-equipped sets and Sony recently sending its version to market, the home-viewing experience could be primed for 3D DVD versions of the films by the time the new 3D theatrical releases have run their course.

Lucas purportedly is lining up the theatrical rereleases as a lead-in to the ultimate home-viewing experience. Beyond that, the property would launch to other 3D media.

In the meantime, Lucas plans a comprehensive Blu-ray Disc set of the six films next year, which would include upgraded picture and sound quality, new deleted scenes and special features.

[007]

Hey Lucas cough bullshit cough

[Agent V]

Why pay out the ass to see one, maybe two cool scenes in this entire film? And you can't even enjoy the lightsaber duel because it's sandwiched between a giant, editing cluster**** of an ending.

The editor of Episode I TOLD Lucas, to his face, in the screening room, that the ending was convoluted (Qui-Gon dies, cut to Jar-Jar being a stupid ass, cut to Jake Lloyd, back to Maul, etc.) and didn't work emotionally. Then Lucas just blew him off and claimed the ending was "stylistic."

[58kcfan89]

I'm sure this has been posted somewhere in here, but I figured I'd post it just in case.

I can still remember how excited I was for Episode 1 as a kid (I think I was 11 when it came out) and how extremely disappointed I was after the fact. I've probably seen it 2 or 3 times total and intend to keep it that way.



Jackass.

[mnchiefsguy]

8.65 million for its Friday gross, per Box Office Mojo. That would give it around a 20 million dollar weekend. Would have to consider that a disappointment, no?

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by mnchiefsguy

8.65 million for its Friday gross, per Box Office Mojo. That would give it around a 20 million dollar weekend. Would have to consider that a disappointment, no?

Wow. No, I'd say that's pretty decent. Much better than I expected honestly. People love to bitch about these movies but there are obviously a lot people out there that like them too.

[mnchiefsguy]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

Wow. No, I'd say that's pretty decent. Much better than I expected honestly. People love to bitch about these movies but there are obviously a lot people out there that like them too.

Given how much 3D tickets are, that is not an overwhelming amount of ticket sales. 3D releases are under a lot of scrutiny at the moment, Hollywood may be driving the format into the ground, as 3D grosses have been in a steady decline. But given that it is all profit for Lucas at this point, he has no reason to be unhappy.

[Pants]

Thought this was an interesting read.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/why-sta...160300514.html

It verges on cinematic treason to suggest that the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy is in any way superior to the original trilogy. However, history has proved that treasonous behavior is just as often necessary to stimulate progressive revolution as it is to endow malevolent forces with unrestricted authority necessary to obstruct basic human rights. So here goes: the first three episodes in the saga of Anakin Skywalker are deeper, better structured, and more politically astute than the final three. Not only is that why the prequel is superior, it is also a pretty decent elucidation of the original trilogy's greater popularity.

That the "Star Wars" trilogy embraced by American moviegoers is the one that presents a far less complex universe is not incidental to the rabid rebuke of the prequel. "A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return of the Jedi" reflect the Cold War milieu in which they were created, offering up a comforting us-vs.-them story told in bold strokes lacking nuance, complexity, or intellectual ambiguity. That isn't to say that times have changed much; with the exception of "The Phantom Menace," the second and third installments of the prequel were released to an America that had embraced absolute views even more so than the original trilogy.

The difference is that the original trilogy appealed directly to the simplistic moral perspective of an America above reproach and always on the side of right in global geopolitics, whereas the much more subversive prequel trilogy stands in defiant counterpoint to the much more dangerously simplistic moral absolutism of the Age of Bush.

The original trilogy holds a special place in the bosom of American moviegoers precisely because we view ourselves comfortably in place of the Rebels. Americans revel in their historical construct as rebellious underdogs constantly at war against an easily identified and unquestionably evil empire. Hence, the reason most Americans love the original trilogy has much to do with placement of ourselves in the role of the inheritors of the mantle of the Jedi.

The problem is that the post-9/11 world meant Americans also were forced to identify themselves with the Jedi in the prequel trilogy as well, and we don't like the face we see in the mirror. Let's face it, the Jedi don't exactly come off too swell in the prequel. This time around they are the guys in charge, and it is painful to watch them screw it up, especially when the way they hand over the keys to the Empire is so eerily familiar to a historical era defined by words like "signing statements" and "Patriot Act."

Just in case you didn't notice in your rush to castigate Jar-Jar Binks and complain about the wooden dialogue of the prequel, the peaceful Galactic Republic in place at the beginning of "The Phantom Menace" doesn't turn into the dark empire in place at the beginning of "A New Hope" due to an invasion by a foreign element. The Republic falls as a result of due democratic process, albeit due democratic process that is manipulated through lies and deception. Again, sound familiar?

Watching the "Stars Wars" prequel trilogy is like the most entertaining lesson in civics ever given -- specifically the way it reveals how even a republic peopled by representative leaders with the best of intentions can make decisions that result in disastrous policies, accompanied by devastation and the crumbling of great ideas. Yoda's observations about anger, hate, fear, and suffering are not said lightly; they may be the most prescient words spoken by a movie character in recent memory.

Not much less important is another quote associated with "The Phantom Menace," a quote that hasn't proved anywhere near as memorable as Yoda's but nonetheless plays a huge part in the events that will follow. Chances are you don't even remember these words of Darth Maul: "Fear is my ally." One can well imagine that slogan scrawled across the office walls of men like Scooter Libby and tattooed across the back of Dick Cheney.
Nowhere in the original "Star Wars" trilogy is there any sequence of events nearly as profound in their application to real life as Palpatine's manipulative orchestration of the separatist movement "headed" by Count Dooku. Palpatine's nefarious scripting of events allows him to go before the senate and ask for special "emergency powers" to deal with the growing threat facing the peace of the republic. Perhaps if Americans had embraced the prequel in the way they did the original "Star Wars" trilogy, they would recognize the danger when an elected member of a representative republic asks for "emergency powers" to combat a threat.
Palpatine's actions in the prequel are positively Machiavellian, and his evil in those first three movies is far more chilling than his appearances as the emperor in the original trilogy. In those movies, Palpatine is so far removed from us we can only approach him from the perspective of a Hitler. We must always remember that Hitler didn't ascend to dictator by using tanks, but the ballot box.

Just as Palpatine is far more chilling as a politician abusing the system than he is as an emperor in comprehensively malevolent control, so is Anakin Skywalker far more chilling as a powerless pawn than he is as powerful Darth Vader. No more alarming scene exists in the entire "Star Wars" canon than the political conversation that takes place in "Attack of the Clones" between Anakin and Amidala when the boy-who-would-be Vader suggests the system is broken and needs to be replaced with something where one person in charge has the power to enforce laws he feels are for the good of the people. Amidala replies, rightfully, that what Anakin is talking about sounds like a dictatorship. And then these all-too-familiar words from Anakin: "Well, if it works."

Anakin's justification that if authoritarian control works in keeping us safe was being repeated on a daily basis by those in charge at the very time the scene was being projected onto multiplex screens around the world. Too many Anakin Skywalkers existed then and, amazingly, exist right now in this country who are far too eager to give up hard-earned civil rights for the illusion of security. And it is the very fact that one can write about Anakin without calling him either evil or good that elevates the prequel above the original. Try naming a single character in the original trilogy that can attain such an authentic level of ambiguity.

There is absolutely no element or character in the original trilogy that isn't delineated in stark black and white terms. Episodes IV through VI tell a much happier story, one that is consistent with the birth of the American democracy through acts of rebellion by a ragtag group of people who held the moral high ground. Episodes I through III, by contrast, tell a much less happy story about how a democracy can come to an end -- not at the hands of foreign interlopers, but directly through the democratic process itself. More people may prefer the original "Star Wars" trilogy, but there is no question that the prequel is a more challenging, illuminating, and superior work of art.

[Hammock Parties]

Oh, whatever. It's just Lucas trying to interject political commentary in a hamfisted way, between cuts of Jar Jar involved in fart jokes and Jake Lloyd delivering awful dialogue. Oh, and bauce CGI.

There's nothing challenging or illuminating about it.

[keg in kc]

It's amazing the lengths that people will go to in order to convince themselves and others that the prequels didn't suck.

[mnchiefsguy]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

It's amazing the lengths that people will go to in order to convince themselves and others that the prequels didn't suck.

The first two prequels fell far short of my expectations. I liked the third one, but it could have been great, instead of just good.

Empire Strikes Back is by far the greatest of the Star Wars Movies, and is perhaps the greatest sequel ever filmed.

[keg in kc]

Yeah, the 3rd one I put behind Return of the Jedi, ahead of the other two. The elements were there, with the prequels, for great movies, but they were poorly written, in several cases poorly acted, and in many ways poorly produced. The should have been so much more than they were.

[007]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Yeah, the 3rd one I put behind Return of the Jedi, ahead of the other two. The elements were there, with the prequels, for great movies, but they were poorly written, in several cases poorly acted, and in many ways poorly produced. The should have been so much more than they were.

You left out the shitty directing that caused all that other shit.

[JD10367]

The first three movies were groundbreaking. They involved cutting-edge special effects, masterful (re)editing, amazing music, and a hitherto-unexplored melding of genre (Western, samurai, opera, sci-fi, coming of age).

The three 'prequels' were noisy, jumbled, overblown, badly-acted, horribly-written (both plotwise and God-awful dialogue-wise), and full of facepalm-worthy flubs (the two-headed podrace announcer and Jar-Jar Binks leap to mind).

"Star Wars" and "Empire Strikes Back" should make any cinephile's Top 100 List. "Phantom Menace" should make any cinephile's Worst 100 List. End of story.

[Hammock Parties]

I agree apart from the two-headed podrace announcer.

No different than, say, one of the stupid cantina creatures, or the frog outside Jabba's Palace that burps.

By the way, their name was Fode and Beed.

[SnakeXJones]

Biggest mistake beside Jar Jar was the the casting of Anakin! Seriously Lloyd and Christensen? Lucas at his best