James diGriz FTW
A Stainless Steel Rat film would be most awesome, I loved those books.
As long as they drop the entire Esperanto-push, anyway.
Lucasfilm has finally announced that all six Star Wars films will get the 3D treatment, starting with Episode I: The Phantom Menace, due to hit tridimensional screens in 2012. John Knoll, visual effects supervisor at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic, insisted he's "committed to ensuring that the 3D conversion delivers …
Dear god, *another* version of Star Wars? Put down the stick, George - the horse is well and truly dead. Someone really ought to enforce Mr Lucas's retirement - no amount of re-hashing or technology of dubious value can hide the fact that it's been a long time since he's done anything even vaguely decent.
I don't see how this is going to be good. The 3 prequels are utter drivel to begin with (esp Phantom Menace) and I'm not sure how much I want to see 3D Ewoks either.
As I understand it proper made for 3D films are shot with cameras with little focal length (or animated) so that everything is in focus. Converted to 3D films don't really work (and bring on headaches) because everything looks almost 3D but you can't focus on everything on the screen because the camera wasn't focused on everything. I don't see any techniques which could bring everything into focus in the original films other than CGI....
I would hope also that they would use the original films rather than the "special edition" with added shit CGI....but it is Lucas..
'people who were there in 1977 staring at the screen with mouth agape.'
wondering, presumably, how this trite storyline with its many contradictions (advanced weapons you have to target by hand, explosions in space making a noise etc. etc.) could have been considered interesting enough to make a whole series of films out of.
Still, I understand some people like them...
I am sick and tired of Lucas rehashing these old turkeys every chance he gets.
Add a little here and pretend it's a completely different movie.
I did enjoy the first one when I was a kid but got bored quite quickly and now I'm just fed up of hearing about another re-release.
It isn't like he's short of a few quid and needs to wring the last few drops of blood out of the, surely pissed off, fanboys.
/rant
3d is a fad and sucks, films made for 3d don't make good 2d films because the bits that are meant to fly out just look wierd and now they are taking six films filmed long before things like CGI existed and trying to shoe horn 3d out of them.
Blatant money making exercise.
Maybe the fat-necked greedy git* can do a bit of turd polishing and remove pretty much all screen appearances by Jar-Jar?
* Incidentally, my wife has already threatened me about giving him more money by buying the set *again* (on Blu-ray). After two sets of EP4-6 ("original" and "Greedo shot first" versions) on VHS and all 6 on DVD, I think she has a point.
George must want to build that expansion on his house. Either that or he needs another private jet.
Sad thing is that a lot of Fanboys will go watch this just because they have to see if it is as bad as it was the first time round. Me, I'm going to wait for it to come to tv.. you know, cause 3d tv's will be the standard by then.
Does this mean that the BD release will be delayed so that he can release a 3D-BD version? Who am I trying to kid? He'll release both of course.
When my son's old enough for the films I'm only showing him IV,V and VI any way. The other three were toilet and I'd rather watch Ewok Adventure again than those.
Lucas has already destroyed the legend of his finest achievement by diluting it with round after round of awful makeovers / prequels.
I suppose all that's left now is to run completely into the ground for the last squeeze of profit, then retire.
In other news, plans are afoot to retouch the Mona Lisa now that pigment technology has improved.
Even my well-developed sense of morbid curiosity kept me out of the cinemas for the release of Episodes II and III, judgement which subsequent viewings on free-to-air telly have proven to be utterly sound, and now I won't have Star Wars in the house.
I will not be shovelling any money into Lucas' neck-pouch this time around.
'the word "Wookiee" has been changed to "hair challenged animal" and that the entire cast has been digitally replaced by Ewoks'
Also, The China Probrem:
'They're just taking Indiana Jones and they're... they're raping him!'
'Why would Spielberg and Lucas do this?!'
While I will admit that the re-master of the original trilogy had some good developments, it was completely unnecessary and spoiled the feel of the film. The move to 3D will likely be similar, a few good bits (I'm thinking Luke bombing the death star will look pretty cool) but overall spoiling the film.
And starting with Phantom Menace? I don't know many people (unfortunately my mother is one) who enjoyed that film. It should be removed from the history books. Ep 2 wasn't much better. And, although Ep 3 wasn't bad, I was really dissapointed. It could have been so much darker, instead they pandered to the majority again and produced a mediocre film. I won't bother going to see any of that trillogy, and doubt I will go to see the "original" trillogy in 3D either.
It's amazing, every time there's a 3D story on any news site that allows comments, there is a flood of "3D is a waste of time" and "it gives me headaches" and "I don't like wearing glasses".
Crappy upconverts, crappy 3D movies in general (ones that would be crap in 2D as well) and the Phantom Menace sucking bag aside, I don't get why so many people trash the technology in general.
If you don't want to wear glasses AND don't want to sacrifice resolution and viewing angles, you'll be waiting a while. I say enjoy it with glasses now, and upgrade to an autostereoscopic display later when they suck LESS than glasses and don't cost as much as a new car.
IMHO, any inconveniences about glasses or any complaints about quality 3D movie/TV content are presently outweighed by the 2D->3D hardware upconverting of ALL your existing 2D stills and motion content, 3D live sports and video games (Xbox 360, PS3 and PC... they're all great).
Other apps, as well, really benefit from the upconvert... e.g. Google Earth, Microsoft Worldwide Telescope. Check out the exploding crab nebula in 3D and tell me it ain't some cool shiz.
I can't comment about headaches... that'd piss me off too. I guess I've been wearing LCD shutter glasses since the Sega Master System so my brain is wired for them now... I can wear glasses for a full workday and no worries.
It's that I don't like being forced to wear the cheap, crappy, dirty, limited field of view glasses that most cinemas make you use and then dump in a bucket for the next victim on your way out. Cheap thin plastic lenses warp and then the effect is marred. The only semi-reasonable glasses I've experienced are the ones at the Imax cinema. The again, maybe I'm just sensitive, I've, on occasion, had to complain in a cineam that a projector was out of focus when everyone else was sitting there blissfully unaware.
When 3D comes to our homes hopefully we'll have a choice of different types of glasses... but...
having spent a small fortune having lasik so that I don't have to wear glasses they're really not something I look forward to putting on again.
Glasses free 3D I would quite happily have though...
>However, Variety reckons the Star Wars rehashes
>"should stifle speculation that the format is a fading fad".
But at the same time, it may start speculation that they need more money before they can start with the first of the next three movies?
Me-sa can't wait to see Jar-Jar in 3D, Anakin!
I've heard many people complaining that the latest 3 SW movies are so bad and the PM is the worst of all, however, when asked to elaborate none can come up with any rational explanation to what is actually so wrong with the movies and how they are so much worse than the original 3.
I came to a conclusion that the complainers have watched the original movies when they were children and when they saw the new movies they expected that somehow magically they will be transported back into their childhood, so now it's Lucas fault that it didn't happen.
Objectively, the latest 3 movies are at the very least no worse than the first 3, if not better (while the acting is of the same quality the, effects are, of course, better and there is a semblance of plot as well).
I can't watch 3D movies, my brain is too intelligent to be fooled into thinking that a flat image is actually 3D, at which point, in walks Mr Headache to remind me not to sit through this so called 3D pap.
But that's fine, it gives me some extra pub time having a few drinks while every other schmuck hands over the extra cash to watch the same sad old movie again.
It gets rid of all them ratbag kids from my favourite drinking establishments, so good on you Georgie boy! Got anything else you can drag out of the basement and re-re-re-rehash a few more times? Can you start releasing the films on a Friday night instead of a Thursday night in Australia, so that it makes after work drinkies more worthwhile? :)
Paris, because she would be down at the pub too, she can't wear the glasses, it makes her look less attractive :)
I watched Avatar in 3D. Did I enjoy it? Actually I did. But I also saw it in 2D, and I didn't feel like I missed a whole lot in comparison. Maybe it's like stereo versus surround sound, I've been to a few movies that really used the surround sound to good effect, but most it's like the THX Logo uses it (it sounds like stuff's going all over the place), then the movie really doesn't have any scenes where stuff would be beside or behind the viewer anyway so it could have been in stereo and not lost much. Given Avatar was a movie actually MADE in 3D and I didn't feel a big loss watching it again in 2D, I expect conversions to be most unimpressive. Finally, I didn't get a headache from the glasses, but did find them fatiguing to the point that I wouldn't want to wear them unless a movie is ACTUALLY 3D, and not a 2D movie with a few gimmicky 3D scenes thrown in (I'm not implying Star Wars will be like that since almost the whole thing was CGI anyway... but maybe.)