Lucas being very careful in releasing AOTC DVD...THIS TIME

i've noticed a tidbit in empire that you'd only know about by watching widescreen:
when leia leans over and kisses luke to make han jealous, threepio waddles up beside han to get a good look. this, to me, is friggen funny, as i only noticed it for the first time recently. on P&S you only hear the gears moving, and then he's just there when the "camera" artificially pans over.

"Who cares? There's nothing left in the scene to see most of the time.

Widescreen/Pan n Scan, the same, only one has bars."

WHAT?!

do you only listen to the middle of your favorite songs because the beginning and end are inconsequential?
do you skip to the climax of novels for the same reason?
the art of film has been brutalized in video transfers for years, and only recently have people really begun to realize that they've been missing half the picture!
every centimeter of picture on that film is carefully planned, plotted, and orchestrated for months, sometimes years, and should not be dismissed as extra.
it's about time they started making tv's that match the aspect ratio of theaters. they should have done that from the start. how did they decide on an almost square tv in a time when all cameras were film?

only_2 - i've never seen the AG dvd, but if he did that, then there's no reason why he couldn't release a bare-bones original ot.

 

I don't think GL had the property ownership deal for American Graffiti that he does with the Star Wars movies. I think the studio released it without him having so much control over it. Pity.

 

how did they decide on an almost square tv in a time when all cameras were film?

In the 50s they weren´t able yet to make square 16:9 tubes , not even square 4:3 tubes.

 

Only_2 - I meant that by 1999, the VHS market was as saturated as it was ever going to get. I'm not sure at what point the market went into decline, but DVD sales passed VHS sales for the first time this year.

 

the art of film has been brutalized in video transfers for years,

First, movies aren't art. They're entertainment.

Anyways, listening to the beginning and ends of songs are different than seeing an extra two centimeters of a scene showing half of a chair leg. I don't mind either, but Pan n Scan is my favorite because at least then it fills the whole screen.

 

Why anybody would buy the pan/scan instead of the widescreen i will never know.

 

Vaderbait reminds me of a Simpsons episode when Homer becomes smart and accidently discovered that there was no god when doing taxes. He gave this mathematical equation to Ned Flanders, and instead of accepting it, Ned chose to be ignorant and burned the paper. People are like Ned Flanders when they choose not to accept Widescreen. "Stupid, Sexy Flanders!"

 

Why would anyone want less of an image, especially in a film as visual as Star Wars? Some of the most beautiful shots and scenery would be completely butchered in POS - wait, I mean P&S - format.

Examples:
The Royal Cruiser and its Approach to Coruscant - you lose those beautiful buildings sticking out of the fog at the edge of the frame. All that's left is the cruiser itself.

This shot. Absolutely stunning in widescreen, destroyed in P&S.

Most of Kamino. Those vast industrial-like cloning areas, instead chopped up like Jango Fett.

The meadow scene. Why do we need those waterfalls or that breathtaking landscape? We just care about Anakin and Padme!

I mean I can understand in a movie that mostly plot and character-based, like a romance, in that case you're right, there would only be parts of a chair missing. But Star Wars is and always has been about imagery (of course, that doesn't mean it excludes plot and characters), and P&S destroys almost half of that imagery.

And saying movies aren't art is like saying paintings are just pretty pictures to look at, and music is just created to listen to while we do other things.

 

First, movies aren't art. They're entertainment.

They can be art, and they can be pure entertainment. They can be both.

However, what makes me mad, is that people would say an art film is better than an entertainment film. I personally watch movies FOR entertainment, not art. If a movie doesn't have "art" these days, it sucks and could never be nominated for best picture.

*sigh*

It's sad, really. American Beauty was a well made "art" film. It had many undertones and touched on a lot of life's issues. It was a type of art. Was it entertaining? Sure. It was a hilarious movie, and the plot was nice to follow. I was entertained.

Jurassic Park wasn't art, and it was ten times better than American Beauty. Why? It entertained me a lot more. Star Wars, IMO, is better. It entertains me a lot more. Movies don't have to have ART to be great.

I'm sorry, all critics and filmgoers that reads this, but art isn't everything, so please stop reviewing movies bad if it doesn't turn your life around.

 

There should be an entertainment rating systems all critics could follow.

Like they give movies stars they should give them another sign for entertainment value.

just a thought.

 

Wow....you people are almost as bad as liberals when arguing.

I mean, I'm talking that I don't see what the big deal is with Widescreen because you get an extra few centimeters, and you come back with "let's cut the waterfalls out why we're at it". I'm not saying we only have to see what's essential, but I don't see a reason to worship and extra chair leg.

 

It may only be a few centimeters on your TV, but if they made the theatrical version Pan & Scan, they'd be cutting off 20-30 feet {10 meters} of the big screen. I know I'd be more than a little disappointed if they did that. Someday, Vaderbait you will understand the difference.

 

pan/scan SUCKS!

 

and you come back with "let's cut the waterfalls out why we're at it"

No, I'm saying that P&S does cut the waterfalls. And the beautiful buildings. And much of the background. These aren't the center of the action, and they may not be "important" in a strictly plot-related sense, but they're still going to be cut out. Do yourself a favor and get the widescreen.

Interesting fact: In ANH, when Luke is looking through his binoculars at Banthas, he says "There's lots of Banthas down there, but I don't see any - wait, there's sandpeople, I can see one now." In widescreen, the Tusken raider is visible on the edge of the screen. In P&S, he can't be seen at all.

 

First, movies aren't art. They're entertainment.

ROFL

 

First, movies aren't art. They're entertainment.

Trying telling that to filmmakers who shoot experimental movies. Or film students studying French New Cinema, German Expressionism and other types of cinema that was created over the years.

Not to be flaming or anything, but THAT REALLY WAS an ignorant statement

 

"First, movies aren't art. They're entertainment."

obviously the person who said this has no idea what art is.

so here are the first two definitions for you:

1.Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
2.
a.The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that
affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

here's the link in case you think i just made these definitions up: Art
i hope you are enlightened through this, so you can stop insulting artists through ignorance. whether you decide to insult them for your own pleasure is up to you.

 

Portuguese site with AOTC DVD news :
http://www.dvdmania.co.pt/Historias/his-152-starwars.html

 

"Lucas being very careful in releasing AOTC DVD...THIS TIME"


Why the hell does Lucas need to be careful for??? He knows we(fans) will buy anything he sells whenever and however he decides to sell it.

 

The fact that the movier was filmed digitally would probably give it a faster "onto dvd" time.

J-real

 

"I'm not saying we only have to see what's essential, but I don't see a reason to worship and extra chair leg."

Yes, but the point people are trying to make in here is that a film like SW doesn't just have chairlegs at the edge of the frames. With P&S, you lose a lot of the visually-stunning setting. Maybe not in every frame, but definetly the majority of them.

Plus, P&S screws with the exact, precise framing that the director and DOP (Director of Photography) worked so hard to get. Widescreen is the way they made it, how can you think that the way you want to see it (or the way some hack decided to format it) is better or even acceptable? It's their (the filmmakers) creation, not yours.

Maybe I'm just too much of a purist...

 

This has turned into the "beat up Vaderbait" thread

 

Well stated, YodaJeff.

 

Movies ARE art.

Even movies that are only meant to entertain.

Even movies that you personally dislike.

Even Tom Green movies, which I see no asthetic value in whatsoever, are art.

And why someone would buy the Pan & Scan version of a film which was originally shot in a widescreen format is beyond me. Also, to say you're only losing "a couple of inches" of the image is incorrect. There's more to Pan & Scan than just lopping of the sides, folks. Sometimes there is an actual reformatting of the scenes by "panning" across the full length of the frame in order to see different parts of the image. Thus the name "Pan & Scan".

For more information, and some enlightening examples, go here:

Widescreen Advocate

or here:

The Digital Bits Widescreen For Dummies

If you've never seen the original Star Wars trilogy in widescreen, you're doing yourself a disservice. Find a copy, sit down and see the whole picture.

-Otis

 

True.
EDIT: In response to "This has turned into the "beat up Vaderbait" thread", which was the last response when I began typing mine...


Widescreen vs. P&S aside, I can't wait to get the AOTC DVD. I was really surprised, even amazed when I first saw the news a week or so ago. I thought for sure we'd have to wait a year or more. I'm really impressed with the amount of time they were able to do it in. Especially considering the features are pretty much equivalent to the ones on TPM which, as we know, took 2 years to release (with the possible exception of the "The Beginning" documentary.

I also can't wait to see the 12 web documentaries again, I really enjoyed them when they came out.