Saga The Official Saga 3D Thread!!!

3D gives me a headache, however, I will go see them all and take my kids as well. I personally can't wait for this. I remember seeing them for the first time in the theaters when they were released, awesome experience.

 

I dunno. I'm not sure I want to see Luke's silly bowl hair or Obi-wan's forehead mole dancing in front of my brain like that....

 

It's probably not that big a deal, but one potential problem that may occur is that the kiddies new to the series will only have two years to mature between 1 and 3 instead of six. So you'll have a situation in which some kid will be 5 when he sees Episode 1: The Wacky Adventures of Jar Jar, and 7 when he's exposed to Episode 3: Palpatine Murders Everybody.

Not sure how that will work out; I suppose it's up to the parents to sort out the matter.

 

Blu-Ray's not getting phased out in 3 years with downloading. No way. The average person doesn't have the connection speed to download 720p with great speed and results...yet. 1080p's at least 10 years away. That requires a country redo of our internet infrastructure. Blu-Ray's the last stop for physical media until digital downloading is ready for primetime...which equals lossless audio and video downloading in less than ten minutes. That's not even remotely three years away.

3D Star Wars will be fine. It won't make a lot but it'll be an event, if done right. And considering the time they're taking to do it, it'll be done right.

 

It's been mentioned, but I seriously doubt that will happen. There just won't be the traffic

 

I've actually reached the point where I find this sort of thing entertaining. I'd probably miss it if it went away. If you learn to enjoy it for its inadvertent comedy then it's kind of a boon.

Oh wow - I have been looking around the net, and there are already people here and there dismissively explaining away the box office success of TPM 3D... even though it hasn't even happened yet, isn't 100% certain, and is a couple of years away!

 

The problem with Lucas starting with Episode 1 is...
What if people don't go to see it? The prequels are hated, espeically the first and second by the general public, and Lucas said that if they were successful, he would release one movie a year. We might not get to Episode 4...

Thats my worry.

 

If people won't go to see it, it'll be because people saw SW as many times already as they wanted it and then some more. The general public's view on the prequels hardly matches the average fan's/repressed critic's from the 1980s. SW has enough fans to make sure all 6 movies in 3D will be making it to the theaters, so otherwise it's basically about worrying about how much money is made off SW for the millionth time. And contrary to what some posts suggest, it's not like anyone will be forced to attend all 6 movies.

 

Yeah, I really do think the prequel trashing phenomenon is mostly a nerd/cinephile/hipster/media thing. The "general public" type viewer you mentioned, in my experience, thought of it as an entertaining adventure movie with great FX - no less, no more.

TPM 3D will likely do fine at the box office. If nothing else, as I mentioned earlier, kids will put it over the top. Lucas would be wise to market it to them, though that's probably his intent already. He knows what he's doing.

 

Though in all fairness, there are also already people talking about how the yet-to-be-seen success of tpm3d is going to "prove" the naysayers wrong once and for all, and being equally inadvertently humorous.

 

Well, therein lies the problem, in a way. True, a lot of "general audiences" didn't hate the film, but they weren't crazy over it either, it was just yet another summer blockbuster that comes out every week between may and August and here is your entertainment for the weekend of May 25th. But if they re-released Clash of the Titans or The Incredible Hulk in 2021, would you really care that much to go see it again? This is the dilemma. I'm not surew what the outcome may be. Maybe people will once again be like "eh, there's nothing else this week, looks kind of cool." I have a feeling the publicity machine will make or break the release by making into another "must-see" event to bring these type of people back.

 

Blu-Ray's not getting phased out in 3 years with downloading. No way. The average person doesn't have the connection speed to download 720p with great speed and results...yet. 1080p's at least 10 years away. That requires a country redo of our internet infrastructure. Blu-Ray's the last stop for physical media until digital downloading is ready for primetime...which equals lossless audio and video downloading in less than ten minutes. That's not even remotely three years away.

I think you're partly right. The issue is whether most people care enough about HD resolution to invest in Blu Ray. My guess is that 1) there are plenty of people who don't care about having a top quality visual experience when watching movies, for them DVDs look awesome and sound awesome on their home theaters so they will never bother purchasing a Blu Ray player and 2) HD streaming and download will come online fast enough so that Blu Ray never achieves anything close to the market penetration that DVDs claimed - basically a complete saturation of the market. It is going to top out as a esoteric collectible for hard core home theater aficionados.

The real game changer is going to be 3D gaming systems. Combine a 3D experience with the motion sensor stuff like the Wi - that's what will really put 3D screens into peoples homes and pave the way for real market penetration of home 3D movies. And that is not going to be very far out. 3-5 years?

 

Not sure how the general audience is supposed to stay crazy over a film outside of watching it in droves when it comes out and lapping up the DVD. Those "all time best movies" lists are only pushed by critics, they don't necessarily reflect what a big part of the public thinks. For the average person, a movie is a fad that gets replaced by newer fads, it's the business model.

A similar argument can be made for the OT, just because they are remembered because of their massive influence, it doesn't mean people are going to care to see them again in 2012 only because they liked them at one point of their lives. Each re-release faces this issue and like I said SW has enough fans to justify this re-release but it's not like there's supposed to be a complete SW rediscovery for millions of people via the theatrical re-release in the age of DVD & Blu-Ray. It's really nothing more than making sure SW keeps bringing in the money without new live action movies in sight.

 

This exactly.

And really, just because a group of folks on this site don't like the prequels does not mean that "most people" don't like them. For movies that "most people" don't like, they certainly did well enough at the box office.

The prequels in 3D will do well enough to make it worth Lucas' while to make the movies in 3D. He's been doing this for long enough that he can assess the risks.

 

Yes, that would be equally silly. "They think no one likes TPM! Ha! The success of the 3D release will be its vindication! Vengeance is mine! I've been waiting a decade for this!"

Lucasfilm will hype those people into the theaters. And yes I'm aware that the Clone Wars "movie" quasi-bombed, but it wasn't hyped. Plus kids tend to go nuts over TPM for some reason, and they will make it profitable.

And I think it did resonate with portions of the audience (probably the kids for the most part) a bit more than say something like Clash of the Titans. It did gross a bit more than most blockbusters, and I think there was probably more to it than those weird "My friends and I saw it 10 times because we desperately wanted to find something we like and that's why it made 400 million dollars" explanations you often hear bandied about. A lot of kids (like age 15 or so and under) I knew were quite taken with it in the sense that they got "caught up" in it more than they would most films (of course, that's merely anecdotal, but I'm just throwing it out there).

Now, many of those kids will have outgrown it by now, but more have been born to take their place and likely have similar reactions to the film.

The only thing I have ever heard "mundane" moviegoers really complain about in any of the Star Wars films is the love story in 2. Again, that's just my anecdotal experience, but it seemed like almost everyone, even the most uncritical of viewers, was grossed out by it. (And yes I know that there is a minority that likes it. I'm glad they were able to enjoy it. I have also heard that teenage girls liked it, but I'm going to have to see some empirical research data before I sign off on that. ) So if we should be worried about any of the movies performing sub par, it would be Attack of the Clones, not The Phantom Menace. But I think even it will do fairly well - but with a decline similar to its drop off from TPM in its original release (I think you or someone else also predicted this in this thread somewhere).

Anyway, just some ideas.

By the way, has anyone heard any estimates about how much this will cost per film?

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure TPM 3D will do just fine. Naturally, no one hates Star Wars as much as Star Wars geeks do. Normies, on the other hand, like it a lot. People who aren't obsessive internet twerps enjoy these movies too, ya know.

Hey, do you think TPM will finally beat Titanic?

 

You don't have to hate an old movie to decide you don't need to spend 90 bucks to see it again. (4 tickets and parking).

 

As much as I want to see all 6 films in 3D lets be real,the fanboy community and alot of people HATE the prequels.I hope the conversion is cheap so if EP1 doesn't make 100 million or whatever we can get all the movies out.

 

A cheap conversion will undoubtedly look terrible--most 2D-to-3D up-conversions do. The only way SW in 3D has the remotest chance of looking acceptable, let alone amazing, is through the investment of loads of time and money.

 

Very true, but I doubt if prequel-hating cineaste types and Star Wars "fanboys" and the like are a huge part of the overall Star Wars audience (as I keep reiterating like a broken record ). Us fans probably aren't as important to the commercial success of the films as we'd like to think, our costumes and such notwithstanding. Relatively speaking, there's just not that many of us compared to the aforementioned "normies", a demographic that for the most part likely doesn't actively hate any movies. They, and especially their children, will make TPM 3D a success if the movie is hyped properly.

We have nothing to worry about - the movie isn't that disliked.

The only thing I can think of going wrong is if the "general audience" type viewers decide that they simply don't want to see Star Wars in 3D. Who knows, 3D could be a scorned thing of the past by then, with people joking about how dumb everyone was for getting suckered into paying so much to see Avatar. That seems really unlikely though.

I'm optimistic, and it's not even a cautious, qualified optimism.

 

It would help to create some scarcity in the marketplace prior to the 3D releases. In my cable lineup, Star Wars is on the Spike channel almost every day of the week, day in and day out. I'm not sure they have any other content besides Star Wars, not that I'm complaining, mind you. Lucas needs to get the films out of tv rotation until 3D TPM hits.

 

The general public might not hate the prequels, but i can't see all that many actively wanting to see TPM again in cinemas.

 

Just some thoughts:

1) theater owners have to want to show these films; the theatrical release of the Clone Wars didn't work out terribly well.

2) the re-release of the OT as the SEs in the '90s did well for two reasons: a) nostalgia for Star Wars; and more importantly, b) the promise of the PT--they were hors 'de vors as it were.

3) how many times can the same film be modified, repackaged and resold before people lose interest? If this release coincides with the announcement of more Star Wars films, then it will go like gangbusters; if not, I am not sure theaters or mass media will show a great deal of interest; 3D is neither new nor associated with Star Wars, so it might not get the critical mass of general excitement necessary to do well.

4) whatever happened to those smaller experimental films that Lucas always said he wanted to make after the completion of the saga? Those are what I want to see!

But you never know with Star Wars; nobody thought Empire Strikes Back could be half as good as Star Wars; and I had pretty much given up on the franchise after TPM and AotC, then I got Revenge of the Sith and was pretty much won back over, so one never knows!

 

I really hope this works, from a technical perspective, and for the OT too. As someone said, we don't want the process of putting this into 3D to expose matte lines, etc. At least they are apparently taking the time to do it right. The flip side to that, of course, is that the first installment (TPM) is still about two years away... and apparently each episode will come out one year after the prior installment. So it will be 2017 when ROTJ comes out!