Saga The Official Saga 3D Thread!!!

then it has already done better than the return of the jedi special edition.

That makes sense, considering how ROTJ seems to not fare well as the other two in its rereleases.

 

I wouldn't necessarily interpret it that way. Nearly *every* American movie that travels well is doing much better overseas these days than in the North American box office - especially true for anything with a lot of special effects, action movies, and broad comedies that don't depend on local cultural references too much. This is certainly true compared to how all movies used to fare at the global box office back in the 20th century.

The bashers probably don't have as much of an effect as they would like to think. Many parents take their children to see the SW movies in theaters because the kids are watching the CW at home. Others are older fans that never paid much attention to the naysayers.

It may also be true, however, that to young adults of a certain generation, Harry Potter and stuff like that has more appeal than Star Wars, at least for the time being. But overall, I don't think SW has aged very rapidly and may be well on its way to becoming a cross-generational favorite.

 

Harry Potter is in the era of the peak of its population. In a few years time it will fall into the realm of LOTR and Narnia. A relic of the past.

I like how I can look forward to something new everyear from star wars. If you get into star wars thats cool but if you go into the EU you have taken your first step into a much larger world.

Some of it isn't the best but its a universe that more or less compliments itself.

 

I agree with this 1000%

Very well said

Its not like over here in places like japan and most of Europe. They love, appreciate and except star wars. And (what a coincidence!) they have more fun with star wars.

 

It's good to know it's accepted, and certainly good to hear, but the point I was point I was trying to make is that if you examine the worldwide box office trends for *all* movies that travel well outside America, it would have been the most likely scenario in any event (even without any bashing going on in the U.S.)

 

It?s true that Hollywood is now viewing overseas box-office much more closely than they used to. If it wasn?t for the overseas gross Transformers 3 would never have broken a billion. Its domestic gross was okay, but no way near enough in relation to its huge budget. The same can be said for Pirates of the Caribbean 4. If just taking its domestic gross into account, it would actually be declared a bomb, as odd as it may sound. However, the overseas takings pushed it to making well over a billion. So yeah, whereas once upon a time everything was pretty much dependent on what happened in North America, now Hollywood is probably more interested in what happens everywhere else, especially when it comes to the big summer tent-pole films.

 

Well, they are interested because that's where a lot more money is being made these days. And the reason for that increase in the overseas box-office has to do with a lot of factors, such as the relatively recent construction of new multiplexes in many emerging markets that didn't use to have them 12 or 15 years ago, etc.

When it comes to theaters, there's been a lot of growth in other countries, even now that North America is more or less at full capacity, with few areas being underserved by existing theaters.

I remember way back in the early 90s, multiplexes seemed to be booming all over the U.S., not so much anymore.

 

Well I spent a couple hours in Star Wars heaven yesterday, and I must say I was very impressed with the conversion (I figured it would be kinda crappy since conversions of films shot in two dimensions have a very bad rep). Not sure why I doubted Lucas and Knoll (really, when have they ever failed to deliver in the technical sense in the past? the only "transgression" they are guilty of is perhaps trying to do things that are not quite technically possible yet). Coolest effect of the conversion was how it made the CG characters seem less "painted on" and more a physical/tangible part of the set.

Sadly the theater I was in had mediocre audio. I'll see Attack of the Clones early when it's out, so I can hear it in a decent theater like it should be heard.

Ben Burt = audio god
John Williams = epic fantasy music god

 

I agree completely - and not just the CG characters, I think all the CG sets/environments seemed more realistic, as well.

I'm really looking forward to so many of the scenes in AOTC and the other movies, in the converted version!!

 

IMHO, Episode 2 is the film in the series that suffers the most from the "painted on" effect. Thus it follows that it would benefit the most from the 3D conversion.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, one problem with AotC's visuals is that George & friends were trying to do things that may not have been quite possible yet, resulting in a cartoon-like effect.

 

can you give examples of your painted effect thing in the film?

I feel inclined to agree that AOTC doesn't look convincing in some CGI spots but i can't remember where it is.

It really hit me when I watched ROTS. That was like GL really delivering on the whole CGI promise and Mcallums "Its so dense" saying. Something about ROTS just feels like 1000 times better visually than AOTC, it just looks so much more convincing.

 

A newer generation of cameras and HD recorders were used on ROTS, allowing for greater colour depth, more spatial resolution, and an avoidance of chroma compression (taking some of the colour away to reduce bandwidth and save storage space). This is rather ironic, in a sense, since AOTC, I would say -- and I'm not the first to say it -- is the most colourful, and beautiful, of all six movies. However, because the captured image was more limited in resolution, and suffered chroma compression, some fine detail was lost, making it hard to extract a clean matte around fine edges like character's heads (hair), and so on. And given how extensive the blue/green-screen process was in AOTC (and ROTS), that's a not-insignificant problem. Moreover, highlights tended to be overblown more with the AOTC cameras and recorders, I think, lending to a hotter-looking, more garish image. That is a large part of the reason AOTC looks more artificial, more bifurcated; and less good (from a certain POV). Also, in ROTS, you'll notice that Lucas used more shallow focus shots, where a character, in the foreground, is isolated from the background, which is defocused, lending to a more film-like, dreamy aesthetic. What's even more impressive about this is that a lot of these shots were accomplished digitally. See the shots of Padme on the balcony in the blue dress. The actress is real; the background is fake. Yet it looks wholly convincing (in my opinion). And very transporting: beautifully-blurred blobs of light behind a fair-skinned, baby-blue-dressed beauty, in a night setting. The digital rendering seems improved in ROTS, too. Again, Coruscant never looks better, overall, than it does in ROTS, in my opinion. There's an almost ten-fold leap in visual quality -- verisimilitude -- when that wipe, say, occurs, as we go from a hologram of Sidious to a circling shot of Padme's apartment in the glow of night. Stunning, stunning work. But AOTC is not without its charms. The weird halos around people's heads, for example, is contiguous with what we see of the Jedi Council scene (day time) in TPM. And it lends a degree of abstraction to the visuals, contributing to a unique feel for the second installment; which, in some sense, is the most nakedly mysterious, and the least tangible. AOTC will also always stand as a beacon for digital film-making more generally. It wasn't the first to be shot digitally, but it was the first to be really pushed into an exotic digital realm. At times, the film feels more like a manga brought to life: anime with flesh. It has an uncanny look and feel all its own. And it always will.

 

i haven't seen this yet but i have seen avatar and tron in 3d.
my problem is with the "depth of field realism" bit. i WANT to see some things pop out of the screen.
not every second but at least during action sequences. if i'm gonna pay that much dough to see 3d i
want some starfighters flying at me.

anyways i think they should use the realistic depth and incorporate some "in the audience" visuals.
especially when you have some speeding/leaning toward the camera scenes.

 

AOTC, you mean? San Hill, Dexter Jettster, and any sort of cloth were the things that struck me as having a kind of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" effect. YMMV.

Edit: I must say though that Wat Tambor may be the second-best CG creation I've seen. I honestly thought he was a muppet or a guy in a suit or something. The shading/lighting on him is especially good.

(For the record, the very best CG effect I've seen is the new TPM Yoda. He's perfect!)

 

I think others may have alluded to this, but I must say I think the AOTC 3D conversion may work a heck of a lot better than TPM due to the use of more blue screen and the use of digital cameras. Overall it will be easier to separate an on-set element like an actor from the background since it was separated to begin with, if that makes any sense. As far as the cameras, they allowed the images to be captured on-set immediately to digital storage without any film transfer in-between. So in that case less noise from transferring in between analog and digital sources.

 

Its in a little over 200 theaters here in the US. Its certainly on its way out of theaters here.

It won't outgross BATB US total, but the foreign total has finally been updated.

So far the combined total for TPM 3D is 94 million. I am certain Japan will push it over 100 million and it will be around #9 on the overall top 10 worldwide boxoffice.

 

Mond said

Edit: I must say though that Wat Tambor may be the second-best CG creation I've seen. I honestly thought he was a muppet or a guy in a suit or something. The shading/lighting on him is especially good.

Gotta agree...wooo-OOO-ooo...with Mond.

 

On a related note, I saw "John Carter" in 3D today (Real-D, not IMAX), and I have to say that it's a perfect example of why you shouldn't do "poppy" 3D in 2.35:1. The constantly moving camerawork and quick cutting when combined with 3D made the film almost incoherent whenever there was an action sequence. Add to the fact that the movie is rather unimaginatively designed and staged, and that the live-action lead performers have about the depth and charisma of a pair of wet socks (Kitsch seems to have two levels of "grizzled" at his disposal, while Collins offered little more than your standard faux-British expository accent to go along with her spraytan), and it helped turn a movie that was already generic and rote into a true eyesore. You can question whether or not the notion of turning TPM or any SW movie 3D is a wise one, but you can't argue against the type of 3D they used, for the kind of movie it is.

Oh, and yes-- the arena sequence here is a complete rip-off of the arena scene in AOTC, even taking into account the influence Edgar Rice Burroughs had on Lucas. Complete waste of a film, on all counts.

 

I can't wait for that AOTC announcement!

But i feel if it were truly coming this fall we would know.

Why? Because there is no sign of an AOTC rerelease for the novels or any media.

The only two star wars books i bought this year (and probably will for the whole year) is TPM rerelease and Shadow hunter rerelease.

 

like i said before i don't want all pop-ins but a few, like the aforementioned starfighter toward camera during non moving shots.

 

Well, I finally saw TPM in 3D today. I had never seen a 3D movie before, but by the time I got through the trailers, I got the idea of what to expect. Sorry, nothing truly surprised me. And my opinion of 3D in general is ... well, I'm not ready to head out and buy the TV. For me, the blurriness is the biggest issue. Maybe I'm spoiled with my HD TV, but sacrificing sharpness for added dimension isn't a good enough trade to me.

No headaches to speak of, but 3D just isn't that big of a deal much to my surprise. The 3D effect does add another level of dimension to the movie, but only slightly. Honestly, I find that a good sound system or even a pair of headphones do more to create an immersive effect than the 3D. Finally seeing TPM in 3D, well, it's like I'd been seeing the movie in 3D all along. The 3D makes it appear as if the places and characters are RIGHT THERE, but if you've been there all along, it's not much of a shock. The friend I saw it with said it best. The best effects were really little, like the confetti in the parade at the end of the movie.

One scene I thought the 3D added a lot to was the balcony scene where Qui-Gon takes Anakin's blood. That scene always felt a little flat to me, and now it does not. Interestingly, the added dimension made Padme's recapturing of the throne room more visually stimulating at times than the fight with Darth Maul.

Another thing I was forced to notice, was the general lack of action in Episode I. For a 3D spectacle, most of the 3D was the back of peoples heads and things like that. Not complaining, I actually saw that coming and was pleasantly surprised at how good the back of peoples heads look in 3D.

Coruscant was pretty impressive... the views of windows... the Gungan battle looked somehow less dated. I did enjoy the pacing of TPM in the theater as opposed to home viewing. Chances are, we'll be getting to watch the films in 3D in chronological order. Feeling the story finally unfold as its meant to in the theater did feel neat. TPM feels more like a precursor to AOTC than it ever has to me. I have a feeling AOTC will benefit most from the 3D conversion, the movie which suffered most from ... "CG/HD flatness". Well, thankfully flatness isn't much of an issue in 3D.

Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed (especially for the price), but it was nice to see more clearly the depth and dimension I feel the movie always had. Episode II will be much better, I know it.

 

I've read the same things about John Carter's use of 3D. In fact, one reviewer even suggested seeing it in 2D instead. That's what I'm gonna do.

 

I wound up wishing I'd just never seen it at all. But whatever. I closed one eye through half the movie, so I was watching in 2D much of the time, anyway.

 

Stampid, I wouldn't evaluate 3D based on the TPM conversion. It's barely there.

Hugo and Avatar are much better examples of 3D done right(and they were shot that way).