Attack of the Really Big Clones

An anonymous reader writes "CNN reports that Attack of the Clones is coming to an IMAX theatre near you. 50 IMAX commercial venues, and 20-30 science museum sites will begin showing the film on November 1. The IMAX version is expected to add another $20M to the films current $300M take."

Comments

jeez...

[skydude_20]

those slashdot editors, took my title and still rejected it..
2002-09-10 16:46:30 Attack of the really big Clones (articles,movies) (rejected)

Heh

[the Man in Black]

Anything to get it over Spider-Man, eh?

http://us.imdb.com/Charts/usatopmovies

Oh, that Lucas. Anything to say "Episode II: Highest grossing movie of 2002!!!"

Spider-Man: $403,706,375
Episode II: $301,131,530

i wonder...

[gol64738]

i wonder if the original film was converted using the newly developed technology by RedHat called IMAX DMRTM using Dell PowerEdge servers.
at the last LinuxWorld show in San Francisco, i was able to catch bits of a converted Apollo 13 to IMAX format.
holy crap, the launch scene was absolutely incredible and shots from the moon actually brought a tear to my eye.
with this technology, any movie can be converted to IMAX format. here's a blurb from RedHat:

"IMAX's new patent-pending technology, IMAX® DMRTM (Digital Re-mastering), uses the processing power of Dell PowerEdge servers to re-purpose individual frames of 35mm film into IMAX films are projected on screens eight-stories high and 120-feet wide with high caliber sound and image quality. Apollo 13 is the first theatrical live-action film to be digitally re-mastered for The IMAX Experience.

The IMAX DMR technology resides at IMAX's Toronto data center which processes several hundred gigabytes of data daily and is one of the largest rendering farms in Canada. IMAX uses dozens of Dell PowerEdge 2550 servers running Red Hat Linux for its DMR process, as well as an additional cluster of Dell PowerEdge 2550 servers for testing. IMAX chose Dell PowerEdge servers running Red Hat Linux for its IMAX DMR process because of the easy-to-use industry-standard platform, outstanding price and performance, and superior Dell support."

Re:i wonder...

[GeekLife.com]

This seems to be saying it is. Using IMAX DMR, anyway. (not sure how that's supposed to stand for Digital reMasteRing, though).

Digital Clones Facts & Figures

[asdfasdfasdfasdf]

According to this site, the average imax screen is 21.5m x 15.6m.

The resolution of 'Clones' was in the neighborhood of 2000x1000 (2.2 million pixels sony 24p)

We can assume it will be pan and scan (as all IMAX-conversions so far have been)--IMAX is 4:3.

Therefore, the vertical resolution will be about 1000 pixels per 15.6m, or 1.56 CM each. That's a pretty huge pixel. Ow.

Re:Figures

[Lord Apathy]

Sorry, but I don't think spiderman has anything to do with it. I think George has bigger fish in mind or would that be hobbits?

Science museums??

[GuyMannDude]

50 IMAX commercial venues, and 20-30 science museum sites will begin showing the film on November 1.

Okay, enough jokes about pixelation on the IMAX screen. Time for something serious. Am I the only one here who is getting a bit annoyed by LucasFilm's pentration into the museum market? A few years ago Lucas managed to con museums into showing a bunch of Star Wars stuff under the pretense that it was a modern day mythology and should be deserving of serious study. Now he's got science museums showing his movies? Look, regardless of whether you thought AOTC was a good movie or not, can anyone give me a good reason why it should be shown in a science museum? That's supposed to be a place for learning facts about the world around you. Not for watching a movie about explosions a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Are the museums going to get a cut of the profits for showing the film there? Is that why they're doing this? Or is it a gimmick to increase their attendance? Isn't it enough that I can't get a burger without seeing Anakin's smug face starting back at me? Do they have to invade museums too? Will I ever stop asking questions? :)

Seriously, the "science museum" part bugged me a lot more than the IMAX part.

GMD

Re:Science museums??

[Bobman1235]

can anyone give me a good reason why it should be shown in a science museum? That's supposed to be a place for learning facts about the world around you. Not for watching a movie about explosions a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

And my local science museum (Boston) shows laser shows set to popular music in the planetarium. I can see TWO good reasons for this type of thing:
1) If they're not showing anything else, it's a great way for the museum to get some extra revenue. I'm sure they need it.
2) It's also a good way to get people interested in what the museum has to offer. Sure a bunch of people are just going to go there to see ATOC on a gigantic screen, but maybe a few of them who would not usually be interested in a museum would realize there are things there to see. That's a bit of a stretch, I tend to think it's just a good way to get supplemental revenue, but 2. could be an added bonus.

Regardless, if the theatre is not currently in use at that time, I see no reason for them not to show it. Not many museums have educational things going on late at night. I assume a movie is not going to pre-empt their regularly scheduled programming.

Re:Science museums??

[Masem]

At the Cleveland Science Muesum a few years ago, there was a Star Trek exhibit, showing how 'close' we were to some of the ideas introduced from TOS (some TNG too). Eg: portable lasers aren't impossible, but we're still working on transporters and warp drive, though there are some taking such research seriously. Of course, most of the displays were stylized ala Trek (LCARS displays, TNG-style walls, etc), and several screen grabs from various episodes, information from the tech guides, and so forth, were throughout the exhibit.

It wasn't necessarily bad (IMO, the cost of admission ,being above and beyond the normal museum cost, wasn't worth it), but it does give a way for kids to realize that some science fiction is a lot closer to reality than it might seem sometimes.

Of course, with Star Wars, it's much less *science* fiction, as just science *fiction*, so it would be hard pressed to argue that alone, a SW exhibit would be useful. (Would they explain what a parsec really is?) However, save for selected theaters, a good number of IMAX screens are only at science museums, and thus a tying of the movie with an attempt at a science exhibit can do nothing but to help boost attendence at these museums. (Yes, Lucas will get some portion of each pass sold, but there's still some money going back to the museum).

Normal projection field

[Yo Grark]

Listen, not to get your hopes up, but here in Canada (Ontario Place specifically) they've been showing a variety of movies there for years.

The only thing that's BIG is the LETDOWN when you realize the a huge border around the movie doesn't get used. They just show the movie in the centre of the IMAX Screen and draw the curtains to make it look bigger.

Bah, watch out for marketing tricks. If it wasn't shot in IMAX or converted to IMAX, it'll be shown in regular size, just on a bigger screen.

I hope someone can confirm or deny that my experience stands with AOTC

- Yo Grark

Canadian Bred, with American Buttering

Re:Normal projection field

[Fishstick]

>I hope someone can confirm or deny that my experience stands with AOTC

the answer was only a click away:

"Clones" thus becomes the second live action re-release to be scheduled for Imax re-formatting since company unveiled a proprietary conversion process in March.

"Imax re-formatting" doesn't sound like it it just being projected on a bigger screen.

Commercial IMAX offerings

[namespan]

There are certain films I'd be more than happy to see in IMAX theatres... ATOC probably being one of them, Matrix... anything that's stunning visually and is a good ride. I don't know how much Sense and Sensibility or even some Jackie Chan films would fit in.

But most of all, I worry about whether the current really interesting IMAX fare would be replaced by Hollywood dreck. After all, it sells, right? The day that "To the limit" is replaced by "Gone in 60 seconds" is the day the IMAX stuff will stop meaning much.

Fantasia on IMAX

[Animats]

The IMAX version of Fantasia 2000 was painful. That project was an edit of old and new material. The new stuff had been created at a resolution suitable for IMAX, but blowing the old stuff up to that scale made it look awful.

Re:Non-commerical environment & IMAX idle time

[DLWormwood]

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. I was just surprised that no one was commenting on the silliness of showing science fiction in a science museum. Now, it would be way cool if people left the theatre and walked along a hallway explaining the scientific inaccuracies of Sci-Fi films (noise in space, etc.).

You may be on to something about a "Sci-Fi vs Sci-Reality" exhibit. However, you're forgetting that many Science museums are actually "Science And Industry" museums. Both the Chicago Museum of S & I and COSI in Columbus, Ohio will regularly do exhibits about popular culture. Over the years, I've have been to or heard about exhibits covering P. T. Barnum circuses, Cracker Jack trinkets, Commodore 64 computing, Jim Henson "Muppetry," and Lego Mindstorms.

As for contributors and sponsorship, the majority of funding to science museums comes from corporations. There was a recent exhibit at CMSI about computing which had obvious sponsorship by the likes of Sun, Cisco, and IBM; I also frequently see Apple hardware in obvious placement at many multimedia stations.

This particular kind of museum has been commercial for as long as they have existed; it's usually the Natural History type museums that have the more academic culture related to them. Even then, they are not immune; the Chicago Field Museum has an exhibit on chocolate, including a section on candy bar advertising. In this age of Disneyland and Six Flags, these attractions have to resort to flash to compete.

Imax now, not before.

[markwelch]

Hmm. When most of the big blockbuster movies are released, my local Regal Cinemas offers them on the Imax screen, at least one showing per day -- thus I saw Pearl Harbor on Imax, and at least one other (plus Gladiator, but that was its special re-release for Imax).

But when I went to buy my "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" ticket, they said that Lucas wasn't allowing any Imax showings, arguing that the film quality was not up to par for that format. I assume they are doing a different film format, but I also can't imagine paying another $9 or $10 to see a movie I've seen before. (I'd gladly have paid the full-price ticket to see it on Imax originally, rather than paying the matinee price for the regular viewing.)

As I think about it, I'm not sure which scenes would benefit especially from Imax. The war scenes in "Pearl Harbor" were cool at that size, and Gladiator was OK at that size.