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

Maximize the Crap!

[toupsie]

Now that Star Wars is nothing more than a marketing tool for crappy fast food meals and stupid action figures, it doesn't surprise me that they are going to go "IMAX" to boost the take of AotC so "My Fat Greek Wedding" (A far better movie) won't beat it at the box office this year. Yes, "My Fat Greek Wedding" is better than Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

Re:Get some PRIORITIES!

[randomErr]

then why come here? *click*

Great...

[Noofus]

So Jar Jar is now going to be a BIG pain in the ass instead of just a 'pain in the ass'. Whats next - giant tribbles?

Re:Great...

[Lord Apathy]

He was hardly in the episode that is true but one must take notice of the part he played. From the lip of Jar Jar spoke the words that handed over the republic to the emperor.

Figures

[Phoenix]

George Lucas must be a bit miffed that Spiderman was the bigger hit and is trying to put the final nail in the "who made more money" coffin.

A Dream Come True

[cybermace5]

Finally...I can completely immerse myself in the sickly sweet meadow scene.

And watch Yoda bounce and skitter across the heads of the audience down in front.

Some of the more grandiose, expansive scenes will come out nicely though. These are what IMAX does best. The droid factory, the clone factory, and the city chase will be especially striking.

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)

didn't need it bigger

[Xzzy]

I fail to see how blowing up the image and putting me a lot closer to it is going to make it any easier to watch anakin explain to the senator how her skin isn't like sand.

I have a feeling it'd have the opposite effect.

Now maybe if they just took the last 20 minutes of the movie and put it on replay for an hour and half they'd be on to something.

That's no moon,

[uberstool]

It's a pixel the size of your head!

Not to be a troll...

[JahToasted]

That movie was painful enough as it is on the big screen, why torture yourself and watch it on a really, really big screen? On the scale of suckage this is like a blackhole.

Now the original starwars and empire, that would be cool (am I getting old?).

Is anyone else going to see episode 3 only because we know anikin is gonna get his ass kicked by obi-wan?

Alright, mod away, I got karma to burn.

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

Re:Heh

[Tassach]

Unfortunately, they don't account for inflation when they calculate the top-grossing films. Also, (IIRC) they don't differentiate between theater ticket sales, merchandizing income, and video sales. A better measure of a movie's market appeal would be number of tickets sold. Likewise, to really rank the earnings of movies accurately, they need to adjust the earnings for inflation.

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...

[Target Drone]

Isn't the biggest problem with transferring regular film to IMAX not in the resolution but in the actual framing of the shots.

I could be wrong but I believe that for a regular film if you have two characters talking to each other you could frame them so that one is at the left edge of the screen and the other is at the right edge. If you do this for IMAX (with it's larger screen) however the audience will actually have to turn their head back and forth to look at the two characters. To get around this problem an IMAX director zooms out a little so that the characters are closer together. This means that you can now see the background at the left and right edges of the screen.

So the problem with transferring a regular film to IMAX is that you have to move your head a lot while watching the film because there was no extra bits of background footage to add onto the left and right of the screen.

Re:i wonder...

[MisterBlister]

i wonder if the original film was converted using the newly developed technology by RedHat called IMAX DMRTM using Dell PowerEdge servers.

Huh? Just because IMAX uses Red Hat Linux on the servers that do the processing doesn't make it "newly developed technology by RedHat". Are you on crack, son?

It's going to suck! iMax isn't made for this

[Anonym1ty]

Yeah the idea of Star Wars on iMax is a good idea... EXCEPT the movie wasn't filmed for iMax. iMax was made to give you the feeling of being pulled into the action with it's peripheral vision filling screensize. Putting this movie on it will give you headaches and seizures. all those huge 7-story tall people on both sides of the screen making you move your head more than a tennis match

Not to mention the frame rate of iMax causes an obvious flicker when projected so large. And that this movie was filmed digitally with resolution that = crap to many movie goers now... If you couldn't tell then, I'll bet you can tell on iMax!

It will look like another iMax movie that was screwed up by camera shots that were all wrong for such a big screen

See What I hate about iMax - It isn't really iMax I hate, just what some people do to it.

Re:Pixels!

[ProfBooty]

i saw it in a digital screen, the image was much clearer, but suffered from the "tron" effect, people just jumped out from the cgi backgrounds pasted behind them.

the upside was that you could actually see yoda moving around and he wasnt a blur like the first time i saw the movie

seeing it in digital did not make it a better movie, but seeing it on an IMAX, if properally formatted might be really nice for the battle scenes.

Re:Haven't seen it yet, IMAX doesn't do it

[Cy Guy]

I may not even give Blockbuster my $2.99 when it comes out for rent.

And that will only be 11 days later.

For those who don't live near an Imax theatre, might I suggest this as an alternative buy the DVD, then sit two feet from the TV while you play it wearing headphones. If that isn't realistic enough, then invite a couple of teenage fan boys over to talk during the movie.

Then again, who can really complain about a 40' tall Natalie Portman?

In other news...

[AntiNorm]

Slashdot decides that it likes the MPAA after all.

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.

Question

[Tattva]

Question:

Will it still suck?

Re:International version?

[VivianC]

Who do I have to beat up with a light saber to get it to Europe (Denmark)?

Don't worry. I'm sure the DivX version will be on the P2P networks in a matter of hours after the first show.

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??

[msheppard]

The reason it is being shown in Science Museums is becuase that's where the IMAX theaters are.

The Boston Science Museum also shows "Laser Pink Floyd" every saturday night... and aside from the possible connection to chemistry, it has little to do with science.

M@

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.

Re:Haven't seen it yet, IMAX doesn't do it

[gosand]

Your comment had NOTHING to do with the article, other than trolling about it not interesting you

I disagree. I am a big Star Wars fan, but I was disgusted with Episode I. Attack of the Clones was reviews as "OK" by most critics. Why would an OK movie need to go to IMAX, and more importantly, why is THAT news? Obviously, it is to get people to see it, and I was commenting that even going to IMAX doesn't make me want to see it. I am part of the Star Wars fanbase.

I can't believe how many people were indignant with me because I didn't want to see it. People kept asking me "Did you see it yet?" and I would simply reply "No, and I probably won't". Some people were even on the verge of getting upset with me, all because I didn't want to see it. Something is wrong there. Something is wrong in the geek culture where people are derided for not having the stereotypical views. I am a computer geek, but I hate Star Trek. I don't play D&D. That boggles some people's minds, and makes them pissed at me. I just don't get it.

So say that my post may be offtopic, and doesn't do anything but state my opinion. Well holy crap Maynard, just where do you thing you are? This is Slashdot. Heaven forbid that someone disagree with what is regarded as "the only view".

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.

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.