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Lucas To Redo Star Wars In 3-D
Warlock7 writes "You might have thought that it was going to all be over on May 19 with the release of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Well, not so fast. It seems that George Lucas is planning to re-re-release the Star Wars films in a new 3-D format. There are also several other directors that are interested in this new technology and they are trying to get theaters to install new technology to allow the showing of their films in the new 3-D format [req free reg]."
"You might have thought that it was going to all be over on May 15 with the release of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith."
I don't know anybody that is foolish enough to believe that this was over. As long as there is an interest and the opportunity to make some money, it isn't going to be over. Many folks thought that Star Wars would end in the 70s. It is still around decades later and still making a profit. You don't get rid of a profitable interest.
If the entertainment factor is there, I'll go see more. Will the market of 'Star Wars Enthusiasts' allow more movies to be made? Will we see different plots in the future? Will we see more 'enhanced' versions? I'd think probably. They may suck, but I would bet that we are not done with 'Star Wars' for quite a while. I hope that what comes out is good.
When are we going to get sick of it?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I have an idea... DONT WATCH IT. Nobody's forcing you to watch his latest movie.
"in what new ways can I rape the fond memories of a younger generation"
wow, when a person redoes a film of his, and you call that "rape", either you had a very bad childhood or you are very, very weak minded. or maybe you do not understand the definition of rape. i do not think redoing a movie in a way you do not like constitutes rape.
"Please.... please stop hurting us"
if you do not watch the new releases, it won't affect you. if you stay on the meds, you will be differentiate betweem reality and fiction.
Yeah like when they cleaned up and enhanced the OT for the DVD release. Boy I sure hate the way those movies look fresh and vibrant and actually don't look dated almost 30 years later! Damn you Lucas! Perhaps after you see how beautifully ROTS ties everything together, you'll stop complaining and realize George owns. BTW, when was the last time you completely changed the entire movie industry forever? Just curious.
The whole "Episode IV" thing didn't even come about until the theatrical re-release of Star Wars about 18 months after the initial one.
Lucas likes to pretend he's had this grand vision all along from day one, but the plot inconsistancies and herky-jerky flow of the story looks more like incoherent post-facto ramblings than it does "planned".
Hire a production crew who grew up during the original Star Wars era. Get a director like Peter Jackson, who has shown that he understands how to use great effects, tell a story on a grand scale, stay faithful to the original spirit and respect the fans. Have this production company make episodes 7,8 and 9 that were planned long ago. Now that might kick ass.
From TFA:
"It's really a beautiful system, and one of the reasons I'm promoting it today is I'm extremely anxious to reissue that old group of films I did so long ago in a galaxy far away," Lucas said.
Well, you know, it has been almost eight years since the original trilogy was rereleased in theaters, and six months since the DVDs came out. Of course Lucas is anxious to reissue the movies - the public has pretty much forgotten about them in this fast-paced world. Lucas needs to bring the movies back to the forefront of the public consciousness, because they haven't been there in months.
Seriously, though, does Lucas think he's kidding anybody anymore? It's so obvious that his vision isn't artistic, it's financial. He sees a way to keep making a mint with a minimum of effort, and every new film-oriented technology allows him to release Star Wars according to his "original vision," which was somehow compromised in every previous release.
This sig has been stolen. Return it to its original user for a reward.
"derivative works" are never a bad thing. Preventing access to the originals is. The problem is when artists abuse their creative monopoly to renig on their social contract and prevent access to the originals.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Not to mension Lucas didn't write the screenplays for Episodes 5 and 6, which are, by any reasonable standard, the crown jewels of the franchise.
Look up the original scripts for "Star Wars", it's pretty god-awful stuff. You can see some of the "ideas" there leaked into the later movies, but Star Wars was Fox's last ditch effort. Their shareholders were unloading ownership, because Star Wars was going to be the studio's last hurrah before they folded.
But it wasn't.
Lucas is not a visionary, not a brilliant writer or storyteller. He made some interesting but amateurish films in the 70's, and then struck gold once by pilfering the work of other directors and various uncreditted sci-fi authors, and piecing together an action-adventure movie. "Space opera" indeed.
The man is so incredibly uncreative, we don't have the proverbial walls closing in on the hero, we have REAL WALLS closing in the hero. We don't have Pitfall Harry swinging over the alligator pit on a rope while he's saving the girl, that ACTUALLY happens in the film. The only thing that DOESN'T happen is that Leia isn't tied up and placed on a set of train tracks by a moustached villain.
Lucas's ideas are so pedestrian, so cliched, so utterly devoid of originality or creativity. The GOOD GUYS WEAR WHITE (Luke), and the BAD GUYS WEAR BLACK (Vader). (Yeah I know, the stormtroopers break the rule, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that they're only white so Vader stood out on film).
The fact that, other than Star Wars, every creative act he's been involved in has been an unmitigated piece of crap sort of supports this.
I love Star Wars too and I didn't even really HATE the two new films but George Lucas is not some genius storyteller.
The only thing I really respect about the man is that he refuses to get involved in the Hollywood labor unions, because he doesn't like having to put a bunch of credits and credentials BEFORE his movie.
The fact that, other than Star Wars, every creative act he's been involved in has been an unmitigated piece of crap sort of supports this.
You mean like Indiana Jones? Oh wait...
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
> Lucas's ideas are so pedestrian, so cliched, so utterly devoid of originality or creativity. The GOOD GUYS WEAR WHITE (Luke), and the BAD GUYS WEAR BLACK (Vader). (Yeah I know, the stormtroopers break the rule, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that they're only white so Vader stood out on film).
You just contradict yourself and try to get out of it, but even you know you're not making any sense. Yes, the Stormtroopers were white so why are you making this stupid comment? And what's wrong with Vader having a black outfit.
Hey Luke wears black on ROTJ, and General Grievious is all white in Revenge of the Sith. What the hell are you talking about???
- sigs are for wimps.
So if the screenplays suck, and the ideas are pedestrian, and Lucas is definitely NOT a genius... then why does everyone watch the films? It isn't because people are really dumb. Lucas has made it clear many times that he's trying to retell old stories and mythologies in a new way. It isn't that he can't think up other ways to save the girl or have his hero walled in... these stagings are INTENTIONALLY literal. The characters are represented in "black and white" because they are meant to be manifestations of mythological motifs that have existed in stories for thousands of years. The wize sage/wizard, the princess in distress, the hero's call to duty, the preverbial 'leap of faith' - all of these are designed to be instantly identifiable characters and actions. The power of the Star Wars stories comes from the way the archetypal characters interact with each other and ultimately how this effects a hero in realizing his destiny. Dialog is meant to advance the plot - nothing more - because like a greek play or comic book, the power of the story is conveyed through action, NOT dialogue. And you know what? People relate to this, just as our ancestors did. Lucas was a 'visionary' because he was smart enough to translate these mythic motifs to a modern media in an entertaining and yet unseen fashion. He set the stage for most fantasy and adventure films to follow (if you think the Lord of the Rings gets made into movies without Star Wars coming first, you're kidding yourself. Peter Jackson says as much.) The bottom line: Star Wars is great BECAUSE of the universality of the characters, not in spite of this. And if the dialog is a little wooden... well, who really cares?
how did star wars change the movie industry forever?
Well, for starters, yes it did make sci-fi more acceptable. (Or rather, acceptable again.) The then-current media scene (TV and movies) was an SF wasteland, all the good (and even mediocre) shows and movies died with the death of the Apollo program.
Lucas also introduced some pretty amazing (for the time) technologies: motion-control cameras, for example. Previous levels of shot composition were done with relatively fixed, flat shots. Take a look at "2001" again and see how flat everything looks. There's no parallax shift as things move relative to each other, and the composite shots are pretty simple.
For the time, the effects were anything but "shitty", they were bleeding edge state of the art. (Well, except perhaps the detonation of Dantooine, that was lame.)
Editing (in terms of number of different scenes, cuts, etc) was also brought to a new level -- remember, back then it was still done with reels of film, a viewer, and a razor blade, none of this "digitize the whole thing and feed it into an Avid (or equiv) non-linear editing suite". (As I recall, it was Lucas' wife who did much of the editing.)
There are also indirect effects -- Lucas invested the money he made off the first "Star Wars" in, among other things, THX sound technologies and Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) FX studios. The latter made some significant contributions to the field computer graphics.
Yes, "Star Wars" (before it was ever called "A New Hope") changed the movie industry forever.
-- Alastair