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]."

Comments

Please Say It Ain't So

[the_mad_poster]

What does Lucas do anyway, just wake up every now and then and think "in what new ways can I rape the fond memories of a younger generation"?

This guy's gone totally batshit insane. I think the best thing anyone could do for the franchise at this point is put the man in a damned straighjacket and throw him off the brooklyn bridge with a lead weight in a backpack on his back.

I can respect that some people may have liked the first two pieces (even if it wasn't my cup of tea, so to speak), and this third one might be okay, but this is a little ridiculous.

PLEASE GEORGE JUST STOP. It was a great idea the first time through with episodes 4-6, and I understand that you had to round it out with the first three parts of the series, but you're just hurting us now. Please.... please stop hurting us.

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

What does Lucas do anyway, just wake up every now and then and think "in what new ways can I rape the fond memories of a younger generation"?

... and then he said 3D animation was Jesus Juice and that Jesus would've liked 3D animation if it had've existed and then I went to sleep on his bed and....

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[pens]

I have an idea... DONT WATCH IT. Nobody's forcing you to watch his latest movie.

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[phyruxus]

Every time George Lucas re-releases a Star Wars movie, god kills a domo-kun.

PLEASE, Think Of The Domo-Kuns!

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[Anonymous Coward]

But George Lucas has been CONVICTED OF HAVING A MONOPOLY on Star Wars! As a convicted monopolist I'm actually forced to watch his movies. Stormtroopers with ray-guns to my head take me to the theaters, force me to pay for my tickets and watch these movies. Dear God, please make him stop!!!

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[jedidiah]

"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.

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[Babbster]

More accurate translation: All you people who have ridiculous over-fucking-reactions to a damned movie need to find something better to care about.

PS- Han shot first.

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[mph]

man, people put WAY to much into relevance into a space movie...

Yeah, they'd be better off taking slashdot comments way too seriously.

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[StalinsNotDead]

PS- Han shot first.

There's rumors that after Episode III is released and they do a 6-DVD extra-final director's cut. Neither Greedo nor Han shoots. Instead they settle their differences peacefully and just agree to disagree.

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[AJWM]

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.

Re:Please Say It Ain't So

[jedidiah]

Under George's direction, ILM and Dykstra did infact invent the motion control camera. If you're not aware of this then you have no real background in this area and no real basis to tell anyone anything.

ILM was the first dedicated motion picture effects house. ILM invented or improved on technology as needed.

Now 2001 represents the absolute pinnacle of pre-SW effects. What George and ILM did was to set the minimum standard to that level (and higher) and enable everyone else to achieve it.

Motion control allowed an effects shot to be seamlessly composited and only limited by the tech of analog film compositing.

Star Wars Forever?

[lecithin]

"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?

Is it Safe?

[ackthpt]

I remember this crushing migraines those blue/red 3D glasses left me with. However this works, I hope they've really tested it. It's all good clean fun, until you realize it screws up your eyes like the Opti-Grab and people sue Lucas, Cameron and the theaters for all they've got.

"Who is Redo and where is Start?"

Maybe this time...

[rekenner]

Solo won't shoot at all.
He'll have a badly redubbed over diplomatic way out of it...

Naaah. This'll be a good thing, if Lucas doesn't mess with his own work again.

Re:Maybe this time...

[Shadow Wrought]

Actually, this time the audience shoots first;-)

Re:Maybe this time...

[Winterblink]

This is Lucas we're talking about here. He grasps at new ways to rape this classic film like a drowning man for a glass of water. Thus I predict the new 3D enhanced scene will play out thusly:

GREEDO: You can tell that to Jabba. He may only take your ship.

HAN: Over my dead body.

GREEDO: That's the idea. I've been looking forward to killing you for a long time.

HAN: Yes, I'll bet you have.

Greedo fires his laser, and the scene switches to Bullet Time (tm). The camera twirls with nausia-inducing speed around the laser blast as it slowly, inexorably, approaches Solo's head. Solo bursts vertically out of his seat to execute a Trinity-style crane kick, sending Greedo sailing backwards of his chair while dodging the laser blast. In mid-air, Solo draws his blaster, drains its power cell into Greedo's twirling body before he hits the ground. Return to Real Time (tm).

HAN: Sorry about the mess.

Penny Arcade

[Anonymous Crowhead]

This DVD set will be called "Star Wars: The Expensive Edition".

Why Stop?

[ackthpt]

PLEASE GEORGE JUST STOP

Four words: Jar-Jar in 3D

"Oh the humanity!"

Re:Why Stop?

[ReverendLoki]

Four more: Slave Leia in 3D.

Re:Why Stop?

[IdleTime]

Four words: Jar-Jar in 3D

I like Jar-Jar.... Is that a problem on /.?

Re:Why Stop?

[xSauronx]

no

thats just a problem ;)

Re:Why Stop?

[MutantHamster]

now, if only they'd also show outtakes in #d as well (rumour has it, that thing had a hard time staying on) *grin*

Yes! You may finally find out what a breast looks like!

9 Episodes...

[argent]

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.

Lucas originally promised 9 episodes.

his fans are going to make sure he delivers, even if it involves necromancy.

Re:9 Episodes...

[RapmasterT]

Those of us old enough to actually remember will tell you Lucas originally promised both Jack and Shit.

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".

Re:9 Episodes...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:9 Episodes...

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

Thanks for the idea, I'll go put this into Revenge of the Sith right now!

-George

Re:9 Episodes...

[xgamer04]

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...

For the love of God, just stop

[ajs]

If anyone at Lucasfilm reads this, please, please convey my hopes that we can put Star Wars (the original three movies) away and, if we MUST perpetuate the franchise, do so by releasing new films by up-and-coming directors and writers who have interesting stories to tell.

I know that's a tad radical for Hollywood, but then Lucasfilm WAS a tad radical once....

I wonder if the technology exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could he possibly add a third dimension to the characters as well?

Nooooo!

[CrazyTalk]

Its like a million voices all cried out in agony, and were suddenly silenced. Surely this is some cruel early April fools day joke? How much more craptacular can he make those movies? And how many ways can he find to ruin them again and again?

3D

[M.C. Hampster]

Anyone have any information on how these 3d films are different from past attempts at 3d? Do you still wear glasses? If not, how would this look any different than a normal film?

Due to the fact that I can only see out of one eye, I'm usually let down by such presentations of 3d. They all depend on the viewer wearing a set of glasses and being able to see out of 2 eyes. I wonder if this new 3d technology can actually do anything for people like me?

Re:3D

[dschuetz]

Anyone have any information on how these 3d films are different from past attempts at 3d? Do you still wear glasses?

Most likely, you'd still wear glasses, yes. Let's remember the two aspects to 3-D photography: 1) getting 3-D information in the first place (usually with multiple cameras), and 2) delivering that data to the eyes (usually by somehow targeting each eye with a different image).

There are a few other ways to do 2, mostly relying on odd tricks like image "jiggling" (which works, sort of, but isn't that great). Generally, 3-D relies on parallax comparisons made possible by each eye seeing a slightly different image. In order to do that, we need some way to target each eye with a unique image. Some "autostereoscopic" methods use wire or lenticular screens (you see that sometimes in 3-D movie posters). Most systems use glasses. Originally they used red/blue glasses, but that didn't scale well with color films. Then the industry moved on to polarized filters, but that required the viewer hold his head pretty close to straight (if you tilted your head too far to one side, the images would blur and then swap). Polarizing lenses with circular polarization helped minimize some of that. Current "state of the art" uses high-speed LCD shutters in glasses synchronized to the film projector or TV, which shows the right image first (with the left eye blocked by a shutter), then the left image (swapping the shutter to the right eye).

There's also "one lens" systems that rely on an odd optical trick I can't even begin to explain (been a while since college physics), but it has the effect of making objects in motion *in one direction* appear closer to the viewer, while objects at rest or moving the opposite direction appear farther away. This has been used in "3-D Roller Coaster!" videos hawked in mail-order catalogs, and I think was even used to promote a Rose Bowl parade some years back.

Anyway, that's all just the delivery problem. The tougher side is the content problem. Lucas only filmed his movies with a single lens, so there's no parallax information that can be used to provide 3-D images. If the films were *completely* computer generated (like, say, The Incredibles), then it'd just be a matter of rendering it once, then telling the computer "shift the camera left 3 inches" and render again. (has pixar actually done this? it'd be cool. :) )

So with only one image to choose from, how do you "create" depth information? One way that I've seen in the past is to use motion and/or focus artifacts to "guess" at 3-D location in the frame. That is, if something moves in front of another thing, then it's reasonable to assume it should be shown forward in the frame. Or if something's slightly off focus (foreground or background), then you can also assume it's in a different depth plane, and shift it accordingly. I actually saw "Lost In Space" processed with something like this technology, and while it was interesting, it basically sucked.

Why? For one thing, no matter how smart, the extrapolated depth cues are always just guesses. Unless you work the film manually, scene-by-scene (and even frame-by-frame), there will be problems with consistency with the derived depth information. Also, with a two-camera system, each "eye" not only sees slightly different images, but they see images with slightly different *content*. That is, it's not enough to simply shift an X-wing left or right, but one eye needs to see a little something more where the X-Wing was moved out of. Automated processes (in the past) couldn't do this.

Now it's possible that with advances in technology, it's finally possible to consistently guess at object depths, and to fabricate reasonable hidden information. As I said, it's not worked well in the past, but in the past, it's been attempted by hucksters and snake-oil salesmen and sold to gullible third-tier theme park movie houses (I saw the aforementioned Lost in Space about two miles from Walt Disney World,

finally!

[darthpenguin]

I fully support George Lucas in his endeavors to make the Star Wars films fit his original vision.

Horse, meet whip...

[cliveholloway]

Horse, meet whip. Horse? Are you OK Horse?

Medic!

cLive ;-)

WHEN WILL IT END??? OH GOD, WHEN WILL IT END???

[DurendalMac]

Jesus H. Christ on a grilled cheese sandwich, give it up, George! You've raped Star Wars repeatedly in the ass with a razor-coated cock sheath while beating it over the head with a broken bottle and biting it in the neck! It's dead, you fucking necrophiliac! You've killed it, and yet you STILL want more? Burn in hell, Lucas.

Hollywood Logic

[Doc Ruby]

When you've got a 1D story, make a 3D picture!

Awesome!

[geeveees]

In this version, Alderaan shoots first!

Here's another idea

[serutan]

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.

Finally, Lucas can reissue Star Wars!

[ALeavitt]

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.

That'll show you youngsters!

[Thud457]

mmmmmm.... Behold the glory of the gold bikini in stupendous Lucasvision!!!!

It's like they're following me...

You are not making any sense

[Augusto]

> 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???