Episode I 3D Release Date Announced

TheBrakShow writes 'Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox announced today that the 3D theatrical launch of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace now has an official release date — February 10, 2012!' Are enough fans interested in watching the weakest films of the trilogy again just to experience them in 3D?"
I for one am looking forward to a new and improved Jar Jar experience.

Comments

Wow, Jar Jar and that shitty kid actor in 3D!

[elrous0]

It would be an interesting debate to have on what is the WORST part of The Phantom Menace. Jar Jar? That little kid who couldn't act and was thrown into laughably implausible situations (like a bad straight-to-DVD Disney movie where NASCAR lets an 8-year old join the circuit just because the movie's called "The NASCAR Kid")? The introduction of Mitaclorians, which pretty much undermined everything Yoda taught Luke in Empire? The creepy child molester vibe Queen Amadalia was giving off talking to the aforementioned non-acting little kid?

I'm going to go with the fact that they brought Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, and Samuel Jackson into this godawful shitfest--actual talented actors with long resumes of much better films. It was like watching your favorite aunt get raped for 2 hours. No amount of overpriced popcorn could make that any better.

But now I get to see her raped in 3D, and pay twice as much for the privilege. Look Aunt Wanda, we get to keep the glasses! Awesome.

Re:Wow, Jar Jar and that shitty kid actor in 3D!

[jgtg32a]

Jar Jar could have been a decent character if during the raid he stopped being a completely worthless and became a useful fighter. Preferably with some variant of capoeira, or some sort of flashy fighting style (from how we walks it seems like it would be something he would do).
Yes he's the goofy comic relief and that is fine, but the bigger problem was he was worthless and provided nothing else.

Re:Wow, Jar Jar and that shitty kid actor in 3D!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the problem is that a comic relief character needs to be at least slightly funny. Also not a thinly veiled demeaning racial stereotype.

Re:Wow, Jar Jar and that shitty kid actor in 3D!

[khallow]

I think the best part was that this movie was never made. I repeat NEVER MADE.

Re:Wow, Jar Jar and that shitty kid actor in 3D!

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be an interesting debate to have on what is the WORST part of The Phantom Menace.

That's simple. The worst part of the movie was the plot. It was a movie about a tariff dispute between the galactic teamsters union and some unimportant edge systems. The first half was literally about transporting a witness to give testimony in front of the senate sub committee on interplanetary trade. George Lucas could have saved a lot of effort if he just skipped the script and the actors entirely, and just slapped special effects on top of a raw CSPAN video feed.

Imagine if someone made a three-part movie ostensibly about the American Revolutionary War, but the first move was just whiny Dutch traders writing protest letters to King George to complain about the tea tax. Then, a rather boring and affectless young Princess gives a confusing and unremarkable speech in front of a bunch of disinterested Lords in Parliament! That would be a great movie. You could show something like that in nursing homes and airplanes, and not have to worry about anyone getting too excited or being offended!

(It didn't help that there was no character development, there was no reason to identify with any of the characters, and the situations could not have generated any type of empathy from the audience. But the biggest culprit was the plot, which had people you don't care about doing stuff that doesn't matter for reasons that you don't understand.)

Re:Wow, Jar Jar and that shitty kid actor in 3D!

[pwizard2]

I would much prefer someone write Episodes 7-9 instead

Except how are they going to do that without undermining 15-20 years worth of sequel novels/other EU stuff? For the benefit of the uninitiated, dates in Star Wars are based around episode four much like our CE and BCE system, (The Battle of Yavin happens at 0 BBY) so BBY ==years before the Battle of Yavin and ABY == years After the Battle of Yavin. The Star Wars timeline has been extended out to as far as ~150 ABY in the legacy era and prequel stuff goes back over 4000 BBY into the early Old Republic era. (KOTOR games, comics, etc) We have even seen glimpses of the Pre-Republic era (20,000 BBY) but it hasn't been explored very much.

The only hope for more movies would be to cram additional episodes somewhere in the middle between those two extremes and hope everything still fits together without any huge contradictions. (though I personally doubt Lucas would actually care if he ruined years of established continuity in favor of his own vision)

Re:Wow, Jar Jar and that shitty kid actor in 3D!

[Grishnakh]

How about a parallel universe where Lucas didn't become a greedy, egotistical bastard, and who gave the directorial reins to someone like Kirshner not just for ESB, but for Episodes 4 and 6 too? And then went on to create prequels with the same method, and maybe some sequels too, with Lucas doing the visual arts stuff (his one real talent) and leaving the screenplay and direction to more talented people?

Cardboard acting in 3D?

[MrEricSir]

Too bad technology can't improve acting and dialog, because that's the real reason Star Wars I, II and III are forever stuck in the second dimension.

Re:Cardboard acting in 3D?

[UnknowingFool]

To be fair many of the actors have done great work before and after the prequels. I just don't think that they could do much with a bad plot and bad dialogue. RedLetterMedia's critique of the movies brought a great point: There is no protagonist in any of the films. All three were a loose collection of characters. While having a single character as the central character isn't always necessary, it generally works better in some plots. Robert Altman's films do well without a central character but his movies focus much more on storylines and plot.

Go

[Edzor]

Go fuck yourself George.

Sounds like an interesting movie

[Fnkmaster]

I've never heard of this "Phantom Menace" thing before. I'm sure if George Lucas was behind it, it must be humorous, entertaining and dramatic, with characters we can identify with for generations to come, just like the Star Wars trilogy we all loved as kids!

I'm so glad that somebody with the integrity of George Lucas is responsible for shepherding this loveable trilogy through the years. That way I can introduce these movies to my own children without having to worry about somebody coming along and pooping all over the memories of my childhood. You know, the temptation to edit or re-issue movies to capitalize on their enduring success might be quite extreme, but George is one of those guys who knows when to say "it was good enough 30 years ago, let's not mess with a good thing".

A lesser man might have, for example, decided to edit away some of the age-inappropriate roguishness of Han Solo in an effort to merchandize schlocky toys to kids. But not George, no.

I'm not really sure what this whole 3d thing is about though. I'm sure it's a sincere effort to make a genuine artistic statement that just happens to be set in that Star Wars universe we all know and love.

Thank god for George Lucas.

There are only THREE Star Wars movies.

[c.r.o.c.o]

And the first one is Episode IV.

For the record...

[GodfatherofSoul]

I thought Attack of the Clones was by far the weakest:

ESB
RotJ
SW
TPM
RotS
...
Care Bears the Movie
Sex and the City
...
AotC

Train wreck in 3D

[Caerdwyn]

A train wreck in 3D is still a train wreck... it just looks more like you're going to get hit by the caboose.

Loved Ep. 4, 5, 6. Deeply despised 1. Still haven't seen 2 and 3, as by all indications Lucas still hasn't learned that clowns do not belong on the battlefield (and, in fact, trivialize any sense of heriosm or sacrifice or tragedy present in the non-clowns), Western audiences don't like the idea that galactic domination is genetic, a bad movie with eye candy is still a bad movie, and that sullen teenaged angst is only entertaining to sullen teenagers.

Will not buy or download.

I disagree with the premise of your question

[jollyreaper]

To say Phantom was the worst implies the other two were any better.

RealD is a two-plane gimmick

[Khopesh]

We've got to be only a year or two from realizing that RealD is a dumb gimmick...

RealD Cinema, the technology used in all of these films, uses alternating frequencies of light which get filtered differently by each polarized lens of the glasses it requires. This gives up to two planes of vision at a time, which can move relative to each other. For whatever reason, we are calling this 3D (I'll use the term "biplanar" for the rest of this post). Disclaimer: this is a simplification and I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but I think it hits the point.

All this biplanar vision is good for is superimposing a flat view of something in front of (or behind) the main action. That's it. I saw Avatar and was impressed by a few scenes (specifically, the captions used in the diary entries ... which were 2D), but it was almost wholly a gimmick; neat trick, but a novelty that faded before the movie finished. Captions and other flat items can add to things, but (in their current state) they do not justify the extra cost or the need to wear sunglasses in a dark theater.

That's not to say we've exhausted the limits of what biplanar movies can do; I expect explosions and other instantaneous effects can benefit greatly from this; each frame of the explosion moves slightly closer to the audience on the Z-axis, and since it emits like a wave, there is no need to continue to display previous frames in their own dedicated Z coordinate. The same goes for anything opaque that's coming right at you, so long as it has no component that requires a different depth (so a car --or spaceship-- is out because the windshield is farther from you than the fender; turn your head and the perspective shows a 2D image). In fact, the only things I can think of that fit this bill are explosions and other things that move so fast the you don't have time to move and see their flatness plus anything that is so flat it has no depth, like maybe a propeller-driven device whose propeller is so big you can't see anything else, or a wall that the first-person perspective is driving into head-first (though those two examples are pretty lame and limited).

Re-releasing old hits (a generous term for the Star Wars prequels) won't do much unless you have a fanbase that will buy anything you make (in which you might as well stick with snorting commentary tracks and back-patting featurettes).