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Studios Prepare for Star Wars
Stephen Legge writes
"Here's an article from the Toronto Globe&Mail about studios
shuffling
their spring line-up in anticipation of a chaotic
Phantom Menance opening." Also worth noting, they've
moved the release date from the 21st to the 19th. It still
overlaps Linux Expo.
Are we gonna rent a theater out or what?
Be prepared to pay 20 times the amount they
could make on their own for showing it to the
public at $10/head with sold out showings for
the entire day.
I already prepaid for tickets to Episode I.
The local theater started selling them yesterday and I waited in line 9 hours to get 4 tickets per show for every showing on the 19th.
Knightphall
You're kidding, right?
Sucks to be you if you put in to take the 21st off from work! Damn, I realize it was one of the defining moments of our lives (I actually think "The Star Wars Generation" would be more appropriate than "Generation X") but it is JUST A MOVIE!!! Get a life!!! It will still be there next week!! its not going to close after 1 day!
Im no critic, but I am mad when I feel I have paid to waste 2 hours of my time in a lame movie (or 3 hours in the cast of The Thin Red Line -- one of the worst movies Ive EVER seen)
The Red Violin is definately worth seeing.
"The Spy Who *Shagged* Me"? What are they titleing in in the UK?
A few of us are thinking about taking a some time off work and coming to New York from the UK to watch the new film (2 months seems to long to wait). Can anyone tell me how we would go about booking theater tickets from overseas i.e. which are the best theaters in New York and how do I get in touch with them. Seems to me that this would have been a great opportunity for some package holiday companies...
FYI:
s _and_Entertainment/Movies/
http://triangle.citysearch.com/The_Triangle/Art
I assume that it is "Shagged" in the British English sense, and that they will not mess with the title for the UK release. Austin Powers is a British agent, after all!
neil.hoggarth@physiol.ox.ac.uk
you want to fly to another country to see a movie?
An hour?! You've got to be kidding. All you have to do is flodd the theatre 4 days before the show and MAYBE you'll get tickets.
i wish i had a pic of bill gates taking a shite 2 post on the net
Of course it's Palpitane (Palpatine, whatever).
I don't think the Empire has been formed yet, so there's no Emporer. I think the hologram (and the guy talking to Darth Maul) is Darth Sidous.
Palpatine is still a Senator in this film. I think he's the guy who says they need to surrender to the Republic for the time being (I don't know what Ian McDiarmid looks like).
Cliffhanger theory. Could Palpatine *be* Darth Sidious? In the robe, his face is about half-hidden and he *kinda* looks like what I would expect a younger Emporer Palpatine to look like.
I can image entire cineplexes showing NOTHING but The Phantom Menace.
Except for a few artsy independent flicks, who's gonna go up against it?
This is an awesome present from the studio to me :) May 19 is a great release date! :o)
I remember seeing A New Hope when I was about 5.
You serious old timers definitely lucked out by seeing it later on in life.
For the majority of twentysomethingers who saw the movies as kids, it pretty much defined what we think of SF. Except for us it's nostalgic childhood memories mixed with some genuine recollection. We remember the movies, but not everything surrounding it.
Although, I can remember snoozing through the originial Star Trek movie.
Star Wars fever really hit before and during Empire Strikes Back. For weeks all you could see on magazine covers were pictures of this new
'muppet' character, and some cool shots of the Millenium Falcon. Also, every morning news show (I can't remember any 'talk shows' back then) had an interview with one or more people of the main cast. It's a real trip to see interview footage of the cast when they had no idea how big these movies were going to be.
The chance to do it all over again with Phanton Menance is too much. Any tape weened youngster who just doesn't 'get it' will just have to bear with us. Most people don't need any prodding at all, but for any doubters just go see it, and Episodes II and III. Then wait for a good ten years until someone decides to be brave or foolhardy enough to make Episodes 7,8, and 9.
But that is a discussion for another time.
-
censor this one too ya dorks
Will they have open captioned versions of the movie for the deaf? I definitely AM NOT waiting for the video of this one. I WANT to be there on opening night. I know once it gets out in the theaters, the story will be known to all. Who would I contact regarding an open captioned version of SW:TPM on opening night? Anyone got a email or phone number? Please?
Why doesn't anyone else release a decent SciFi movie? Name a decent SciFi movie in the past ten years that wasn't (1) Star Trek related, (2) a semi-horror flick, (3) had decent space combat and starship scenes. Horror flicks suck! I can't be scared anymore. Star Trek is just releasing warmed over oatmeal.
I want a realistic SciFi movie with realistic characters and a decent plot. Sure it can still be somewhat cheesy as a lot of SciFi is, but should also be at least somewhat realistic as the Star Wars trilogy is.
I don't think many of these youngsters understand going to see a Star Wars movie, with suggestions like go to the theatre an hour before the show to buy a ticket. Camping out at the theatre the night before may be more like it.
I was 12 when Episode IV came out. I hadn't seen any trailers but when they started showing seens in the commercials, my dad and I tried to see it about two weeks after it opened. No luck! Back then ANH was being shown in only ONE theater in San Diego. We went at about noon and talked to the people at the end of the line and found out that they were waiting for the evening show. It was like that for many weeks or even months. I didn't get to see the movie until late July or so and even then the lines were circling the parking lot. That theater was packed for over a year because people would see it over so many times. It was exactly the same way when ESB, Raiders, and The Wrath of Khan came out. I ditched school so many times for those films.
Back then people were starved for anything that resembled good SciFi/Fantasy because there was almost nothing on TV or in the theater. The only thing that was halfway satisfying were reruns of Star Trek and UFO (a British show).
A bit of nostalgia: Who remembers the resurgence of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books in '78 - '79? It got alot of people playing AD&D back then.
Raymond Fellers
ray_fellers@yahoo.com
they do not own all theaters, contrary to your comment. If an owner don't give a flying pig (this would be anyone sane) about that movie...they will rent it out.
Consider all the theaters that wont show it until weeks later, he gonna stop them?
Now if you are talking about renting to watch, then you are off topic, and yes lucas has say so there.
I hate to be the one with the bad news but Star Wars isn't particularly realistic. Consider:
Instead of asking for realistic, ask for entertaining Sci-Fi. Good stories, good characters, good effects and a bit of fun. This is Lucas's formula and it works. Too many other Sci-Fi creators fall down on one or another part of the formula, especially the fun part. A bit of self-parodying humor really helps things along. If you take your Buck Rogers plotline too seriously your audience will revolt.
Ah, I forget my login but anyways....You're best bet is to check in with a website called Counting Down. starwars.countingdown.com
;-)
They have listings for people lining up for the movie a month in advance, and they should have any info you might need for good theaters in the New York area....Dunno about the plane ride though
I'll be seeing it in SF, and I can't wait. laters.
-tbw
I really liked T2. I think that came out 9 years ago. Not much since that I can recall. I'd like to see a spin off that follows John Conner as an adult - but only if James Cameron did it.
So I just downloaded 25 Megabytes of quicktime movie. What do I watch it with? Xanim won't show it!
I was 8 and living in Nashville when it came out. I also don't remember much of the buzz prior to the movie's release. I just remember going to see it with my parents and getting blown away by the sheer fun of it. The thing is, even though Star Wars is technically a fantasy in scifi drag, it's a lot more than that. It's every matinee adventure movie made rolled into one sheer, joyous burst of filmmaking. George Lucas managed to capture all the things he loved about the movies he saw as a kid and made that kind of movie for kids who had never known that sort of moviegoing experience. The swashbucklers, the WWII dogfight films, the serials about superheroes, G-men and spacemen.
The impact it made on the culture is truly incredible, given the apparent superficiality of the story and characters. But it came at a time when a generation was growing up without the same sense of heroic ideals and archetypes that older generations had had from their childhoods, and that had been exploded in the '60s. I think Star Wars is so big because the cultural void was itself so huge. It had been occupied by a multitude of icons who had disappeared. Suddenly here was a new fairy tale in a time when none were being told, and the culture siezed upon it and made it fit into the gap.
>That aside - does 2010 make the cut for "within >the past ten years? That was pretty good (just no >space combat). Lost In Space turned out not >nearly as bad as it might have - the launch >sequence was silly but the rest was far better >than the original TV show.
Ahem. 2010, _good_? Are you smoking crack? Ugh, that movie would have been worthless even if it _hadn't_ purported to be a sequel to ahem, well, certainly a competitor to the throne of best sf movie ever...
Problem not solved.
One would need to be standing in line ALL DAY to get a ticket to see Star Wars at night.
Dang! I knew I should have been working on my Omnipresence, instead of sucking back brews
Two options: Go to www.THX.com or, better yet, starwars.com and e-mail someone there about captioning info. Also (and this may be better) contact your local theatre chain('s) and ask them.
May the Force be with you! ^_^.
Is it just me or does most of the CG in the trailer look a little weak? Take the first scene, where the tanks roll over the top of the hill. While I have seen worse in other movies, its poor for something coming from Lucas. Where is the famous its-the-future-but-it-looks-old look? I can only hope that the trailers feature partially rendered FX...
Also, yoda. He doesn't look like yoda. I could believe that he was yoda's brother, or another of yoda's race, but the look isnt quite right, even for a younger yoda..
sigh... rant mode off...
2^5
Go to Linux Expo during day.
See Star Wars at night.
Problem solved.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
I want to go to the Expo, but I MUST see episode one... We have to find someone in the area of the Expo to call around find out how/when they are selling the tickets...
Anyone willing?
This needs to be an organized effort or it probably won't work out for everyone.
Or you could simply view the HTML source, find the filename, and download it directly
Or you could just scroll down and click on on of the "Download this movie" links.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
I was about to say the same thing.
I love Star Wars (and I will see it in it's first week), but it's formula. If I could only see one of "The Phantom Menace" or "The Red Violin" I'd see the latter.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Or you could simply view the HTML source,
find the filename, and download it directly.
HTML, the Original Open Source!
...Or something.
there is no emporer at that time. just Senator Palpatine (same actor as Episode 6.) He is also a GOOD guy in the first episode (I guess he to must walk down to the dark side.)
I explicitly turned off the ten Star Wars trailers a day, Rob. What's going on?
...Steve
http://slashdot.org/ is a static HTML page and will NOT be tailored to your tastes. If you've adjusted your page settings, you will need to make your new Slashdot start page http://slashdot.org/index.pl.
http://www.apple.com/quickti me/trailers/fox/episode-i/
Some damn nice screen shots too.
...they need to surrender to the Republic for the time being...
That'd be "accept Federation control for the time being"... And yes, Palpatine is still just a Senator, especially since there's no Empire yet. Yet.
-cfw
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
In fact, a few of us have been considering flying to New York for the weekend to see it there, rather than wait the extra 2 months for a UK release...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Oh, there are lower-resolution versions available, but no-one's gonna download them, right? :-)
[ReidNews]
I have no idea if it's a good movie or not, though.
[ReidNews]
I can't imagine they would charge much more than
the cost of a full price ticket for every seat
in the theater to rent it. I'm sure we could find
enough takers at the Expo to fill every seat. Is
there anyone in Raleigh who could make the
arrangements?
I'm *not* going to stand in line for a long time. I'll just wait till most people have already seen it.. I don't mind seeing it a week or two later.
Three years later, when Empire came out, the cover story on Time magazine was Empire -- the cover illo was George Lucas surrounded by movie characters; I forget the caption.
I was six when the original came out but I remember it well-- Even before I saw the movie I'd already ironed one of those decals from a Cheerios box of C3PO & R2D2 onto my shirt. You know, One of those cheap ones with sparkly stuff in it that smelled funny when you ironed 'em on would peel off REAL quick.
I don't know about the Time cover from '80 but had a Time cover from '83 (Jedi) similar to the one you describe hanging on my wall for a few years-- Lucas, surrounded by Star Wars guys and the caption was something like "Lucas Wraps It Up"
Ok, now that I've reminisced, I guess I need to say something relevent about computers. Uhhh... Boy, Lemonade Stand was fun on the Commadore PET, wasn't it?
W
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Do not be so fast judging. Actually with proper negotiating you could even get promotional as a part of the conference.
;-)
If LucasArts did not have that cursed deal with Micorosft it would be there and would be free... Least likely they render with NTs
Anyway, it does worth for someone of the deities to speak with LA...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Auction them on ebay. There are even more ridiculous stuff auctioned there...
You can't rent out a theater, LucasFilm won't let anyone do that. It was on theforce.net a bit ago.
You could just fly down to the US for a nice friendly summer visit, see a few movies, grab a few souvenirs, and make all your friends jealous...
Then again, it is just a movie.
But it is Star Wars.
Could you just take a trip to Britain or something to catch it? When does it appear there?
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
i'll be there at the expo cmdrtaco, set a time we'll hit the theater!
>who wonder what the big deal is, let me take you back a bit.
Very well put -- that takes me back to when I was 9 and it first came out. I'd already absorbed a heavy diet of ST:tOS, but Star Wars hit me like a bomb, just as it did the rest of the culture.
I still remember fondly how I first heard of it: my parents showed me an issue of Time magazine, with a little strip up in the corner that said "Inside: The Year's Best Movie?" (Yes, with the question mark. Little did they know.) And Mom and Dad said "Do you think you'd like to see this?"
Inside was a magnificent spread telling of a farm boy and a pair of robots and a grand adventure, with glorious pictures of space battles and 'droids. I was hooked. I told my parents "You bet!"
Three years later, when Empire came out, the cover story on Time magazine was Empire -- the cover illo was George Lucas surrounded by movie characters; I forget the caption. And up in the corner, showing the change from three years before, was a little band that said something about a major news story -- maybe something to do with the election, or the hostage crisis in the Middle East.
They'd learned. :)
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
had decent space combat and starship scenes
:-)
Well, that would certainly make it scifi and not SF - nobody AFAIK has ever done that realistically in film, and it's been damn rare in books.
That aside - does 2010 make the cut for "within the past ten years? That was pretty good (just no space combat). Lost In Space turned out not nearly as bad as it might have - the launch sequence was silly but the rest was far better than the original TV show.
Armageddon and Deep Impact were entertaining, in their way, but really bad on the technical accuracy scale.
Apollo 13 doesn't count - that was a historical drama.
-- Alastair
Rereading that, a couple more historical perspectives come to mind.
For those of us that grew up in the 60s, when the space program was new and we (we nerds, anyway) all dreamed of becoming astronauts when we grew up, the mid-seventies was a disaster. They cancelled the Apollo program, scrapping the hardware already built for Apollos 18 and 19. Skylab had come crashing down. Space was over, from what we could tell. The Shuttle was being delayed and delayed.
For the non-nerds, the seventies were just as bleak. Watergate and Vietnam were only recently over. We'd had one "oil crisis" where in todays dollars, gas had gone from todays' prices to two or three dollars a gallon. Jimmy Carter was President.
And then along comes this roller-coaster, revolution in filmmaking, feel-good (the good guys win) movie with the awsome John Williams music. It was just what we needed.
-- Alastair
Realistic not in the sense of conformance to known physics (about which we're willing to suspend some disbelief for the sake of a good story - so long as the physics of the story is internally consistent).
Realistic in the sense of real characters, characters who are affected by their experiences in the story. The basic characters in Star Trek, for example, never change. Compare that to Luke's transition from the beginning of ANH to the end of ROTJ. Or Solo's. (The bit with Greedo shooting first in the updated edition of ANH really weakened that, though. That was a mistake.)
Yeah, there have been some other scifi films that have had that character development -- Contact comes to mind. But that's not the same sort of spacefaring, lots of action, flick that we're looking for here. The classic Forbidden Planet (the inspiration for Star Trek, btw) comes close.
Part of Lucas' genius here is combining sheer technical cinematographic brilliance (the SFX, etc) and the classic fast pace of the old serial thrillers with some classic story lines. (Some have complained that he 'stole' his plot lines from other classic films or stories. Hey, they're just ideas. Steal from the best, I say.)
-- Alastair
Time cover
Heh. Somewhere around I think I still have an old Newsweek cover, with a picture of the British battle fleet heading out to the Falklands, with the caption "The Empire Strikes Back".
-- Alastair
For the youngsters here that don't remember life before Star Wars, some who wonder what the big deal is, let me take you back a bit. It was long long ago, in a galaxy far far away -- at least compared to today.
:-) who remember the first (I was barely out of college then), the prospect of a new Star Wars will always be something special.
The first trailer appeared in late 76 or early 77. I don't remember the exact time, or even what the feature movie was, but I do remember seeing the trailer, and thinking "damn, I can't wait".
You have to remember that for us SF fans, things had been bleak for years. Star Trek had been off the air for years (except syndicated reruns some places), the Apollo program was long over with the first shuttle flight still years in the future, and cinematic SF had been a wasteland, with the high points, the high points, being the Nth sequels to Planet Of The Apes. There was no such thing as personal computers - there were a few, and expensive, "hobbyist computers" like the Altair, the SOL, possibly the Apple I. Most computer geeks (who were damned rare by comparison) programmed mainframes, as often as not using punched cards.
And into this cultural (ok, nerd culture) vacuum came Star Wars. The title "A New Hope" didn't show on the original film, but it was that to all of us nerdy SF, space, robotics, etc. fans who'd about given up on ever seeing again anything that lived up to "2001" or even - and this tells how desparate we were - the original Star Trek.
Sure, Star Wars was "scifi" (a somewhat derogatory term to true hardcore SF fans) what with the sounds in vacuum and aerodynamic manoeuvering of space vehicles, but that was OK, we also understood the need for popular dramatic appeal, and at least you didn't see the goddamn wires holding the spaceship models, and the robots didn't look like humans in cardboard boxes and heating duct. Heck, C3PO's design even paid homage to one of the classic SF films.
The release of subsequent episodes was nearly as exciting, but not quite the, revelation?, that the first was -- we had some idea what to expect, and we knew the characters. You youngsters that grew up with the Star Wars series on videotape don't, can't have the same appreciation.
Well, some of you perhaps do. The brief theatrical re-release of the (updated) originals a year ago may have damped some of the anticipation, but that aside it's been over two decades since theatrical release of a new Star Wars episode. And this one (with a couple of obvious exceptions) has all new characters, new worlds, and some new filmmaking technology. Still, it won't quite be the revolution the original was -- we haven't had the same dearth of scifi flicks in the last few years - the studios know now that you can make money on them if you're halfway serious about doing a good job. (Which still excludes some of the bombs we've seen).
But for us old geezers
Even if it is only a movie.
-- Al
-- Alastair
Raleigh *does* have movie theaters. And I bet it'll be playing on almost every stadium-style screen in the Triangle. All you have to do is pick a listing, and flood the theater all at once - about an hour or so before showtime.
It would be crazy for other studios to put out anything else when Star Wars comes out.
The trailer looks good.
I have one question, who is the Emporer?
I don't think it can be Palpatine, but it looks
like him??????
Any ideas
toot!
I've read a few times, but don't have the URL,
that says George Lucas doesn't want anybody
renting out entire theaters for TPM, and he's
threatened to limit distribution to those theaters
that do allow entire theaters to be rented out.
Here in Austin, TX, many theaters are not allowing
reservations for the theaters for TPM, no matter
who you are... the sames ones we've rented multiple theaters from many times in the past few montsh...
Yes! It is a great film. I'd go see it again (and probably will).
I have just checked out the European release dates: it won't get here (France) until then :-(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
Why so late? Why is France going to be the latest place? Why am I in France?
The nose and chin of Darth Sidious (in the hologram and with Darth Maul) are pretty visible... and very identifiable IMHO as Palpatine's. *shrug* Personally, I think it's obvious. We know Palpatine becomes the Emperor. We know what the Emperor's fashion sense is like. We know he can do nasty tricks with Force lightning (though it has always been somewhat satisfying to watch Mark Hamill suffer!). So he's pretty obviously a Sith Lord, and as such gets the title of "Darth" tacked onto the front of his name.
:-)
;-)
The title scheme actually makes a lot of sense if you compare it to, say, European monarchies. (Please excuse me while I butcher this horribly -- it's quite late in my world.) JQ Royal can be Earl of Whichevershire and reffered to as just "Whichevershire." Likewise, we can have Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader, and refer to him as Vader.
Oh, and Sidious' voice in the trailer matches the Emperor's.
Yes, I have the trilogy burned onto my retinas for quick reference. No, I guess that means I don't have a life.
May I suggest that you go see the movie "The Red Violin".... it is very, very good movie. one of the best I have seen this year!