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www.ifmagazine.com

iF MAGAZINE: What can you tell us about the 3D versions of the STAR WARS films?


RICK MCCALLUM: 3D we’re working on, and it’s just a question of how many theatres are out there. Hopefully by the end of this year there will be about fifteen hundred theatres. We need about two or three thousand before it makes it viable for any of us to go forward with 3D.

That looks like it’s going to happen sometime in the year 2007, so I am unbelievably happy about that. The 3D is something I’m really happy with. We’re not sure when the technology will be totally there. I think there are a lot of major filmmakers interested. [James] Cameron is interested in re-doing TITANIC and TERMINATOR 2. Peter [Jackson] wants to do all of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies. We want to do all six STAR WARS, and we know there is hunger out there.

There is a dimensionalization process by a company called M3 that we’re all working with. They have proprietary software that creates a double image that produces a 3D effecting post-production after you’ve filmed a 2D film. It’s amazing. You use wonderful glasses that are flicker free, they are hooked up to a wireless transmitter in the theatre. It has to be digital cinema, that’s our problem. That’s what makes it great, and it makes it a problem because there aren’t enough theatres out there to make fiscal sense.

Intresting article. Jackson wants to do the LOTR films in 3-D?

Not sure if I could sit through 3 hours of each movie again just to see it in 3-D.

I'd probably just only go see the Two Towers so I can see the Battle of Helms Deep in 3D, that should be impressive.

Elofants!

But that, most sincerely, would be all.

I can't wait.

Am I the only one who doesn't want Star Wars 3D?

I'm reserving my judgement until I see it. Could be great, though it could also be a great waste of time.

When I was in Atlantic City recently, and I saw "Deep Sea 3D" in IMAX and it was pretty cool. The best part was just seeing the ocean just going through the tides, no huge waves or anything like that, just the tide going in and out, and your brain is like I should be wet, but it's just on screen, and I found myself peaking back and forth at times just to check. It was neat and interesting, but it really wasn't something I'd go see again.

So I don't want to judge any of the 3D Star Wars films before I experience them, but we've already seen what happens. We know what happens. The only thing that 3D will do for these movies is enhance them for a new experience. I'm sure it will look cool having a lightsaber coming at you, but unless new things are added to make you "jump out of your seat," or "surprise", I'm not seeing right now how cool this is going to be.

One of the old "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies is 3D and for it's time you can tell that it was cool because it was unexpected because I was never a huge fan of horror films and my friend and I watched it back when the box set came out a few years back. The movie even came with two sets of 3D glasses.

There really isn't anything unexpected about the Star Wars films because we've already seen them. I'm just looking forward to having the movies back in the theater and standing in line to see them again, 3D or not. I'm sure there will be a time where I just watch it without the glasses on, who knows.

I love the idea of re-releasing the films in theaters again (please do it every ten years, George). If 3-D means we'll be seeing starships, lasers and lightsabers flying out of the screen at us, then holy shit.

Indeed. When I still lived in Vegas I went to the Star Trek The Experience one last time before I moved (yes I'm a Trekkie too and proud of it), I went through the Borg 4-D invasion for the first time.

It was pretty cool but the part where we had to use the special 4-D glasses (they looked like regular glasses too) there was one point the Borg queen looked like she was coming right up in your face. I didn't realize it until later but I found myself sort of backing up against my chair and thinking, "Holy shit!"

Now if they can pull the same thing off with Star Wars then yes I agree it will be a "Holy shit!" experience.

rotj death star run. i'm in

also: Slave Leia and that six-breasted dancing girl at Jabba's palace in 3-D

When I was a kid they ran creature from the black lagoon 3D on one of the few TV channels to show old flix like that. You had to go up to 7-11 and buy a Slurpee with glasses glued on the side of the cup.

I remember some effect and thought It was novel for a short time but grew tired of the crappy paper "glasses" falling off my face. Some years later I saw a Friday the 13th in 3D and that had some scenes Iremember to be cool. Squeezing a head till a 3D eyeball pops out ... worth wearing the glasses, i guess. That was in the theater.

As for Star Wars 3D, I'll go see a couple of the movies. but it would not matter to me if they were 3D or not, I'd be there anyways.

Son of Svengoolie played Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3D way back in 82' or 83'-ish in the Chicagoland area. I was only a kid back then but I thought the 3D was pretty whack.

I hadn't given 3D a second chance until I went to Disney World last year and they have 2 different 3D shows(Philharmagic and It's a Bugs Life), actually I guess 4D is more acurate considering they use a lot of added effects like smells, raindrops and wind etc to enhance the immersive experience. The 3D was leaps and bounds beyond what I recall of the "old" 3D. But those shows were designed from thier beginnings that way. I wonder how well existing film elements will translate in whatever process they use to create the 3D effect.

I'd go see Star Wars on the big screen again 3D or not, but I think I'd go see LOTR and T2 also just to see how well it works.

I might fork over some dough to see Matrix again. I will definitely see Star Wars in 3D. Hell I'd watch it again on the big screen in 2D.

Now that I think of it, Sith lightening would be pretty neat in 3D as would the whole trench run in epIV.

I'm thinking asteroid field.

The trilogy in 3d would definately be something I'd see.

Question is if you would have to use those old school style 3-D glasses or if they'll give you ones like they use at the Borg 4-D Invasion which looked like regular glasses.

Think the Death Star in ANH just when Wedge says "Look at the size of that thing!" Hopefully the 3D can actually pull off the immenseness of it.

Only thing I fear is the probability that they will have to cut scenes out for IMAX 3D. (like AOTC)

IMAX technology has advanced since AOTC. Batman, Harry Potter, and other Warner movies have played uncut in IMAX.

Batman Begins and AOtC are the same length, save the edit on Batman wasn't touched. Also Imax isn't used in the kind of 3D projection that will be used for Star Wars.

IMAX isn't digital, it's actual film, 72mm film.

http://in-three.com/

Not sure why McCallum's calling them "M3"?

Star Wars 3D isn't going to happen in the next few years so it seems:






Sansweet @ Comic Con Fan Club "Breakfast"

Star Wars in 3-D

"George and Rick are really excited about the technology they have seen in 3-D... they showed about 10 minutes of Star Wars at a trade industry show about a year ago, and there was a lot of great buzz.

Well, a couple of things have turned out. You have to look at the business plan: When does it make sense to do something like that?

And you need thousands of digital screen theaters. It does not work on a film projector... This may be the thing that is finally going to force a lot of theater chains to bring in digital projectors at least for one of their screens... A lot of theater chains have announced they are going ahead. That said, how long is it going to take to get three- to four- to five thousand theaters digitally converted?

It's not going to happen this year. It's not going to happen by the end of next year. In addition, the process to do the movie turns out to be a little more expensive than initially thought.

So you have the theaters converting, you have the costs of converting one or all of the six Star Wars movies into 3-D, and you have the fact that the technology involves wireless battery-operated glasses that blink maybe a thousand times a second; it's not like a read and blue lens. So you have to take all those factors into consideration.

I think Lucasfilm is still very interested in releasing the saga in 3-D. I think it's really just a matter of time, but I don't think it's going to be in the next couple of years."

This news was spoken about on the latest ForceCast (by way of email from) Daniel Franco (editor of Maverick magazine, a Spanish Language Entertainment mag):




www.revistamaverick.com

Daniel sat down and Interviewed Rick McCallum recently and had the chance to watch Star Wars 3-D:

• Opening Crawl / Tantive corridor Vader entrance
• Millennium Falcon departing Tatooine
• Death Star Sequences
• Zam Wessel Chase Sequence

McCallum says theatre release maybe at end of 2009. InThree also is converting Titanic, Lord Of The Rings Trilogy & Terminator I + II .

Wow, can't wait to see that ol' Titanic in 3D.
Maybe it will be better the second time, as opposed to the 2D version I slept through 10 years ago.

Just think, it'll actually look like he's sinking into the depths of the North Atlantic he can be RIGHT UP IN YOUR FACE and then slowly fade away. Did you always want to know Leo in this way?

Come on! Where's Alien and Aliens in that list? Man, just seeing the xenomorph pop out at ya would be awesome, but instead we get to see the iceberg popping up and poking you in the eye.

Somehow, seeing Leo and Kate Winslet give googley eyes and make out in 3D doesn't seem all that exciting.

I'd be all for a 2D rerelease of all six SW episodes, but 3D bullshit seems like a cheap gimmick. Do 2D or forget about it. Don't expect me to pay up just cuz it's got a 3D Lucas cumshot in there.

I think the sinking of the Titanic itself would be badass in 3D, but I don't want to sit through the rest of it just to see that. Doesn't the redheaded chick get naked in that movie as well? I can't remember.

Also, the opening sequence of ROTS might be 3D gold.

Yeah but I think she's just topless.

Hey does everyone remember how this was the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars and all the "big stuff" that was planned? Because all I saw was a Rose Bowl appearance and some toy merchandising.

Maybe this magazine was the first one to write about seeing any 3D stuff, but the whole idea is pretty underwhelming in my opinion.

I'd love to see SW 4-6 in theaters again, and I understand that to do that there might be a need to have some kind of "gimmick" to get people in theaters ... Which has more to do with the state of movie theater chains vs. home theaters and cable... I'd say majority of people have DVD players, some have HDTVs and some have HDDVD/Bluray, SOME even have "home theaters" with HD projectors.. it's all relatively within the realm of affordability... so Hollywood and theater owners have to do SOMETHING different to get people back into the movies.

Apparently making good original movies isnt an option so now 3D is going to be the big sell for movie theaters. Meet the Robinsons 3D did well and was pretty "mass" in terms of amount of theaters.

But Star Wars 1-6 3D?

Unless it's radically different from the Star Wars movies that were either already released on DVD or already in theaters, I'm not impressed. By radically different I mean all the new stuff that supposedly is out there and being worked on.

I'm a huge fan of Star Wars and a huge fan of the movies in general but I think the whole 3D thing is a gimmick and isn't really going to help get people on a regular consumer level wanting to go back to the movies again. 3D DVD is already out, but nobody seems to be clamoring to get it.

I hate to be cynical, usually I'm pretty upbeat about any potential Star Wars stuff, but this sounds lame in my opinion.

I'd see all those except Lord Of The Rings.

amen DanSh1138.

So some Spanish entertainment magazine is the source for this?

Color me skeptical.

Is that similar to puce?

Darth Psychotic has been posting on this site for years and he is completely on the level! If it's coming from him it's legit!

Like I said before though, unless this is the "archive edition" of at the very least 4-5, I could honestly care less.
Seeing the "special editions" in 3D is pointless.

Hopefully as other magazines report we will get more info.

From listening to the Celebration Europe McCallum interview, stuff was mixed up in translation. Cameron is releasing Avatar in 3D and wants to do Titantic and the Terminators in 3D. Jackson wants to do the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy in 3D also.

"wants" does not equal "going to happen soon" because of cost and theater availability.






starwarsblog.com Rick McCallum talks Star Wars Live-Action Series & Star Wars 3D

Star Wars in 3-D:

• “We’re planning to take all six films and turn them into 3-D. The problem is there’s not enough digital theaters in the world now to do that, and the process of turning 2D material into 3-D is very expensive.

So we’re waiting for the companies out there that are developing this technology to bring it down to a cost level that makes it worthwhile for everybody, then we’ll convert the films into 3-D.”

• “I think 2009 is going to be a big year for 3-D. That’s when Jim Cameron is coming out with his first feature, Avatar, that will be completely shot in 3-D.

I think that will start the movement, and once we get about ten thousand screens around the world, it will be possible for us…to push this so we can finally have digital dominance in all the theaters around the world.”

God, that is aggressive for a plan.

This far out, I'm sure release dates change all the time. But that time frame does back up what we've heard before. I guess there's a guaranteed number of new digital theaters in 2009?

Sheldon, from Canada called into the ForcCast with some interesting news regarding the future of Star Wars in 3-D:





www.forcecast.net

"I have a story that may be of interest to Star Wars fans awaiting the rumoured 3D release of the films.

I am a director/cinematogrqpher working on a documentary series for a local broadcaster. This past summer I spent a day with the in-house production team at Christie Digital Systems in Kitchener , Ontario, Canada sharing with them cinematic techniques I use with HDV cameras.

Christie are the premier provider of the new digital projectors which are rapidly making their way out to U.S. cinemas at a rate of approximately 40 per month. While there, they gave me a tour of their amazing facilities where you are required to where a lab suit, hair net, and shoe coverings.

What was most interesting was their 3D lab where they were working on the projection process that will be used for the "Star Wars" films. In fact I was told they were being converted at the cost of 10 million per film.

The tedious process of reformatting the films is done on a per frame basis and is completed elsewhere, but they spoke confidently that this was occurring. I had a chance to view one of their new 3D systems and to say the least, I was stunned."

I saw Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. I was less impressed this time than when I saw Harry Potter. The technology still has a ways to go I think.

I'll go see it in 3D, just to see them all on the big-screen again.

Any bonus the 3D effects actually have will just be icing on the cake. I've actually been pretty impressed by the 3D tech used in some of the shows I saw at Disney World. But those were all made with those effects specifically in mind, so I'm not sure how well an 'adaptation' of a 'regular' film to this format will do. But there are a lot of scenes I can think of where such effects would absolutely kick ass.

I don't know how long it will take to finally come out, but I'm psyched to see it.

3-D Movie screen info:





www.variety.com

The "Global Media Markets: The Battlegrounds of 2008" report predicts that a five-fold increase in digital 3-D screens worldwide to 1,300, up from 258 in 2006, as well as more pics released in the format, will drive continued growth in the popularity of the 3-D filmgoing experience.

The number of 3-D screens is expected to rise to 3,000 in 2008. Some 2,000 are in the U.S., with that number forecast to increase to 6,000 by the end of 2009.

U.S. studios are embracing digital 3-D technology. DreamWorks Animation topper Jeffrey Katzenberg announced that the studio intends to release all its toons in 3-D, beginning with 2009's "Monsters vs. Aliens."

Paramount, New Line, Disney, Sony, Warner Bros. and Fox all have major 3-D projects in the works. James Cameron's "Avatar" is set for release through Fox in 2009.

"Fly Me to the Moon," National Geographic's "U2 3D," New Line's "Journey 3-D" and Disney's "Bolt" are among releases in the format set to bow next year.

"There is a very strong lineup of films and heavy studio slate as studios invest heavily in what they think will be the next revolution in the theatrical experience," said Screen Digest film and cinema analyst Charlotte Jones. Next year will see "3-D movies really enter the mainstream multiplex environment."

I've seen a bunch of 3d stuff and most recently Beowulf 3D and on the one hand, I think it's great that a movie like Beowulf can get shown at the local multiplex in 3d with very little fuss... I paid $3 for a pretty cool pair of Ray-Ban like 3D glasses and it felt like an added-value experience, and I think with HD and home theaters becoming so prominent and more attainable at a consumer level... movie studios and movie theaters are going to need to do everything they can to make going to the movies an added value experience.

On the other hand, seeing Beowulf in 3d in terms of the actual film was a bit distracting, it looked like it was shoehorned into 3d and had a lot of kind of what amounted to sight gags rather than a movie that was really exploring the medium and the new media.

I think "Avatar" is going to cause a huge buzz for the format, James Cameron is shooting it with the intention of showing it in 3d, rather than converting it to 3d after the fact. I think that is what's going to make the difference in terms of bringing the audience "into" the format and the experience rather than it being more of a "fourth wall" that one has to get through.

I've said it before though.. I think Star Wars 3d would be a bad idea.. the movies weren't shot for 3d, the images were composed and photographed with the intention of being on a flat surface, and I can't see how the SW movies would look like anything but a moving pop up book, but it's a gimmick, and it'll get people to go to the movies.

I'd say be on the lookout for things like "Avatar" and the movies that follow that where the cameras that Cameron is using really come into their own, that'll be a great benchmark for where the technology is going. And hope they don't invent smell-o-vision...

And hope they don't have blasters

I saw Beowulf in the 3D myself. It was cool and everything but I'm not completely convinced that technology is ready for prime time yet. I'd go see the SW flicks if they were released in 3D but it's not super high on my list of priorities.



No, I'd much rather have, y'know, a non-shitty TPM transfer.

Journey's 3-D Impressed Fraser


Brendan Fraser, who stars in the upcoming Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, told SCI FI Wire that he was impressed with the three-dimensional effects.

- "Yeah, we saw [the 3-D effects] as we were shooting it, because it was all in real time," "The technology is now ... in [a] place where you can watch this and be satisfied by the images that you see and not feel like you're just being taken on a gratuitous roller-coaster ride."

Journey 3D, based on the classic Jules Verne SF novel, was shot using technology developed by director James Cameron and loaned to director Eric Brevig. Brevig, who did visual effects for The Day After Tomorrow and other movies, has a

- "vast knowledge base of photography and special effects that [comes] from ... working at [Industrial Light & Magic] for three years," Fraser said.



Fraser said that he learned a lot about 3-D technology during the making of Journey 3D. Fraser even visited Lucasfilm and got a glimpse of the efforts to turn the Star Wars movies into 3-D productions.

"- I've actually seen 15 minutes of Darth Vader entering and capturing [Princess] Leia"

- "The best part was that some of the extras are running around, and they wore helmets and stuff, and because it's in 3-D you see so much detail that you can see one of the extras was wearing, like, a construction worker's helmet that someone took a blowtorch to so that it melted to look different."

- "It was yellow on the inside and spray-painted on the outside. So it'll have real charm going backwards to see that stuff."

There's something about the perceived need to fully identify Leia as "[Princess] Leia" that I find hilarious.

What would be funnier, since Brendan Fraser is obviously on a press junket for him to promote his 3D movie, would be if it said "Brendan Fraser thinks the three-dimensional effects suck balls."

Avatar 3D looks like it might be cool though!