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After trooping with the 501st Legion at the Melbourne premiere of TPM, we were treated tortured by getting to see the film for free!

Sadly, by the time we'd stripped off our armour and deodourised, we'd missed the opening crawl, but the free popcorn was a plus.

So, first things first.

Yes, all the desert scenes look like you're wearing sunglasses, but hey, you're wearing sunglasses, so... what can you do? Post 3D darkens.

Anyhow, I found it looked quite nice in general*, though a couple of effects made me LOL in my chair.
The subtitles looked as though they were IN YOUR FACE (I'm talking people ducking as they appeared) Is this normal for 3D films? You could read the fucking things in braille!
Also, during the lightsaber fight in Theed, (specifically the bit on the catwalks) some AWESOME CAMERA FLARES jump out of the screen like... crazy fucked up camera flares.

The droids looked much more realistic, having apparent depth really made them look more like a physical item that had been filmed. Grudgingly, I'd even say that Jar-Jar binks looked better in 3D.

Actual physical details were superbly captured, even the pilling on Qui-Gon and Shmi's robes. I haven't seen the BD version yet, but I didn't notice the 'washed-out faces' thing that people complained about. You could see the stubble and pores on characters that had appeared clean-shaven and smooth-faced on the DVD.

As for highlights: The podrace looked alright, though the amount of motion made the 3D less effective. Spacebattles, however, absolutely shone. All views out of ship/fighter windows had amazing depth. The shot looking out of the blockade runner's window- looking toward the Lucrehulk, with turbolasers incoming- spectacular. The underwater sequence was beautiful, the fish gave things a nice pop. Darth Maul's little probe droids were quite nicely done.

All in all, I found the whole ordeal a fantastic treat for my eyes. Yes, it was TPM, but I can honestly say it's never looked so good. If this is the quality level we're to expect from the 3D re-re-rereleases, I can't wait for the trench run...

* Bear in mind that this was the first film I've seen in 3D, so my review is probably of little value. I did manage to watch the film without constanly taking the glasses off to see the difference.

Oh, I'm there.

Though, I'm not one of those people that whines about Evil George Lucas fleecing all the poor fans for their money.

Interestingly enough, I'm not one of those people that needs the newest version of the films either. I'd be ecstatic with my VHS pre-remastered copies still.

The posters here have Darth Maul being all gigantic and the only thing in them. Which is good, since he was the only thing in the movie.

Havok wrote:Oh, I'm there.

Though, I'm not one of those people that whines about Evil George Lucas fleecing all the poor fans for their money.

I had to LOL about catching it for free, just because of those people.

I forgot to mention, the Coruscant scenes looked fucking great. Makes me want to see the chase in Ep 2.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:The posters here have Darth Maul being all gigantic and the only thing in them. Which is good, since he was the only thing in the movie.

Yeah, the posters here have the same thing.

Meh, Maul's a drawcard. We were glad to have a guy with the costume trooping with us (punters fucking LOVED him).

I'd say he's the Boba Fett of the prequels*, except that Jango Fett kinda has that role...

*You know, looks cool, does fuck all, is super-memorable as a badass without doing anything badass.

Wow, didn't know it was released in some places already. I'll have to wait until Friday (well, probably Saturday since I usually avoid the big Friday night crowds).

I've seen the films enough times that I'm satisfied with my DVD's and have no real desire to see them on the big-screen again -- though I may make an exception to see ANH and the Trench Run in 3D.

JME2 wrote:I've seen the films enough times that I'm satisfied with my DVD's and have no real desire to see them on the big-screen again -- though I may make an exception to see ANH and the Trench Run in 3D.

If the 3D in TPM was an indication of quality for the rest of the saga, the trench run will be fucking awesome, though the amount of fast movement will reduce it's effectiveness.
The podrace suffered a bit from motion blurs in this way.
The HTL fire and dogfighting will look great for sure, I just hope the surface texture isn't as blurry as the terrain in the podrace. Having models instead of CGI as source footage might help.

Either way, there'll be so much win in ANH...

The ISD passing overhead...
Luke, Obi-Wan and the droids overlooking Mos Eisley...
The DS escape and dogfight...

Hell, even the fucking stupid Praxis Ring is going to look sweet.

Ladies, gentlemen, and currently undecided, I present to you for your viewing displeasure...the worst trailer ever made.

Boy, I sure hope that trailer was aimed at little kids, because FattyNerdsTM may not like it.

Yeah, that's definately for kids (REALLY young kids apparently), seeing as how they even label it as such. Wonder where that trailer even got played or linked to, the Nickelodeon website or something?

The real 3D theatrical trailer was awesome though. Much better than the trailer from 1999. It's amazing how much slicker movie trailers look now, compared to just a decade ago.

That remastered footage reminds me how bad the transfer to TPM's original DVD was.

Darth Tedious wrote:The HTL fire and dogfighting will look great for sure, I just hope the surface texture isn't as blurry as the terrain in the podrace. Having models instead of CGI as source footage might help.

I'd expect the opposite. In my (admittedly limited) experience, native 3d is good, converted 3d is bad. For CGI, you could presumably just re-render the scene to produce the second image just like if you were making a native 3d film in the first place. But working from source footage, you have to either re-shoot the scene or add your own parallax, like you would with any other conversion.

Grumman wrote:

Darth Tedious wrote:The HTL fire and dogfighting will look great for sure, I just hope the surface texture isn't as blurry as the terrain in the podrace. Having models instead of CGI as source footage might help.

I'd expect the opposite. In my (admittedly limited) experience, native 3d is good, converted 3d is bad. For CGI, you could presumably just re-render the scene to produce the second image just like if you were making a native 3d film in the first place. But working from source footage, you have to either re-shoot the scene or add your own parallax, like you would with any other conversion.

Ah, fair enough.
I guess the surface of the DS might end up a bit blurry, then.

To be honest, I would want to watch TPM on the big scene for the lightsabre fights. The DVD just doesn't do it enough justice(that or my brain is suffering from nostalgia).

How are those scenes in 3D?

PainRack wrote:To be honest, I would want to watch TPM on the big scene for the lightsabre fights. The DVD just doesn't do it enough justice(that or my brain is suffering from nostalgia).

How are those scenes in 3D?

Quite good. The first duel on Tatooine is a little ordinary, but then it always was, really.

The finale saber battle is great. Maul's badass pose as he light up the double-saber is extra badass in 3D. The sabers themselves look sweet, and those weird red forcefield thingys (you know the ones!) look fucking amazing, IMO.
The whole area they fight through looks great, the catwalks and bottomless pit and whatnot.

As I mentioned before, there is some funky 3D camera flares, but not too many.

I'd say all up, it is better on the big screen, and even better in 3D.

Holy shit... is there a list of 3D-supported movie theaters? How do I find the nearest 3D-supported movie theaters in my area?

AndroAsc wrote:Holy shit... is there a list of 3D-supported movie theaters? How do I find the nearest 3D-supported movie theaters in my area?

You should be able to search for one on fandango.com

According to Brad aka Cinema Snob (but not in Cinema Snob persona) the 3D was absolutely terrible. Which is fine, I had no plans to watch this anyway.

Vympel wrote:According to Brad aka Cinema Snob (but not in Cinema Snob persona) the 3D was absolutely terrible. Which is fine, I had no plans to watch this anyway.

I've since heard a couple of people saying that the 3D was quite bad compared to native 3D films.
Complaints like "not enough layers of depth".

Meh, it was the first 3D film I've seen, it looked great to me. How 3D is 3D meant to look? Is there meant to be shit flying over the audience's head for the whole movie?

While evil George Lucas was fleecing the poor fans of their money, RedLetterMedia gave an unbiased and objective review of the film in 3D.

Yes, his review is in 3D....

http://redlettermedia.com/ Laugh it up, fuzz ball!

Me, I decided to dig out my copy of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight and play it. I discovered there's even still an online community, and you can play via a program called JKLauncher (over at JKHub). This has been really nostalgic, because that's what I was doing back when Episode I came out the first time in theaters.

Darth Tedious wrote:

Vympel wrote:According to Brad aka Cinema Snob (but not in Cinema Snob persona) the 3D was absolutely terrible. Which is fine, I had no plans to watch this anyway.

I've since heard a couple of people saying that the 3D was quite bad compared to native 3D films.
Complaints like "not enough layers of depth".

Meh, it was the first 3D film I've seen, it looked great to me. How 3D is 3D meant to look? Is there meant to be shit flying over the audience's head for the whole movie?

When it's done well, it feels like you're almost there. That's how it felt when I went to see Avatar at IMAX.

Stofsk wrote:

Darth Tedious wrote:

Vympel wrote:According to Brad aka Cinema Snob (but not in Cinema Snob persona) the 3D was absolutely terrible. Which is fine, I had no plans to watch this anyway.

I've since heard a couple of people saying that the 3D was quite bad compared to native 3D films.
Complaints like "not enough layers of depth".

Meh, it was the first 3D film I've seen, it looked great to me. How 3D is 3D meant to look? Is there meant to be shit flying over the audience's head for the whole movie?

When it's done well, it feels like you're almost there. That's how it felt when I went to see Avatar at IMAX.

3D works best when it subtly, but constantly enhances every frame. The reason Avatar worked so well as a 3D film is because it knew when to be subtle (dust particles, those wierd little jellyfish things) and when to be outright entertaining (various action sequences).

Jim Raynor wrote:Yeah, that's definately for kids (REALLY young kids apparently), seeing as how they even label it as such. Wonder where that trailer even got played or linked to, the Nickelodeon website or something?

The real 3D theatrical trailer was awesome though. Much better than the trailer from 1999. It's amazing how much slicker movie trailers look now, compared to just a decade ago.

I've always felt The Duel of the Fates music video was a much better trailer for TPM.

Just got back.
It was pretty cool. I wouldn't say it blew my socks off, but I wasn't expecting it to.

What I did really like was the way it made the star fields look. They had real distance from the ships and planets in the foreground. It gave it a real scope and was very close to how it looks when I look at our stars in the night sky.

Also the ships seemed to really pop against each other and it added something to the scale that just wasn't there in 2D.

Basically, it stacked up well against the only other movie that I have seen in 3D and that was Thor. I have yet to see a made for 3D movie in 3D.

Anyone that says that the 3D is "absolutely terrible" is a moron.

Oh and am I wrong or did they cut Windu's "A Sith Lord?!" line from the Jedi Council Chamber Scene when Qui-Gon tell him he thinks that is who the mysterious attacker was? OR am I transposing that line into that scene from the scene in ROTS when Anakin tell Mace that Palpatine is the Sith Lord they have been looking for?

Stofsk wrote:When it's done well, it feels like you're almost there. That's how it felt when I went to see Avatar at IMAX.

Ah. Well no, it's not that intense (except when the subtitles hit you in the face). This wasn't like being there, it was like watching a movie- with actual depth.
I would say for sure that it did subtly enhance the whole movie.

I'm going to have to go see some native 3D stuff...

Havok wrote:Oh and am I wrong or did they cut Windu's "A Sith Lord?!" line from the Jedi Council Chamber Scene when Qui-Gon tell him he thinks that is who the mysterious attacker was? OR am I transposing that line into that scene from the scene in ROTS when Anakin tell Mace that Palpatine is the Sith Lord they have been looking for?

Pretty sure that was from RotS.

Hey Hav, what did you think of the holograms?