It's Star Wars...........IN 3D

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2005-06-02 04:16pm

Star Wars to go 3D
03 June 2005
By GARRY MADDOX
Sydney Morning Herald

Get ready to reach for the 3D glasses next time you want to see the Star Wars movies in cinemas.

With Revenge of the Sith dominating ticket sales around the world, taking more than $US500 million ($NZ716 million) in just 12 days, its producer, Rick McCallum, said yesterday that the next stage involved converting all six instalments into 3D to screen in digital cinemas.

Speaking from California, McCallum said the release on a format once considered gimmicky could start within two years.

While there were only about 460 digital cinemas around the world this would need to expand to between 1500 and 3000 to make the 3D release viable.

After years of speculation about the format, McCallum said the interest shown in 3D by directors George Lucas, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis and Robert Rodriguez would encourage cinema owners to switch.

"There's a whole group of serious major talent that are really fascinated by 3D."

McCallum said Lucas had transferred 20 minutes of episodes II and IV to 3D and had been impressed by the results.

"The images have just been startling [in] quality, especially if you have a big science-fiction or effects-laden action movie. You start to see things that you just couldn't see in the 2D version."

Cameron, best known for making Titanic and the Terminator movies, has made a 3D large-format film for IMAX cinemas and is planning the science-fiction movie Battle Angel in 3D.

Rodriguez is following Spy Kids 3D: Game Over with The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D. Zemeckis, who made Back to the Future and Forrest Gump, had a 3D version of The Polar Express in IMAX cinemas.

"In the post [production] process, you can actually move the effects to give a different perspective, " McCallum said.

"Ireland has committed to total digital cinema within the year.

"The UK is putting in 250. There are another 250 to 300 going into China. Eastern Europe is going to start to move probably at the end of 2006. Then Asia is going to start to crumble."

Hardy · Post by **Hardy** » 2005-06-02 04:46pm

This might be useful in resovling scaling issues since parallax is there. I wonder if I could try the Boy Scout ranging method in the theatre.

I also wonder how they did this, since the films were obviously not shot in 3D.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2005-06-02 04:54pm

It´s some form of new process, that can be used on old movies, and open up for some amazing perspectives and scenes in new ones.

Hell, it will be fun to watch both battle of Coruscant and battle of Endor with this.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2005-06-02 05:04pm

Would you like... A DEATH STAR?

*cut to the Death Star rushing out of the screen at the viewer*

Haminal10 · Post by **Haminal10** » 2005-06-02 05:51pm

I would absolutely love to see this! The flyby during the battle of Coruscant already gave me chills. Seeing it in 3D would be mind-blowing (and possible stomach churning

)

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2005-06-02 06:28pm

It could be done in the same way that 3-D video games are made out of non-3-D ones with those plug in 3-D glasses on the PC. Just create two overlapping images and put them together with the glasses.

They could fine tune it in the digital studio, but you get the idea.

I'd love to see the entire saga done on IMAX 3-D, that would be sweet (or even just getting the other films out on Imax format, period, not just AOTC).

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-06-02 08:35pm

The tackyness is strong with this one.