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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

Star Wars Episode II Wraps 165

Posted by Hemos from the only-another-year-to-jar-jar dept.
ucribido writes "StarWars episode II, as yet untitled film, has wrapped up shooting ahead of shedule. No advanced story lines given although the just freshly completed script was apparently stolen and offered of sale for $100,000 big ones to the fan site The Force.net. More about the shoot here "
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Star Wars Episode II Wraps More

Star Wars Episode II Wraps

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  • Rumor (Score:3)

    by Phokus ( 192971 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @01:34PM (#760388)
    I heard Episode 2 will have the best (or worste, depending on how you see it) of both Jar-Jar and the Ewoks. It turns out that on the way home from Episode I, Jar-Jar stops off on Endor and through the wonder of Natural Genetic Manipulation, becomes father of a race of half-Gungan/half-Ewoks known as JarWoks. They're cute, they're annoying, they're tribal. But best of all, polls show they appeal to the prime demographic that will heighten the ST:E2's profitab...er...appeal!
  • the Matrix?

    Not to diss the Matrix, I actually did like it a lot. More then SWeI!



    The nick is a joke! Really!
  • Mod that post up!! (ROFL!! ;-)

    - Spryguy
  • When the process is easy, people think less. When something takes months, you get to the point of asking yourself "is this any good?" late one night. The easier it gets for Lucas to do this, the crappier it will get, IMHO.

    The Pod Race in episode 1 was neato, if you're impressed by watching a video game, but it lacks the realism that the speeder-bike scene in Jedi had. The speeder-bike footage was shot using a camera that took something like 2-3 frames per second (thus the blur effect) mounted on a steadicam. They walked slowly through the forest for at least a day to get the footage, which became the background for the green-screen action. Can you imagine how real the Pod Racer scene would have looked if they had done that? Just look back at the shots from episode 4 where the jawas are peering out from the rocks at R2. Imagine that kind of photography in terms of the texture of the rocks, the way the sunlight hit the rough edges of the rocks. No CGI can duplicate that! Just imagine if they had taken a week to walk with a steadicam through Bryce Canyon, or someplace like that. We would have forgotten and forgiven Lucas for Jar-Jar because those shots would have been so damn beautiful! I've never heard anyone describe cg shots as beautiful, and there's some truth to that.

    Lucas just doesn't get it. Kubrick did. Whether you like his films or not, they are stunning, and beautiful. Even Eyes Wide Shut had great photography. Now can you imagine how much it would have sucked if the "Beyond the infinite" shots at the end of 2001 had been done with computer graphics, even Lucas' hot-shit ILM latest gee-whiz technology?!

    OK, end rant.

    BTW, does anyone know if Kershner is still alive? He's probably the only person who can save Lucas from himself.

  • If Luke already met Obi-Wan as a nine year old, why didn't he recognize him in Episode IV?

    Luke never met Obi-Wan when Luke was nine years old, it was Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker, who met Obi-Wan when Anakin was nine in Episode I.

  • ...unless London has moved recently...

    Actually, there is more than one place named "London [london.on.ca]". However, Elstree Film Studios [elstreestudios.co.uk] are in the UK...
  • The lesson to be learned is that tickets cost more now than they did in years past.
  • Why should he have learned any lessons? Because you, personally, didn't like it? Episode 1 was the second highest grossing movie of all time. What lessons are there to learned from that, from a capitalistic point of view, other than to give people more of the same?

    You'd judge the quality of a film by the box office receipts? Austin Powers got 53 mil in US Box Office returns, and AP II got over 203 mil. Was AP II four times as good?

    Episode I could have been shite and still made the huge money (it did, and many say it was). This doesn't mean the movie couldn't have been better, and it doesn't mean that if it was better, it wouldn't have grossed more.

    Titanic (One rung up on the gross ladder from Episode I) took in double what Episode I did. You don't think that if Ep I was better, it wouldn't have made even more?

    To say no lesson is to be learned from Episode I is to say that George Lucas not only doesn't care about his work anymore, but doesn't care about money either. I'd have to say that whatever your attitude about Lucas is, you can't say both of those are true...

    Kevin Fox
  • And now, for your viewing pleasure, another fine article in the "Best of Slashtrolls" series - This anonymous gem comes to you from the hidden sids... It's not mine originally, but I adopted it.

    Roll da flick, Silvia...

    Evil Empire Strikes Back (Score:0)
    by Anonymous Coward on 5:51 Wednesday 23 August 2000 CST (#4436)

    The princess had fallen off her speeder, and now nothing but empty forest surrounded her as she came to.

    A slight amount of movement comes from a nearby bush. And out comes a repulsive little furry troll. It carried a spear and spoke in a primative language. It appears startled when the princess tries to befriend it.

    Princess Portman: don't be afraid little troll. I will not hurt you.

    Ewok troll: F1r5T P05T!!

    The princess offers it a candy bar, which establishes some trust between the two.

    ---

    Meanwhile, spiralx is with hemos deep within the defenses of the mega-moderation sheild built on the small moon of Andover.

    Hemos: you have much to learn about moderation, my son. When you meet the CmdrTaco, you will learn the true value of moderation.

    Spiralx: (whines)

    ---

    A small band of trolls is making tracks through the forest searching for the lost princess. A weird piece of meat hangs from a large tree.

    Vladinator: Unghghgaghhh!!

    Hans OSM: No!! Shit man, it's only a troll. Don't bite!!

    Vladinator: (chomp)

    A large net comes up off the forest floor and sweeps the whole group up into a tree. When the group finally gets themselves out of the tree, they find themselves surrounded by a primative group of trolls holding sharp pointy spears.

    ---

    The group finds themselves tied to polls and hanging over bowls of grits. The grits are not yet hot, but the trolls are kindling fires under the bowls. The ewok trolls have an ancient ritual of petrifying all outsiders with hot grits.

    ...
    ----
    ...

    CmdrTaco laughs.

    CMDRTACO: Perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your Rebel troll horde.

    spiralx looks up sharply.

    CMDRTACO: Yes... I assure you we are quite safe from your friends here.

    Hemos looks at spiralx.

    spiralx: Your overconfidence is your weakness.

    CMDRTACO: Your faith in your friends is yours.

    HEMOS: It is pointless to resist, my son.

    CmdrTaco turns to face spiralx.

    CMDRTACO: (angry) Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. (indicates Slashdot) Your friends up there at the secret sid...

    spiralx reacts. CmdrTaco notes it.

    CMDRTACO: (cont) ...are walking into a trap. As is your Rebel troll horde! It was I who allowed the Troll Collective to know the location of the hole in the slashcode. It is quite safe from your pitiful little
    band. An entire legion of my best moderators awaits them.

    spiralx's look darts from the CmdrTaco to Hemos and, finally, to the keyboard in the CmdrTaco's hand.

    CMDRTACO: Oh... I'm afraid the moderation code will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

    CMDRTACO:(cont) Come, boy. See for yourself.

    CmdrTaco is sitting in his throne, with Hemos standing at his side. spiralx moves to look at a small terminal.

    CMDRTACO: From here you will witness the final destruction of the Troll Collective, and the end of your insignificant Rebellion.

    spiralx is in torment. He glances at his keyboard sitting on the armrest of the throne. CmdrTaco watches him and smiles, touches the keyboard.

    CMDRTACO: You want this, don't you? The hate is swelling in you now. Take your MS keyboard. Use it. I am unarmed. Hack me down with it. Give in to your anger. With each passing moment, you make
    yourself more my servant.

    Hemos watches spiralx in his agony.

    spiralx: No!

    CMDRTACO: It is unavoidable. It is your destiny. You, like your father, are now mine!

    CmdrTaco, Hemos, and a horrified spiralx watch the viewscreens as yet another troll is bitchslapped to extinction by the merciless moderation.

    CMDRTACO: As you can see, my young apprentice, your friends have failed. Now witness the CPU utilization of this fully licensed and operational slashcode. (into comlink) Fire at will, Commander.




    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • Now all that's left is the CGI. Oh wait, that's 99.44% of the film. How many pod races is Mr. Lucas gonna put in this one?

    --

  • Well, funny you ask, because I wrote my thesis on this. Go and enjoy: A Roadmap to Digital Film: Organizational Design Issues in the Transition to Electronic Film Production [utoronto.ca].

    Calum

  • . . .considering that three-quarters of the film'll probably be computer-generated anyways, including the main actors, the scenery, and Jar-Jar.

    The rest of the time until release'll be used just for rendering!!

  • Re:savings of digital? (Score:4)

    by Apotsy ( 84148 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @03:35PM (#760400)
    25-30%?! That's crazy. By far the biggest cost on any production is labor. Sets and locations are the next biggest chunk, followed by post-production and special effects, then marketing and distribution. Film stock is diddly compared to all that other stuff. The percentage of the total budget is probably around 4-5% for a small production, and perhaps 1-2% for a big production. The bigger the budget, the smaller the percentage it accounts for, since it's a cost that remains fairly constant across all production. Besides, they're not doing it to save money, they're doing for the buzzword factor. George has techno-lust. He wants every tool he uses to be new and high-tech. Unfortunately, high-tech does not necessarily mean high-quality.

    I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Episode II is going to suck in terms of picture quality. Episode I looked bad enough (the whole movie looked soft and fuzzy, due to the use of low resolution computer processing on nearly every shot), but Episode II is just going to look plain awful.

    The camera they used is built by Sony (with lenses by Panavision), and captures images at 1920x1080 resolution at a 16:9 aspect ratio, the same aspect ratio as HDTV (basically, it is an HDTV camera). In order to form a 2.35:1 widescreen image, this will be cropped to about 1920x800. Compare that with this resolution chart [cinesite.com] for 35mm film scanning. 35mm film still has scannable information on it at resolutions up to 4096 x 3112.

    Of course, the real resolution of Sony's video camera is effectively only about half of the stated 1920x1080, due to the fact that the images are color sampled in a 4:2:2 fashion [adamwilt.com], which means that every other pixel is just a black-and-white pixel, with the color sample from the adjacent pixel added in. That's not the same thing as true 1920x1080 resolution. And don't forget that the image data is heavily compressed in-camera 9at about a 7:1 compression ratio) using MPEG-2, just to make it fit onto the tape. Can't wait to see all those nice compression artifacts!

    Finally, as you pointed out, there are slow-motion shots to consider. Well, guess what? The Sony camera can only shoot at 24fps! Therefore, the Episode II crew had to keep film cameras around for any shots that required slo-mo. Notice that they've been pretty quiet about that. You won't find any information about that on the official Star Wars website! It's a bit of a dirty little secret.

    To be fair, shooting with video does have one advantage -- instant feedback. You don't have to wait for dailies to see if you got the shot right. Of course, with video assist systems on most film cameras these days, you can tell a lot already, even though the video assist playback doesn't exactly show you what the final product is going to look like. But when the video is your final prodcut, you know exactly what you're getting right away.

    I know I'll probably sound like a Luddite with this post, but I'm really not opposed to video taking over film. It's just that the quality really isn't there yet. Until the resolution and color range of video is increased to match that of film, it just won't look as good. I think George Lucas is getting ahead of himself in deciding to go with video today. However, I think he's so anxious to be known as an "innovator" that he's decided to just do it anyway, quality be damned. Oh well, that's my take on it anyway.

    (Note: Sorry if this comment shows up twice, slash seems to have eaten it the first time, yet it's still complaining about it being a duplicate.)

  • "In this day, when character depth and plot twists, Lucas gives us one sided characters, as well as one sided good guys/bad guys..."

    In all fairness, look at, well, almost any Hollywood production. They're all considerably worse then Star Wars Ep 1. While I'm not saying Ep 1 was great, you seem to be implying that in this day and age, characters have depth and movies have plots. I'd personally guess that, at the MOST, 1 movie comes out of Hollywood, per year, that is worth watching. At all. That has any plot, any interesting characters, anything that doesn't make it predictable, stereotypical, or just plain awful. So while Ep 1 wasn't great, you can't say it was "worse" then average. Because average is pretty crappy.

    And that's why I watch mostly cool foreign flicks and weird low budget things. Like Pi: The Movie :). (Visit www.pithemovie.com).

  • The Olympics. Seriously, you're in Sydney, you can finish the movie with CGI (and we all know Georgie more than happy to do that), and the games kick off, what are you going to do?
    .
    .
    Yeah, I thought so.

  • Here's why it's ahead of schedule (Score:4)

    by Chris Johnson ( 580 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @03:46PM (#760403) Homepage Journal
    "I went into this film with the attitude that we would capture whatever we could as quickly as we could, and then go back in later and fix and manipulate it. But the ability to do that was far beyond anything I'd imagined; and I think that will affect the way I shoot the next film, with regard to how much time I spend on certain things. We built a little bit more in terms of sets and stuff than we really needed. With this technology, we can keep reducing down the parts that we actually have to build.-George Lucas, on SWe1, in 'Cinefex'

    Put it this way: the computers will be melting down 24/7 at full crank until the very last moment. Lucas has reduced principal photography to the importance of something like matte painting- it's no longer anything like the primary creative source for what he's doing. There's a section in this issue of 'Cinefex' that explains how a two-shot between Amidala and Anakin used take one from Jake Lloyd, take seven from Natalie Portman, take 15 from Jake Lloyd so that his mouth closed at the end of the sequence, and a backwards clip of Natalie Portman with steam rotoscoped so that Natalie's glance downward was in reverse but the steam also in the shot was forward!

    (wonder if Taco's dweebproofing software will throw away this post for having said 'Natalie Portman'?)

    Anyhow, that should give you an idea of what's really happening. At this point, film to Lucas is like samples to a tracker-using music composer- this is not only a new approach, but interestingly it's something that could be approached on the desktop as well (just in much smaller amounts). Once the initial wizbang fun of rendering 30,000 ships or a battlefield with a million footsoldiers has become boring, then we'll start to see what people do with essentially unlimited scope to their imaginations. It's like digital synthesis- contrast modern techno/DnB with early-seventies pop and rock. The capacity to digitally imagine just about any sound (in a sense, anyway) has led to strikingly different genres than anyone could have imagined, ones that use tonality as a key musical element. The capacity to do this with cinematography will lead to strikingly different films, and Lucas may not be the one to pioneer them- but he's doing a lot to establish the new technology.

  • actually the initial incident happened during the ewok victory celebration when Chewbacca got drunk on ewok wine and the female ewoks got curious. (sfx:Chewbacca/vine yodel). Chewie (as his harem calls him) now travels with six mini, fuzzy campanions (and a vastly pleased expression).
  • No, no, no. Chewbacca is the father of the half-Ewok race, not Jar-Jar.

    They're called wookiewoks, and for some reason they can speak perfect English.


    My mom is not a Karma whore!

  • Did you see little Anakin father any snotty little Lukes in Episode 1? Eh? No you didn't, did you. That's why no Luke.

    Bad E

  • So what? (Score:1)

    by JMJ ( 15496 )
    I refuse to be even slightly interested in this.. Episode I was the bigest waste of a cinema ticket i've ever seen. I won't be fueling the marketing machine (and lining Mr Lucus's pockets) a second time.

    Face it, star wars was a good trilogy.. but they shouldn't have tried to flog a dead horse.
  • Old Ben is rollin' in the grave.
  • The origional crossbreeding involved duct-tape.
  • You'd like to be a ruthless mercenary in real life?

    Well, I do work as a bouncer at underground parties, which isn't all that far off...
  • I never understood why he's so popular

    Because he's the hoopy kind of frood who knows where his towel is.
  • Actually, I CAN describe *some* CGI shots as beautiful. The scene where they arrive on Coruscant (sp?) is breath-taking... it literally made me feel vertigo. But in general, I agree with you.

    - Spryguy
  • Alas, I've tried that, but he just didn't seem to fit in my life in that regard.

    Then you didn't use enough lube. Oh, and you have to *relax*...

    - Spryguy
  • Interesting info. Thanks for the response. I guess I was on crack with the 25-30% guesstimate. (but I *did* say PRODUCTION costs, not total budget... so maybe only a factor of 2 or 3 off instead of 10? :)

    I don't have anything against digital, either. But film is going to be a better choice for resolution reasons for a while. I imagine movies made with "old-fashioned" film technology will be pretty rare in 10 years time. I'm sure some people would say that you can't notice the difference between the resolution between the two formats now (well, Lucas *did* say that they were nearly identical, didn't he?), but I'm sure there's enough people out there who care enough to look. Just like audiophiles who bitch about the quality of CDs vs. the "warmth" of vinyl.
  • so how did you come to 2 Standard Deviations below the mean rate? just wondering. it seems as if picking a random number between 1 and 3 was probably your best bet, but if you had an actual method of deciding this, i'd love to hear it, because anyone who can judge my intelligence based on one karma-whoring post i made is truly a wise man indeed. If you've noticed, the /. community did rate that post a +5, funny. So, in my attempt to whore up all the karma i could, i succeeded with flying colors. I would imagine that one's ability to adapt thought/speech patterns in such a way to make people find their posts strikingly amusing (as many people obviously did, based on my score... what was your score again? Oh yes, 0... big goose egg, sorry for reminding you) I guess my point is that you can show anything you want to any cognitive psychologist in the world, but one simple fact will always remain true: people find vulgarity amusing. If this wasn't true, eminem wouldn't be selling records, and people wouldn't watch the HBO comedy series. In case you're dying to know, the last time i had a psychologist administered IQ test a couple years ago, it was in the 140's. I want to say 146, but I don't want to give you false information that would discredit my argument. So, I'll just stick to the facts and say "at least 140." So why don't you go tell your cognitive psychologist friend to go find a new job, because the one (s)he currently has is obviously not right for him/her. Maybe (s)he should try being a street musician, because people will give money to street musicians whether they can play or not because they pity them. That way your cognitive psycologist friend can bullshit their way through their job -- much like they do now, and not suffer negative consequences.

    and now that i've got your attention, why don't you go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself?

    see, vulgarity IS funny!

  • I'd be curious to see how much it'd fetch on Ebay. And I shall be most disappointed if Jar-Jar manages to survive...
  • At least to MY eyes.

    >And the digital film whoever is pushing to >Hollywood is actually worst than film. Hollywood
    >has already replaced 70mm/3D/VistaVision with now
    >standard less 35mm. I don't want them to go even
    >lower quality unless they lower the ticket price.

    Bullshite.

    I've been fortunate enough to have been able to see BOTH the analog film print AND the digital projection of the SAME MOVIE. Last fall, when Toy Story 2 came out, I was liveing in Orlando, Florida. I saw TS2 the second night of its release at a theatre near my home. EXCELLECT movie!!!

    Not long after, I learned that the AMC Theaters at Downtown Disney/Pleasure Island had a digital projection rig and was showing Toy Story 2 there. Well, I wasted little time in setting up a night to go down to Disney/AMC with some friends to dee the digital version OF THE SAME MOVIE.

    Now, for some months before Roger Ebert had been trashing the computer industry and telling his readers and anyone who would listen that digital video/movies was complete crap. He was hypeing some new camera/projector/film rig that would play conventional film at variable speeds (up to double the normal 24fps IIRC). So I went to Disney/AMC curious but not expecting to be overwhealmed. Ebert had, in the past, seemed to be a pretty good critic, turning out good reviews and articles. I had a fairly good respect for his opinion...

    ... until I saw Toy Story 2 in full, unadulterated digital glory!

    I was astounded at how incredibly superior digital prooved to be over analog film. It was a PERFECT image, not even a hint of focus problems. NO SCRATCHES!!! No digital artifacts that I could see. Perfect sound in perfect sync with the video. Sharper image with NO JITTER!!! It was, in all ways, a drasticly superior motion picture expierence to film.

    My respect for Ebert dropped DRAMATICLLY after that. I wonder if he owns an intrest in the company that makes those spiffy new film projectors he's pushing?

    Not only do I applaud George Lucal for going all digital for Episode II, I look forward to the day when all studios do so for all movies. Hopefully, Episode II will hasten that move, and the obsolescent crap will be dead and buried sooner rathar than later.

    john

    Resistance is NOT futile!!!

    Haiku:
    I am not a drone.
    Remove the collective if


  • Um, having to explain the punchline ruins the joke.
  • Has anybody ever heard of projection system that played film back at anything other than 24fps? I know old 8mm and Super 8 were slower (16fps?), but are there/have there been attempts at pushing it up past 30 or higher? I know there's no reason why you couldn't do this, but the payoff might be pretty weak compared to the extra headache and expense of higher film and maintenance costs.

  • FuckedCompany.com [fuckedcompany.com] was worth more than that!

    sulli

  • "advanced story line" ??? (Score:5)

    by Alban ( 86010 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @01:21PM (#760423)
    "No advanced story lines given"

    Right, there are probably no advanced story lines, judging from episode 1 ! :)

  • This reliance on digital effects as a replacement for models is exactly what I have hated about both Episode One and the digitally-touched re-releases of the previous films. Jabba the Hut looked much more real to me in puppet form than he has as a digital, clean, shiny computer jabba. For me, the most visually pleasing parts from the original series involve gritty models with the infinite texture you can only get with something built in real life.

    So in other words, what made Episode One suck, will make Episode Two suck even worse. Plus, obviously, Lucas no longer cares about the chemistry that two actors can develop through their interaction in a scene; if you cut up parts of scenes, throw in a bunch of digital characters, and expect it to have emotional impact, you're dreaming.
  • Now I can be disappointed ahead of schedule...
  • First of all, while Episode II has been shot with an electronic camera, it will still be projected using ordinary film prints in most places, except for a few specialty venues. The problem is cost. A good film projector costs about $30,000, while digital projectors (so far) cost about $250,000 to $300,000 (no, I'm not kidding!), and they're currently limited to 1280x1024 resolution, which means you won't even get to see everything! (The cameras used for Epsidoe II are 1920x1080, see my other post on this thread for more info.) All of the digital projectors that have been put into theaters so far have been "freebies", that is, prototypes that were given away in hopes of getting publicity. Well, TI seems to have decided they've done enough subsidising, so now they have stopped giving projectors away, and started letting compaines such as Cristie and Kinoton start selling them. So far, I haven't heard of any takers. Given all this, I think most people will end up seeing Episode II on film, which isn't so bad, considering that digital stuff that has been output to film using a laser recorder usually looks pretty good. Plus, you'll be able to see the full resolution instead of just a 1280x1024 approximation.

    Secondly, while switching to digital might prevent the problems with film that you describe, it will introduce new problems of its own. For one thing, these new micro-mirror devices from TI have the potential problem of developing "dead" pixels -- that is, pixels that just sit there and don't respond any more. After a few years, a typical projector might expect to have a few of these dead pixels here and there, and they'll be present on every frame of every movie shown using that projector from then on. The only way to fix it will be to replace the entire micro-mirror array, which costs an arm and a leg to begin with. I doubt theaters will go to the trouble. If a digital projector develops a few dead pixels, they'll just say "oh, well" and leave it.

    Also, with digital projectors, the resolution is fixed. Once you install it, that's it. If you want more resolution, you'll have to get a whole new machine. With film, every time there is an improvement in film stocks, you automatically get an upgrade in quality, without having to change the projector at all.

    Furthermore, many people are (incorrectly) assuming that digital projectors will be maintainence-free, so they will simply not hire projectionists any more, which means that if the projector develops problems, they will not fix it. And don't tell me they won't have problems, I've seen enough screwed up video projectors in meeting rooms and sports bars to know that's bull. Whether it's electronic or mechanical, a projector will still need regular attention from someone who knows what they're doing.

    Lastly, the problems you describe with film are solvable. For one thing, if theatersr would start using FilmGuard [film-tech.com] (you have to click on the "cleaning" link at the bottom of the page I linked to), they would have a lot fewer problems with dirt and scratches than they do now. And if you want to see an example of good film handling, just go to your local IMAX theater. They usually keep their films running great for months and sometimes years without any excessive dirt or scratches. Take "Fantasia 2000". I went to see that just a couple of weeks ago, and the film looked brand-new! And last weekend, I went to a theater that was still showing "Gladiator" after all this time, and it still looked pretty good (hardly and dirt or scratches at all). So, it is possible to keep film looking great throughout its use, it just takes a little care and some proper equipment. I think theaters would do better to invest in those things rather than replace all the projectors with $250,000 video projectors with 1280x1024 resolution, but hey, that's just my opinion.

  • I must say, it took them long enough to shoot the three scenes that won't be completely computer animated...now the real work begins :)

  • Re:Hail to the princess (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They were unless London has moved recently, read the article.

    Actually, an awful lot of "Hollywood" films are shot and put together in the UK.

  • Hey Independence Day was good the first 10 times i saw it :o)
  • Star Wars II: The Search for Pot
  • Even when the box office numbers are adjusted for inflation/ticket price increases, Episode 1 is #2 behind Titanic.
  • They had some bootleg stuff for a few hours last week, but it disappeared. I guess the Skywalker lawyers got to them quickly.

  • I've never met anyone, Jamaican or otherwise, who spoke like Jar-Jar Binks. His accent was original; it just borrowed strongly from a Jamaican accent. I don't see why that's such a big deal.

    Yeah, it was an annoying voice. But that doesn't make it racist.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • I have yet to figure out what all of the so-called "Star Wars Fans" out there have against Jar-Jar. The complaint i've heard most often about him, is that he was an ineffectual character, who served little more purpose than mild comic relief, and had no place in the Star Wars "theocracy".

    I'm not sure if any of you who see it this way have actually ever *seen* the original Star Wars movies, but, they're full of humour. In fact, i'd sooner classify them as Sci-Fi Comedies than Action movies.

    If anybody has any *real*, serious, and sane commentary on why Jar-Jar is considered to be a "lame" character, i'd love to hear it..
    .------------ - - -
    | big bad mr. frosty
    `------------ - - -
  • So why did so many characters in Episode One speak this pidgen english?

    Because no movie with subtitles has done well in the US market since sound? Come on, Star Wars is space opera. Its antecedents are more like Flash Gordon than Louis Wu.Yoda just sounded like a drunk Menonite.

    Personally, I was offended by R2D2. Would you have me believe they couldn't find a real shop vac to play the part?

  • Keanu Reaves

    His character was supposed to be clueless and not so skilled at face-to-face communication. Perfect role!
  • <I>Because no movie with subtitles has done well in the US market since sound? Come on, Star Wars is space opera. Its antecedents are more like Flash Gordon than Louis Wu.</I>
    <P>
    Oh yeah, I'm sure that's what was going though their minds when they wrote the script. 'Hey guys, if the aliens speak an alien language, or we have to use subtitles, the movie will bomb!'
    <P>
    Erik Z
  • <I>2) Lucas would have to be a MORON not to learn from all the criticism the first movie got (and deserved).</I>
    <P>
    Lucas was reported as saying "What Criticism? Episode I did GREAT! And Episode II will have even MORE of the stuff that made Episode I such an incredible movie.
  • I agree, AMC sucks. Some theater chains are better than others, but the overall quality has gone down over the last 10 years, and AMC started the trend. They purposely avoid hiring anyone who is trained as a projectionist, to avoid having to pay for their skills. That way they save money, while screwing the customer out of quality. Naturally, most of the other theater chains have followed suit.
  • Early release would be unlikely, as they usually pick a weekend (Memorial Day, 4th of July) to roll it out for maximum bucks. Likely, Lucas will use more time to do other things.

    GL: Let's do two Jar-Jars!


    It's all true! ±5%
  • Did anyone else catch that 2 second sceen from the Movie DUNE in the trailer? The sceen where the Harkonens are retaking Arrakis and are bombing the walls. Look closely!

  • Re:savings of digital? (Score:3)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @04:21PM (#760442) Homepage
    Hmmm.

    I suspect what you say, re: low quality (ie. a true low resolution that's been upsampled to get the 1920x1080, MPEG2 compression and 24fps fixed framerate), is true.

    Which I'm afraid leads me to just one conclusion: Lucus has given up on movie theatre experiences, and is targeting this for home DVD playback.

    See, it *used* to be that movie-makers made movies with movie-screen dimensions and qualities in mind. That the movie would also be on video was just happy conincidence.

    I suspect that in this case, the movie-maker (Lucas) is making the movie with NTSC television and DVD in mind. Seeing it on the big screen is just happy coincidence.

    From what I understand, a number of directors now frame shots to be compatible with television format, to avoid letterboxing or pan-and-scan when the movie goes to video.

    But this would be the first time a director has chosen the recording media to be compatible with tv, by sacrificing the quality of the big screen.

    There's no hope for Hollywood. It ain't art, it ain't storytelling: it's just cash greed. Of course, what's new about that?


    --

  • Fake Episode II trailer? (Score:3)

    by buzzzard ( 235760 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @04:21PM (#760443)

    Okay links first then comments: Fake trailer for Episode II [adcritic.com]

    Well for those die hards out there, this is something I found a few weeks ago. If you have seen it before, watch it again, its cool. If not then grab quicktime and get some popcorn.

    Fake .sig [slashdot.org]

  • Episodes 4 - 6 were at least vaguely intelligent, with usefull stories. Episode 1 was not - and Jar Jar was a big part of that.
    I actually saw the first SW trilogy on video for the first time without knowing much about it. I knew there was a war in space, and that Vader was evil, but that was it. One of my friends insisted that I go rent them, so I did, one at a time since that was all the rental place allowed. When I saw 4, I thought it wasn't that great. The writing wasn't the best, and the best character died halfway through.
    I saw 5 because of the said friend, but I actually liked it. And suddenly I liked 4 too. Suddenly there was a big civil war, with ancient mysteries and halucenations. And the good guys were losing?
    I went out and got 6 the same day. This one was even better! There were twins seperated at birth and evil people who aren't really that evil. It was like a stupid soap opera, but for some reason it worked. Since then I've read all the SW books and some of the comics.
    So anyway I wasn't that dissapointed by E1 since I liked it more than I liked E4 at first. I think it actually had better developed characters. I think I'll like 1 as soon as 2 and 3 come out.
  • Just like audiophiles who bitch about the quality of CDs vs. the "warmth" of vinyl.

    Actually, I think the difference between film and video is a lot more obvious than the difference between CDs and vinyl.

    Aside from resolution, one of the biggest differences between film and video is in how they capture light. Film has a logarithmic brightness curve, meaning that it takes four times as much light to get twice as much brightness recorded on the film. Video, on the other hand, has a linear, one-to-one brightness response. Now, guess which one more closely responds to the human eye? That's right, it's film!

    The difference is so important that when digital effects started to become prevalent in movies, Kodak invented a special file format called Cineon [livedv.com] for holding film data that measures the intensity of each color component on a 10-bit logarithmic scale. Many digital effects for movies are done using that format.

    Another difference is with blooming. "Blooming" refers to when part of a picture is overexposed, and it bleeds into the surrounding area. On film, this produces a look that is again very similar to what happens in your eye when it sees something that is overwhelmingly bright. Used properly, blooming on film can produce a very pleasing asthetic look. Video, on the other hand, doesn't have blooming. Instead, what happens is that it gets "clamped", or cut off at some maximum value when it gets too bright. There is none of the nice look where the brightness seeps into the surrounding areas, giving video a very clean, sterile look. Sure, some people have come up with post-processing filters to simulate film blooming in digital video, but so far, the results I've seen are unconvincing. It still looks like video.

    Those two factors produce such a big difference that right now, I can still instantly recognize video as video and film as film. Maybe someday in the next few years, someone will come up with a video camera that captures light on a logarithmic scale and at 4000x3000 pixel resolution, and then we can throw away the film cameras, but until that day comes, I think movies should continue to be shot on film.

  • Seventies artists who are still in the top-100 after thirty years: Eagles, Pink Floyd, Stones... all analogue artists.

    Nineties digital artists who will be in the top-100 after thirty years: none.

    Hmmm....

    Seventies movies still in the top-100 thirty years later: GodFather, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now... all analogue.

    Millenial digital movies still in the top-100 thirty years later: Hmmmm.

    Digital doesn't equate to better. There's something to be said for blood, sweat and tears.

    Ansel Adam's landscape photography was *worked* for: that man grunted his ass off with heavy equipment. And as a result, perhaps, he was a heck of a lot more careful, caring and dedicated to his work.

    Maybe art has to be difficult to be lasting. Maybe not; I've no real idea.

    --

  • BS (Score:1)

    by Urthpaw ( 234210 )
    the LORD should stop being so utterly intolerant and irrelevent. Atheism forever, lol.

    Note:This post is not meant to hurt anyone's feelings. If they get hurt the LORD will fix them, won't he?
  • But seriously, I think this is going to be better than Episode I for two reasons.

    I KNOW it will for one reason.

    The return of Boba Fett. [starwars.com]

    Hey, he's the only character in the Star Wars universe that *I* identify with...
  • Actually the film will mostly be a computer generated cartoon.

    The "actors" will be overlayed with the better looking computer generated beings.

    Mostly what was shot was background to put the cartoons on.

    But, this "all digital" film will only be sold on magnetic video tape.
  • Actually, $100,000 big ones is $100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars). A "big one" is $1000.
  • I don't think Lucasfilm just do the work and then sit back for 3 months waiting for it to render. They probably parallelize these tasks somewhat, so faster rendering boxes wouldn't make a huge difference - it's the man-hours, not the compute-hours.
  • Does anybody out there know enough about big-budget Hollywood to be able to accurately say how much money Lucas is saving by going digital? I'm guessing you could shave 25-30% off the cost of production, and probably speed up post too.

    Plus: maybe using digital makes "film"makers more willing to take directorial risks, since you don't have to worry about the cost of cameras and film/tape. One question, though: will there be a digital equivalent to the Super-high speed cameras they use for extreme slow motion shots? I mean, how fast can you make shutter on a digital camera?

  • "Which I'm afraid leads me to just one conclusion: Lucus has given up on movie theatre experiences, and is targeting this for home DVD playback."

    Why shouldn't he? This is what I get at a movie theater:
    1 - Waiting in line to buy a ticket from some dipshit teenager with so little ambition he can't even find a decent job at a video game store.
    2 - $8.00 Tickets, unless I want to go to an afternoon matinee and have the movie ruined by hundreds of screaming children.
    3 - Having any whispered dialogue ruined by the asshole three rows up that thinks a beeping pager makes him look important, and didn't just leave his in the car like the rest of us.
    4 - Overpriced, crappy food.
    5 - Cramped seats that don't give me enough room to stretch my legs out, causing my knees to ache the next day.
    6 - No beer.
    7 - The sound will either be:

  • In a major character? For more than a few lines?

    They all speak English for the same reason that most war movies have the Germans speaking English -- I don't speak German. Even with subtitles, there are no nuances.

    I do recall one production that actually ran with this. It was mini-series about a German army unit, and all the actors spoke with British accents. The accents, however, were chosen to correspond with the characters social standing, so that Colonel von Whatever sounded like an English aristocrat and Corporal Shutlz was Cockney.

    And Christ, give the actors a break. You're effectively asking them to give a compelling performance in two hours of mime, only worse because they'll have to speak gibberish all the time.

  • Thank you, thank you all for terrific Slashdot and Star Wars jokes. I think it's great that unorthodox stabs at Slashdot and Star Wars are allowed here. Keep up the good work all of you, good humor is so hard to find these days. Moderate all you want, the people are still going to read it.
    --
    "Stop it, Ford," he said. "You're turning into a penguin."
  • First of all, the animators appeared to feel that a CGI character couldn't look real unless it fidgeted. In Jar Jar's case, though, this made him look like he had about twelve nervous tics going at once. His attempts at "humor" were, at best, unimpressive, cutesy slapstick. At worst, they were offensive. His lines were either cloying or stupid, and his dopey silliness was a horrible distraction from the plot, which wasn't particularly interesting to begin with.

    However, the not-so-very-subtle racist undertones were what did it in for me. Stepin Fetchit wasn't funny then, and certainly isn't funny now. The difference between the humor evident in IV-VI and the humor we saw in I is that one set is witty/funny, and the other isn't.
  • Well, that's a pretty well-written paper, but I have to say that your statement about film's extra resolution (about 4000 lines) being thrown away during the printing process is flat out wrong.

    First off, even with ordinary prints, I can, in many cases, see the individual pixels in computer animation and special effects shots that were done at 2K resolution. Yes, that's right. In a theater with good projection I can notice pixelation and jagged edges, especially whenever there are straight edges any where in the picture. I saw these problems in almost every one of this past summer's blockbusters (and flops). "Space Cowboys" looks especially bad: just look at any supposedly straight lines in the CGI shots and you'll see the jagged edge. "Gone in 60 Seconds" is another: look at the telephone wires in the shot where the camera is craning down at the beginning of a scene and there's a subtitle put in with CGI: more jagged edges. "Dinosaur" and "Titan A.E." had visible pixels all the way through. Now, how could I be seeing that stuff if it weren't for the fact that film retains greater than 2000 lines resolution even after going through all the steps to get to a release print? What more proof do I need? Film holds more than 2000 lines of resolution, even in a release print! And with continued improvements in film stocks and printing processes, it's only going to get better.

    Secondly, there is Technicolor's newly revived "dye-transfer" process, which produces incredible resolution and color saturation. It gives you an exact copy of what was on the camera negative. Every last grain of the original film makes its way in to the release print. I've seen these types of prints with my own eyes, and let me tell you, it's incredible. Not since the days of 70mm have I seen film look that good. And the great thing is, Technicolor can run it off at about 5 cents per foot -- same cost as ordinary film prints. I think you'll be seeing a lot more dye-transfer prints showing up in your theaters in the next couple of years, thereby increasing the quality of release prints even further.

    When it comes down to it, 2000 lines of resolution just isn't enough to replace film. I fear that people will simply ignore that fact though, and do it anyway, and then we'll be stuck with poor quality images for movies from now on. I can only hope that high standards will prevail, and 4K, not 2K, will become the standard resolution for digital cinema.

  • "Thinka about it... all the characters in the first three movies speak English (either Gods English, or American")"

    Well, I would say that this one was pretty well answered by J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien, who knew a few things about language, and did in fact develop unique languages for each distinct race/culture in his stories, nonetheless stated these stories were written in Westron ("Common Speech") and translated into English (real or British English if you are being really picky). Why? Because otherwise no one could understand them. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

    sPh
  • You seem to have missed something in your own argument. Star Wars is a *kids movie!* Lucas has said so in the past, he said so for the last film. There is absolutely no redeeming mature themes whatsoever in *any* of the films. These movies should have been rated G if not for the violence.

    Now, you believe that since you were a kid when these movies were released, you somehow have some manner of claim on them, and Lucas should cater to your tastes. BZZT Wrong. The original three were kids movies, the prequels are kids movies. Live with it. Lucas is not making these films for you.
  • Starwars has pretty much been played out. Given the horrible waste of screentime that was Episode One, I have no desire to see Episode Two anytime soon.

    Not to rehash any "Starwars sucks" discussions, but I think that those of us who grew up watching Starwars are a little more mature, and we expect more mature things from a film.

    To this end, IMHO I believe the Matrix trilogy will be the new Star Wars. At least it will be for me.

  • If it is totally digital and has Natalie Portman in it then I can a;lsdakjv..capture andkda;k adsa;ofi remodela; ddoihjunyvg v (excuse me, I have to go log-off now).

  • I stole it! (Score:5)

    by ffatTony ( 63354 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @02:27PM (#760478)

    and the reason i refuse ot see it:
    [ ~ ]$ cat script.txt | grep -iE "Jar.*jar" | wc -l
    328
    *Shudder*

  • Star Wars didn't need a fart gag.

    Star Wars didn't need a stepping in crap gag.

    Star Wars: Episode 1 didn't need to be targeted at the "under 10" audience.

    If Episode 2 is also targeted at the under 10 audience, none of the children who were 8-10 to see episode 1 will be the apropriate age to appreciate episode 2 when it comes out.

    Episodes 4 - 6 were at least vaguely intelligent, with usefull stories. Episode 1 was not - and Jar Jar was a big part of that.

  • I'll bet that if the Beatles (at their creative late-60s peak) were around today, they'd be making full use of every bit of technology available to them. Don't think of digital technology as making the creative process easier: think of it as allowing more ambition. Like Perl - it makes the possible easy, and the impossible possible.

    I think Radiohead's "OK Computer" is an album that will stand the test of time. An enormous amount of digital manipulation went into that album, as well as the obvious guitar work. That's kind of analogous to the mixture of analogue (erm, that was real light going into Lucas' digital cameras) and purely CG work going on in Episode II.

    Now, I don't think Episode II will be high art, but it's ridiculous to suggest that the technology won't lead to great works in the future. That's like suggesting that the electric guitar dulls creativity.

    --
  • > There's a section in this issue of 'Cinefex' that explains how a two-shot between Amidala and Anakin used take one from Jake Lloyd, take seven from Natalie Portman, take 15 from Jake Lloyd so that his mouth closed at the end of the sequence, and a backwards clip of Natalie Portman with steam rotoscoped so that Natalie's glance downward was in reverse but the steam also in the shot was forward!

    Think what he could do with the climatic love scene using these techniques!

    --
  • ...not even a hint of focus problems...

    What the hell does focus have to do with being digital? Both digital and film projectors have lenses, and they both can be either in or out of focus.

    Because this thing was a prototype and they had a lot of money invested in it, they had an army of technicians come by and set it up to make sure all the shows went smoothly. After all, TI has been going around giving these projectors away in order to get publicity for their DLP stuff. They didn't want bad publicity, so they were careful to make sure the equipment was perfectly tuned.

    On the other hand, theaters have been through so much cost-cutting and anti-union crap over the past couple of decades that they no longer have any expertise in proper film projection. AMC in particular is very bad about that. "We don't hire 'projectionists' here" is the line you'll get. And they don't train the people they do hire, either. That's why you see shutter-gate error, bad focus, scratches, and dirt. All of these problems can be solved through proper equiment and handling, it's just that the theater chains don't want to spend the money to do it.

    So essentially, what you did was compare the best digital projection to the worst film projection. Is that really fair?

    The quality problems in movie theaters today are due almost entirely to sloppiness. This will not be fixed by converting to digital projectors. When the same teenagers who don't know or care about quality start running the digital projectors, they will be rife with problems, just like the film projectors. You think just because something's digital that it can't be screwed up? Haven't you ever gone into an electronics store and seen a TV or home theater system that was completely misconfigured and poorly adjusted? Haven't you ever seen a video projector in a conference room or a sports bar that was so out of whack it was unwatchable? I know I have. I don't have any illusions about digital "fixing" the problems with bad movie presentation today.

    By the way, I have seen both the film and the "digital" versions of TS2, too, and I was not that impressed. Yes, the digital vesion was nice and bright and steady, but no more so than a properly done (emphasis on properly) film projection. Meanwhile, the resolution was just terrible. Those TI DLP-based projectors have so far been limited to just 1280x1024 resolution. That's simply not enough for a big movie screen. I could see the individual pixels if I sat more than halfway forward in the theater, and it wasn't even that big a theater, either. Film beats that any day.

    That said, I think the digital stuff has potential, but I would like to see it improve before it goes into theaters. I also hope that people come to realize that it is not maintainence-free. Theaters will still need projection specialists to check up on things and make sure they are properly calibrated.

  • Die hard fans of "Insert fiction here" are deathly fanatical.
    Sifi fans are smart fanatics.. often in the high tech industry. Just a statistical look odds are good Bill Gates as a sifi fan (If true I doupt he'd be a hard core fanatic.. the only thing he seems fanatic about is his own company and his own famally.. and the latter mostly a guess).

    With a considerable amout of potentally wealthy sifi fanatics the price of something so hard to find as say the script for an as-yet-unreleased film would run pritty dang high...
    (If it's on e-bay it's probably a hoax.. if it's not the guy is an idiot)

    Yeah.. a peace of god... they'll pay...

  • Re:savings of digital? (Score:3)

    by My_Favorite_Anonymou ( 36494 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @02:31PM (#760498) Homepage
    If you know anything about camera, (like, has shoot >30 rolls a year or own a camera that can change the frontal element known as lense,) you will know that digital has nothing to do with the quality of the picture, just like brush and paint.

    The most expensive camera are all mantal. While I don't have anything against technology advanced, what Lucas doing is nothing but making buzz word. "Hey I'm using all digital equipment"=="Julia Roberts and Richard Gere were really hot for each other on the set"==BS

    There has been comments that the digital replacement of traditional film editing tool has make the feel of certain movies loss a bit of raw and gritty feeling. The point is that you don't replace the thing with digital unless the quality is actually improved.

    Right now the best (technically, 35mm format) camera EOS1, F5 Minolta9 etc can do about 10 frame a second with motor. The digital backs can do only 4. You have to wait probably 2 more years.

    And the digital film whoever is pushing to Hollywood is actually worst than film. Hollywood has already replaced 70mm/3D/VistaVision with now standard less 35mm. I don't want them to go even lower quality unless they lower the ticket price.

    CY
    -

  • Episode 2 (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22, 2000 @01:22PM (#760504)
    Star Wars II: The Search for Plot

  • StarWars episode II, as yet untitled film, has wrapped up shooting ahead of shedule.

    They were shooting it in England?

    But seriously, I think this is going to be better than Episode I for two reasons. One, I heard Lucas quoted as saying that Ep2 will be the darkest Star Wars yet, darker than Empire. And two, knowing that Jar Jar will be in it, my expectations couldn't be any lower -- at this point I can only be pleasantly surprised.

  • You're not going to get 4K when the thing is being projected by an unhappy teenager working for $6.85 an hour at the local megaplex or on a run down print. Solid state projection and digital storage will get you that.

    How in the world can the manner in which it is projected alter the resolution of what's recorded on the film? An "unhappy teenager" will might make it dimmer, out-of-focus, or misaligned, but they can't reduce the number of grains on the print! The resolution of the film is fixed once it is printed in the lab. Poor projection does not change it.

    Digital projectors have lamps and lenses, too, so they are not free from the problems I just mentioned (out-of-focus, underlit). The only problems they free you from are dirt and scratches, and in my experience, those are the problems I encounter the least when going to the movies. It's the former that comes up most often. Digital will not solve that!

    And so far, nobody has even talked about doing 4K digital movies. People seem to have already made up their minds that 2K HDTV resolution is "enough". But I don't want to have to go to a movie theater just to watch HDTV!

    It also worries me that people keep making straw man arguments when they compare film vs. digital. They pit the best digital has to offer against the worst film has to offer. Would you replace a high-quality analog audio system with 8-bit /11KHz digital sound? Of course not! Well, the standards that people are proposing for digital "cinema" are that far out of whack as far as I'm concerned. Why are people insiting on aiming their standards so low?! Am I the only person on Earth who cares about high quality images? It sure seems like it. Everyone else just hears the "d" word and shuts their brains off. "If it's digital, it must be perfect!" is what they seem to think.

    I agree with your statement about 2K being a replacement for 16mm and television film production, but you're the first person I've heard say that (besides myself). Everyone else seems ready to dump 2K (or worse, 1280x1024!) into theaters and say, "done!"

  • Oh come on. The only problem I've seen with Adams is the fact that his crappiest work is the only stuff you can ever seem to find. The good stuff is either impossible to find or when you do find it it's expensive as hell (ex: posters costing $100 a freaking poster!). I agree that a some of his work isn't all it's cracked up to be. Like the pictures of aspen trees (which used the zone photography to a huge degree). But some of them are wonderful. I would like to see what Adams could have done with a digital medium.

    As for taking lots of pictures, I'm a little sceptical of that. Considering how much film cost in his time and the fact that he usually shot at a F/65 exposure (takes forever) I don't think he just blew through the film.

  • The first three movies (4-6) were good quality age-nonspecific sci-fi.

    Episode 1 had a fart gag, and a step-in-crap gag.

    I don't think I need to comment further.

  • Yeah. Of course, what Morpheus could only tell Neo what he knew, and the only rebels we saw were members of his crew. So if they come up with a better reason, they can just say Morpheus was wrong.
  • > I think that those of us who grew up watching Starwars are a little more mature, and we expect more mature things from a film.

    I was already past the first blush of childhood when the originals came out, and I didn't think they sucked. I was a bit disappointed because I had been hoping for a "serious" SciFi movie, but after I learned to take them what they were, I enjoyed them. And I rented the remasters when they came out, in order to prime myself for the new stuff.

    Honestly, the originals were pretty camp, and certainly no works of art, but at least they were fun movies, entertaining movies, even 20 years later. Way past the first blush of childhood.

    On the other hand, I got a sore butt from squirming around waiting for The Jar Jar Flick to finish. (Or rather to start, which unfortunately it never did.)

    No, don't pin it up to maturity. I think it's Lucas that has changed. Possibly too caught up in the hype that surrounds him, and possibly too keen on getting rich off the Jar Jar action figures; these are beyond knowing without knowing him personally. But surely, he (along with almost all other SciFi movie makers these days) is way too caught up in the technology of making movies, to the point that he forgets that the technology is only a means to an end. In The Jar Jar Flick, the underlying movie, if there ever was one, was upstaged by the technology.

    Perhaps this time, or in III, Lucas will realize that, and redeem himself with his traditional fans. Joseph Campbell would be proud of that behind-the-scenes, Vaderesque, fall and redemption motif. Maybe Lucas is doing it on purpose, consciously or otherwise.

    --
  • Yes, there have been several film systems with greater than 24 frames per second.
    • Todd-AO [widescreenmuseum.com] was originally 65mm negatives shot at 30fps. "Oklahoma!" was filmed that way, as was "Around the World in 80 Days". The trouble with that system was that in order to have the movie shown in non-30fps equipped theaters, a second take of every scene had to be shot at 24 fps. "Oklahoma!" was essentially two movies done side-by-side. Later, Todd-AO was changed to 24fps for compatability, but kept the larger 65mm negative.
    • Cinerama [widescreenmuseum.com] used 3 strips of 35mm film running side-by-side at 26 fps. "How the West Was Won" is one movie filmed in that fashion. Compatability was not a problem for Cinerama because in order to show it at all theaters had to install special equipment anyway, so theaters could upgrade to 26 fps at while installing everything else.
    • Showscan [showscan.com] is a 70mm process done at a whopping 60fps and is currently used for motion-simulator rides and such.
    • Maxivision [maxivision48.com] is new system using 35mm film running at 48 fps that solves the compatability problem that plauged Todd-AO by exactly doubling the normal frame rate, thus allowing every-other-frame prints to be made for normal, 24 fps theaters. It also uses an different sized frame area to get a larger negative (and thus more resolution) than ordinary 35mm. So far, no features have been made in MaxiVision.

    I have also heard Sony is working on getting their digital cameras to work at higher frame rates. Personally, I think they should strive for higher resolution and color range first.

  • I believe he has a part, but it's kinda hard to change the main hero of a movie. It's hard enough to change a member of the supporting cast.

    --
    Ben Kosse

  • Why should he have learned any lessons? Because you, personally, didn't like it? Episode 1 was the second highest grossing movie of all time. What lessons are there to learned from that, from a capitalistic point of view, other than to give people more of the same?
  • Not using film i a huge savings. The single hardest part of the entire filming is developing and color matching - if you don't expose the reels of film EXACTLY the same, the colors don't match and you have problems. This results in different film formulae for different times of day, temperature, etc. With digital, it is much easier to tinker with color etc.

    If you don't believe me, find out just how much the top colorists in hollywood make

  • title? (Score:2)

    by Phexro ( 9814 )
    umm... what about this story [slashdot.org], posted here in mid-august?

    or was that just an unfounded rumor? i know lucas denied it, but wouldn't you deny it too?

    doing a few searches [google.com] shows several "fan scripts" for episode 2.
    --

  • lessons learned (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I hope Lucas learned some lessons from the last the last movie. First, no jar jar. Second, no jar jar. Third, that the script has to have a strong story line. It can't be campy like Star Wars was (admit it, it is a pretty boring script).

    I think Lucas thought he could just throw in some semi-ok script with great spec-effects and the whole world would fall over themselves to see this movie. In this day, when character depth and plot twists, Lucas gives us one sided characters, as well as one sided good guys/bad guys. This is why I liked Tie Fighter (the game); you saw the 'bad guys' as people trying to bring order to the galaxy. The rebels were just trying to destroy that order.

  • I thought star-wars fans were smart! (Score:5)

    by gtx ( 204552 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @01:28PM (#760532) Homepage
    who would steal a script and then make it known to everyone that they were trying to sell it for $100,000?

    on that note, for 100,000 big ones, that mofo better cook me breakfast, suck my cock and sing the star spangled banner for me. That's ridiculous.

    on the subject of jar-jar, i think i know how this should go...

    STAR WARS, EPISODE TWO: DIE GUNGAN BITCH!

    The movie begins with Yoda , Anakin, and Jar-Jar in a room discussing the status quo. Anakin is visably pissed

    Yoda: Anakin, you must not have hatred in your heart, for lead you to the dark side, that will!
    Anakin: But master yoda, I FUCKING HATE JAR-JAR, and i'm going to kill him!
    Jar Jar: Yousa say i'ma gonna die?
    Anakin then unsheathes his light-sabre and rips jar-jar a new one, and jar jar dies.
    Yoda: Kill jar jar you did! Relieved I am, but now Darth Vader you become!
    Anakin: Small price to pay, bitch! Now i don't have to listen to that BITCH for the next 2 HOURS!
    Yoda: Thank you! Complete your training has now become!

    end scene 1
  • ST3 was Search for Spock.

    More like: Ep2: The Wrath of Han
    (ST2: Wrath of Khan)

  • Yea, like the first 3 films had such great plots.

    they did when I was 11.
    --
  • Set in Fremont, a neighborhood of Seattle, in the not-so-distant future, we have the tale of Luke Trollwalker, a fire user extraordinare, who travels under the name of Luke McGuff disguised as a member of the Cirque de Flambe'.

    In this Episode, Luke uses a flaming sword to kill Jar-Jar, a mutant creature which bears a striking resemblance to Yoda before he shrank. Upon killing Jar-Jar, we see that Luke has been transformed into the Dark Sith Lord Bill Gates.

    Bill G, before succumbing fully to the dark side of the Fire, marries his sweetheart, who happens to be one of his VPs. She has two kids and seems to be unaware of the encroaching overlay of the dark side on Bill G's once sunny personality, but wakes up when he sets Larry Ellison's mansion on fire. She escapes to Burning Man, where the dark side cannot see her, and raises the children.

    Coming soon to a multiplex near you.

  • I love all these Episode II speculations. . . (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 22, 2000 @03:08PM (#760545)
    It's fun watching the rumor mill grind and grind. But I have a few questions:
    • Does anyone know if Natalie Portman will be reprising her role as the young Princess Leia?
    • If Luke already met Obi-Wan as a nine year old, why didn't he recognize him in Episode IV?
    • Wouldn't it be really cool if Darth Maul came back? Even cooler if only the top half of him returned from the dead.
    • Will the evolution of Mace Windu into Darth Vader occur in Episode II, or will Spielburg wait until Episode III?
    I'm definitely posting this as AC, so why not go for broke? Beowulf cluster hotgrits goatpr0n beowulf CmdrTaco Gary Coleman.
  • Episode 2: the search for more money

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