Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox announced today that the 3D theatrical launch of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace now has an official release date — February 10, 2012. StarWars.com has posted a video about the conversion of the 2-D film into 3-D.
John Knoll is leading the team in painstakingly converting Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace to 3D (or stereo, as it’s called in the visual effects business). Here, he talks about what he’s looking for in the process.
Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers invaded Panasonic’s booth at CES 2011 and have made the following announcement. Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox will be releasing the complete Star Wars saga, that is all 6 Star Wars films, to BluRay in September 2011. This will be billed as the 35th anniversary collection, since the first film was originally released on May 25, 1977. You might think that the six films will come on six BluRay disks. You would be wrong. Instead it will come on nine disks and feature more than 30 hours of extras. The cost for the entire six films is $139.99. The cost for either the original trilogy or the prequel trilogy is about $70. Right now on Amazon they have the original trilogy on BluRay for $44.99 with the prequel trilogy at the same price. Amazon has the complete saga for $89.99.
Don’t forget, that in 2012 we will also be treated to seeing Star Wars in 3-D at the movie theaters. The first film to be released will be Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
The Blue Sky Disney blog is reporting the George Lucas is not content with just having the Star Wars Trilogy released in 3-D. Lucas also wants to release the Indiana Jones series in 3-D as well. The first and the third movies I would buy, but do not expect me to ever buy numbers two and four.
Next month, Lucasfilm will announce that they’re converting the Indiana Jones Saga to 3D as well. The films will be converted and released in a similar fashion as the Star Wars films with “Raiders of the Lost Ark” the first out of the gate.
Lucas has been bitten by the 3D bug since “Avatar” showed the possible/promise of the technology, so other parts of the Lucasfilm catalog could be on the horizon as well…
The news is all over the web that George Lucas has green lighted converting Star Wars into 3-D. Since the movies were originally shot in 2-D, this will mean that a 2-D to 3-D conversion process will be used. The first film to be released will be Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. You can expect it to be released in 2012.
Just think. Now you get to see all your favorite characters in 3-D, such as Jar-Jar Binks and the Ewoks.
It had been reported that Lucas had delayed converting the Star Wars movies into 3D until there were enough screens available to screen them.
Following the success of James Cameron’s Avatar, which broke several box office records, 3D movies have become more common.
This year, Alice In Wonderland, Toy Story 3 and Shrek Forever After were all released in 3D and proved to be a big hit at cinemas.
But reactions to the news about Star Wars have been mixed.
Yeah, I am sure the reactions are mixed. How well can you do a 2-D to 3-D conversion? What about the first movie? You know, the real first movie – Star Wars: A New Hope – which was released in 1977. How well can you do a 2-D to 3-D conversion on that?
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