lazypadawan's Holocron

You've got to read this amusing tale of a fan's experience at what he thought would be a quiet afternoon at the movies to see TPM 3D again:

http://phantommenaceholiday.tumblr.com/post/18226833885/theyre-burning-him-alive

I think I would have lost it with the funeral scene, heh heh.

The biggest concern I had before the film started was, “Is this going to give me a headache?”

The last 3D film I watched in its entirety was “Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone” in 1983. I haven’t seen any recent movie in 3D, not even “Avatar.” Given that I sometimes get headaches from watching movies in the theater, I was kind of worried.

After having a sushi lunch and figuring out with the theater the deal with tickets I bought for tomorrow on MovieTickets.com (in short, MovieTickets.com totally fluffed my order so I had to repurchase for tomorrow), I got my Darth Maul glasses (whee!) and headed off to the auditorium.

Unfortunately, my AMC theater did NOT have the Clone Wars Darth Maul trailer that’s now online nor did I get the free toy. Those were the only negative things I could say about TPM in 3D.

The film itself looks AMAZING. It was good enough just so I was able to notice details I hadn’t seen in a long time, but the 3D completely enhanced the film. This is not obtrusive, obnoxious 3D. Nor this is a cheap, quickie conversion. If you hadn’t known this film came out in 1999, you’d never know this was not natively shot in 3D. Sure, the battle scenes look great and the pod race is fabulous. We knew those would look good. We knew we’d get the fun of seeing fireballs, lasers, and shrapnel flying toward us, and they do. When that one guy goes flying into the cave wall during the pod race, you recoil a little.

But you know what really impressed me? How the holograms looked. They’re supposed to be three dimensional “in universe” so to speak, but could only look two dimensional on screen. Well, not anymore! Every cockpit scene looking out is amazing.

The thing with this conversion is that at times, it’s so non-intrusive you start to forget it’s a 3D movie…until something else catches your eye that makes you go, “Wow.”

It’s definitely going to be challenging to convert matte painted scenes done for the first set of Star Wars movies, but it will be incredible if they can pull it off. I can’t wait to experience the Hoth battle, the Death Star trench run, or the speeder bike chase in 3D. One thing became very clear to me while watching TPM 3D: Star Wars was born for 3D…it’s just taken 35 years for the technology to catch up.

This weekend is all about partying like it's 1999 because in less than a week, TPM will be back to grace the world with its awesomeness in three-frickin'-dee.

On my Facebook (Lazy Padawan), I'm "dj"-ing a late '90s dance party, remembering the songs that were on the radio as we went in search of the swimming Jar Jar action figure, ate more fried chicken or pizza or tacos to get more TPM goodies, and headed to the theater for yet another showing.

On SWPAS, I've been counting down the last 30 days with 30 Undeniable Facts About TPM.

And you have to check out interesting new stuff posted here: http://acertainpointofview.net/ and this new site, http://phantommenaceholiday.tumblr.com/; it's a hoot.

Plus I'm going to watch "The Beginning," the documentary made for the TPM DVD, and "Waiting For Jar Jar," a short documentary about fans organizing to camp out in front of Washington, D.C.'s Uptown Theater in 1999. Fun stuff.

Get ready to play hooky and call in sick on 2/10/12, for that is the day TPM is unleashed in 3D!

http://www.starwars.com/movies/episode-i/3dannouncedate/index.html#comments

The announcement didn't specify if this is the global release date or if it's just in North America.

Some observations and predictions:

1. I noticed on Twitter most of the bashing came from the lamestream media, Z-list "comedians," and various sheeple. Most of the real fans were happy about the announcement.

2. This falls into the same timeframe as the Special Editions in 1997, after the Christmas releases and before the new summer blockbusters.

3. Expect the lamestream media to completely underestimate box office and enthusiasm, just as it did in 1997.

4. I predict a short preview at Comic Con this summer (damn it, this means sitting all friggin' day in Hall Preparation H).

5. Trailer hits around Thanksgiving.

What about those "Original Two" purists, you must be asking? Well, they have cleverly pulled the National Lampoon shoot-the-puppy tactic by putting the word out that seeing ANH or TESB in 3D will depend on whether the other movies do well. They'll HAVE to see it, ha ha. Besides, I don't think they can resist the opportunity to go online and complain about the conversion.

I'm cooking up a piece for SWPAS on whether the stars are finally lining up for TPM. But Lucasfilm has get to work on shoring up some respect for the film. Like now.

Since I will be pretty much offline May 19, I'm posting my look back at TPM on its 10th anniversary today:

( Almost 10 years ago today )