This comes not long after the August announcement that the sextet will, for the first time, arrive as a box set in Blu-ray next fall.
The timing of the two finds the mind behind “Star Wars,” George Lucas, mining his favorite find for more gold, but also speaks about the changes in the film industry.
Lucas made repeated remarks about waiting out the high-definition format fisticuffs between Blu-ray and HD-DVD before moving his features to that medium.
It’s a welcome decision, especially for me, someone who put off buying any of them on DVD in the hopes that there would one day be a set with all six. While all six may not be essential, I'm sort of a completist like that.
However, Lucas looks like a bandwagoner when it comes to 3-D.
After last fall’s “Avatar” became the highest grossing movie of all time — due, in no small part, to its breathtaking and ground-breaking 3-D effects — studios became hungry dogs eyeing a choice cut of sirloin. Executives started rubber stamping films into 3-D production.
Films that were not intended to be seen in that way were suddenly being retrofitted, such as “Clash of the Titans” or “The Last Airbender,” the latter of which received horrific reviews for its poor transfer to 3-D. Having M. Night Shyamalan directing probably didn't help, either.
On the whole, however, the collective resurgence of 3-D during the last year feels so gimmicky to me, in the same way “Smell-O-Vision” was a ploy to put butts in seats.
“Avatar” may have re-energized excitement for the medium, but its resurgence is largely artificial. “Despicable Me” and “Toy Story 3,” for example, were movies that would have performed well at the box office regardless of how many dimensions in which they ap- peared. Those that have not fared as well were movies people were shaky on in the first place.
Some in the industry are much more quizzical of the 3-D binge. Christopher Nolan, director of the hotly anticipated third film in the relaunched “Batman” series, has stated on multiple occasions he has no love for the feature.
To be fair, Lucasfilm does not seem like they're doing an “Airbender”-type hack job and rushing the transfer. They're taking their time and giving themselves more than a year to retrofit “Menace” as a starter.
The news about reshaping the films into 3-D has had mixed reaction thus far. While there are many who can't wait to see them re-imaged on the big screen, others have a bad feeling about this. Some wish the mind behind them would stop tinkering with his most famous work.
Will it work? Time will tell, although I'd caution those who will inevitably smirk at the box office haul of “Menace” on its opening weekend to keep in mind that, when it comes to “Star Wars,” the higher the numbers climb, the better the films get. At least, for Episodes 2 through 5, anyway.
I'll give it a shot, especially since I passed on seeing the special edition versions on the big screen back in the '90s.
Those skeptical are well-justified. Lucas doesn't appear to have a purist streak when it comes to leaving the films the way they were initially released, given his tinkering for the special editions in the ’90s and additional tweaks for the 2004 DVD releases.
Han definitely shot first. But not all of Lucas’ fixes were bad. Adding Jabba to “A New Hope” gives him a nice through line to “Return of the Jedi” and seeing the outdoors in Cloud City in “Empire Strikes Back” really gives a better sense of the scope of the universe.
So I'm willing to give him and the 3-D retrofitting job the benefit of the doubt and see them myself in 2012.
But you? You're still doubtful?
Well, I sense much fear in you.
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