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GreenCine Movie Talk
	In The Theaters I just saw it and boy does it...	318

Send in the Clones *non-spoiler*
	Topic by: Dwoodwoo Posted: May 16, 2002 - 5:46 PM PDT Last Reply: July 24, 2002 - 7:37 PM PDT

author	topic: Send in the Clones *non-spoiler*
Dwoodwoo	post #1  on May 16, 2002 - 5:46 PM PDT   Okay, the eLine office just came back from seeing Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and as co-Head Nerd, I've been assigned the responsibility of kicking off the "I saw it..." thread. I'm going to kick off a few threads here... 1) Digital Projection: How cool was that? 2) Better than Episode I? 3) "Line!" Somebody, please call a script doctor. Aren't they supposed to fix these things in post? 4) Who kicks the most butt? Butt-kicking hierarchies in the SW universe. 5) Expanded interest in the SW: Expanded Universe. 6) SW Mythology -- Episode II more to hang speculation on than Episode I. 7) "Uneveness" -- what makes a film feel "uneven" and why do these latest episodes feel this way? Okay, the discussion begins now...threads with **SPOILERS** marked as such. dennis! dwoodwoo That should be enough to start. The
ALee	post #2  on May 16, 2002 - 10:57 PM PDT   Three highlights: 1) Natalie Portman, 2) Baaaaaadaaasssss Fighting Yoda, 3) Mace Windu's purple lightsaber...Otherwise, the dialogue was a major disappointment. Can anyone think of any quotable lines that kids will say when they play with their Episode II action figures?
SRhodes	post #3  on May 18, 2002 - 4:38 PM PDT   I haven't seen Clones yet, but Bruce Sterling has a good piece in the New York Times on the entire series.
oldkingcole	post #4  on May 18, 2002 - 9:15 PM PDT   I've just returned from seeing the digitally-projected "print" of Episode II. Last night, I saw the film-projected version. Some thoughts: 1. As good as digital DLP cinema projectors have become, they are still no match for 35mm film -- not by a long shot. I estimate it would take about a four-fold resolution increase to even approach 35mm. 2. The main problems with the digital projection are just what you'd expect: stair-steppy diagonal and curved lines, particularly noticeable on the white lettering subtitling the various alien languages; noticeable pixelization on small details, for example, long shots of a person's face almost always looked like we were seeing it through the metal gridwork of a screen door; and an occasional hint of a convergence problem -- I noticed in one scene a slight red edge to Padme's hair on the left side of her head and a slight blue edge on the right side. Digital cinema is an exciting development, and I'm glad Lucas is pushing the industry to improve by giving them an excellent showcase film like Episode II to use as "demo" material to the public at large. Much of the DLP projector technology is already trickling down into high-end home theater products. The current DLP cinema projector resolution is not really high enough to accomodate an average-sized movie theater screen (in my opinion), but would probably look absolutely awesome on an 8-10ft wide home theater screen, where the pixels would be so much smaller they'd probably become essentially invisble. Color fidelity on the digital version of Star Wars surprised me. The colors were very vibrant, subjectively equaling or maybe even surpassing what I remember from last night's film-based presentation. The only hint of weakness I *might* have noticed was a slight problem with black-level retention: a bright image on one side of the screen sometimes seemed to "grey" the blacks on the other side of the screen. But it wasn't really bad, and to be honest, I'd need to see the film version again to confirm that it wasn't simply something that was in the print, as opposed to an artifact of the digital video projection itself. Overall, the digital cinema projection (not unlike the movie itself) exceeded my somewhat low expectations. It's not the equal of 35mm film yet, but as the technology improves, we should be able to get to a doubling of each dimension's resolution within a couple of years. At that point, it might really be as good as film from a presentation standpoint, and a lot more convenient than film for the studios from a distribution standpoint, since digital movies can be distributed to theaters via satellite uplinks or a couple of dozen DVD-ROM discs, which cost a lot less to ship to thousands of theaters than big 35mm film canisters. Has anyone else seen both the film and video versions of this movie? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the relative merits of the two formats.
SRhodes	post #5  on May 20, 2002 - 1:35 AM PDT   I planning on seeing Clones in one of the theaters with a digital projector sometime this week. In Ebert's review of Clones he complained about the quaility of the film version he saw on a huge screen. He did a follow-up story after seeing a digital version which he though was much better.
oldkingcole	post #6  on May 20, 2002 - 8:55 AM PDT   > On May 20, 2002 - 1:35 AM PST SRhodes wrote: > --------------------------------- > In Ebert's review of Clones he complained about the quaility of the film version he saw on a huge screen. > > He did a follow-up story after seeing a digital version which he though was much better. > --------------------------------- Thanks for the links, Steve. I am at a loss to explain what Ebert saw. After reading the first article, I assumed he had just seen the film version in at a crummy theater with a old, possibly dirty-lensed projector. When I saw Spider-Man a couple of weeks ago, the presentation included, at no extra charge, a vertical black line across the left side of the screen and a larger-than-life thumb-print in the upper left quadrant of the screen. So I know that sometimes theater presentations are less-than-ideal. However, in his follow-up article he claims to have actually gone from the digital screening room to the film one at the same theater during a single showing of the film, and still he prefered the digital. Hmm. I guess I will have to see the movie again on film to see if it seems to lack detail. I certainly didn't think so when I saw the film presentation, but then, I hadn't yet seen the digital one. I will say that of all the folks I've polled who've seen the digital version, they all easily saw and complained about the resolution issues I described above. I do think it's possible that the colors are more vibrant on the digital "print", and perhaps that's what Ebert is responding to; but there are serious pixelization problems which I found much more distracting in the digital presentation than anything in the film version. Ebert makes interesting points about the dialog and the unrealness of the CGI effects, but I still found the movie fun in spite of these problems and in this case, it's hard to see how the movie could be realized any other way.
oldkingcole	post #7  on May 20, 2002 - 8:58 AM PDT   > On May 20, 2002 - 8:55 AM PST oldkingcole wrote: > --------------------------------- > and in this case, it's hard to see how the movie could be realized any other way. > --------------------------------- Er, I meant that with respect to the CGI effects. Obviously, the leaden dialog could've been a lot better.
SRhodes	post #8  on May 20, 2002 - 1:05 PM PDT   You should combine some of your posts and send them in to Ebert for his movie answerman column. One possible answer for the difference in your experiences is he saw it with a brand new digital projector while you may have seen it on an older projector. That is one reason why I can understand why theater owners are reluctant to upgrade. The technology will improve and drop in price. Though the real drop in price will only come with the sale of thousands of the systems. Clones made $116 million during the first four days, slightly more than Spiderman made during the first three days (it is now up to a total of $286 million if I remember right and should pass $300 mullion within the next week). Sunday's SF Chron has an article on deal Lucas has for production and distribution of the films. An interesting Wall Street Journal article last week said that Steve Jobs might push for a similar deal for Pixar with Disney. The force.net has links to lots of articles plus reports from fans. The New York Times has a page with a bunch of their coverage going back to 1977.
oldkingcole	post #9  on May 21, 2002 - 12:43 AM PDT   > On May 20, 2002 - 1:05 PM PST SRhodes wrote: > --------------------------------- > > One possible answer for the difference in your experiences is he saw it with a brand new digital projector while you may have seen it on an older projector. > Steve, the technology for digital cinema is so new, it is hard to imagine that any theater's projector could be "old". I suppose it's possible, but I think all of the theaters here in San Diego that are showing the digital version of Episode II had the equipment installed very recently, just for this showing. I know there were some trials of digital cinema at few US theaters before Episode II was released, but I don't think any of them were here in San Diego. I did talk to a friend today who saw the digital print and didn't notice the pixelization. So it is possible that Ebert just sat far enough back that he couldn't discern the individual pixels, or that if you don't know to specifically look for them, it might be possible to become engrossed in the film and not notice them. I think once you know to look for them, though, they'd be hard to miss. Widescreen Review did a nice technical overview of the digital cinema projector technology in their January 2002 issue, and from what I can tell from that article, resolution is pretty poor. Quoting from Alen Koebel's article, he says: "When digital cinema standards are finally in place (which could take years), the pixel format(s) will likely be larget than what is practical to achieve today, but for now the industry has to take what it can get. And what it can get is essentially equivalent to one of the 1080p production formats defined for HDTV: 1920 x 1080 pixels, progressively scanned at 24 frames per second (the same frame rate as film). Actually, because of the current limitations in the projectors, digital cinema images are often mastered at only 1280 x 1024 pixels placed within a 1920 x 1080 frame; theatrical aspect ratios are then achieved using anamorphic lenses..." If Koebel is right, and I have no reason to think he isn't, then the visible pixels are to be expected, given how low the resolution is. I bet some who are reading this post are running their computer monitors at higher res than 1280 x 1024, and their screens are a whole lot smaller than a movie theater's screen.
SRhodes	post #10  on May 21, 2002 - 8:38 AM PDT   Ebert did say that he saw the film in a huge theater and then the digital version in the same theater, so he may have been a ways back. In San Francisco, the AMC 1000 Van Ness has had a digital projector for at least a couple of years. I don't know if it is still the original system or if it has been upgraded. Salon has a story on Hardwar Wars which has come out on DVD.
oldkingcole	post #11  on July 22, 2002 - 7:15 PM PDT   > On May 18, 2002 - 9:15 PM PST oldkingcole wrote: > --------------------------------- > I've just returned from seeing the digitally-projected "print" of Episode II. Last night, I saw the film-projected version. > > Some thoughts: > > 1. As good as digital DLP cinema projectors have become, they are still no match for 35mm film -- not by a long shot. I estimate it would take about a four-fold resolution increase to even approach 35mm. > > 2. The main problems with the digital projection are just what you'd expect: stair-steppy diagonal and curved lines, particularly noticeable on the white lettering subtitling the various alien languages; noticeable pixelization on small details, for example, long shots of a person's face almost always looked like we were seeing it through the metal gridwork of a screen door; and an occasional hint of a convergence problem -- I noticed in one scene a slight red edge to Padme's hair on the left side of her head and a slight blue edge on the right side. Ok, to follow up on my previous post (excerpted above), I went this weekend to see the digital print of Episode II again, this time at a different theater. Pixelization was much less noticeable this time. Diagonal lines in the white subtitled lettering looked much, much smoother. So it appears that the Boeing digital projection system that I saw on my first digital screening was inferior to the system I saw this time around. There was no Boeing logo ad before the show this time; instead there was a technicolor ad instead. A friend claims that ad also mentioned Qualcomm, but it went by so quickly I didn't catch that. Anyway, I wanted to set the record straight. Folks who didn't notice a lot of stair-steppy pixelization in Star Wars: Episode II weren't necessarily blind! The quality of the image can evidently vary considerably. As this weekend's screening proved to me, it can look pretty good (of course, as the first screening proves, it can also look pretty bad). Gotta love that bleeding edge technology!
SRhodes	post #12  on July 22, 2002 - 7:39 PM PDT   I finally saw Clones on a digital screen at the AMC 1000 a few weeks ago. The image quality was very good, but it still looked very video to me just in the way you can tell the difference between a sit-com shot on video as opposed to film. It was very high-res video, but still video.
oldkingcole	post #13  on July 23, 2002 - 2:20 AM PDT   > On July 22, 2002 - 7:39 PM PST SRhodes wrote: > --------------------------------- > > I finally saw Clones on a digital screen at the AMC 1000 a few weeks ago. > > The image quality was very good, but it still looked very video to me just in the way you can tell the difference between a sit-com shot on video as opposed to film. I wonder if Episode II is really a good test of this. I mean, obviously, in a movie like this, a lot of what we see on-screen is computer generated -- i.e., video -- at its source. I wonder if a more naturalistic movie (I almost said "film". Heh.) would look less like video. That is, is the video look the result of the projection, or the result of the source-material being so frequently generated straight from computer-models which output to, essentially, digital video? It will be interesting to see what new films get released in digital prints.
oldkingcole	post #14  on July 24, 2002 - 7:37 PM PDT   So, has anyone else seen Star Wars: Episode V 1/2: The Han Solo Affair? Talk about special effects! Wow! :-) More seriously, the synthesizer/sampler musical underscore by Jason Graves is a terrific pastiche of John Williams's Star Wars style. What a fun project. The story, according to an article in this month's Film Score Monthly is that some folks at Lucasfilm heard Graves's score to a Star Wars fan film (Seeds of Darkness -- anyone seen it?) and liked it enough to hire him for the Episode V 1/2 Lego project. How cool is that?? (Answer: very!)