Star Wars: Episode VIII (The Last Jedi) - SPOILERS POSSIBLE*

I have the Best Buy steelbook on preorder because I am a sucker for shiny things.

 

I thought Disney doesn't "do" 4K yet?*

*With a few minor exceptions.

 

They've been doing it for every major new release since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 last August. What they haven't done yet to my knowledge is Dolby Vision on disc. Fingers crossed that The Last Jedi will be their first.

 

Wonder when they'll bring TFA to 4k?

 

Good question. And while we're at it, they should release Rogue One in 4K, too....

 

While generally I enjoyed TLJ, I do understand the sentiment. I myself realize the saga is outgrowing me. I'm interested in seeing how IX wraps up this 9 movie cycle, but beyond that, I think that will be the last time I automatically run to the theater that opening weekend to see a Star Wars movie. But, never say never.

 

Good point. Hopefully they'll release the OT ( both cuts!) and the Phantom Menace in 4k eventually too. Given AOTC and ROTS were shot digitally , that won't happen with those two movies.

 

I wouldn't say never on AOTC and ROTS. A lot of the current titles on UHD are just 2K titles upscaled to 4K. A small increase in detail is possible, but the real benefit would be the UHD wide-gamut color and application of HDR. Paging @Vidiot to either back me up or shoot me down.

 

There's a lot of "it depends" to this. Attack of the Clones was shot with prototype Sony F900 digital cameras in HD, and all the VFX were done in 2K. Revenge of the Sith was shot with the improved Sony F35 cameras, but still in HD, and the VFX were still done completely in 2K. With The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, they were shot on 35mm film and scanned in 4K, but all the VFX work was done in 2K. It would theoretically be possible to do the "pure" live action shots in 4K, but when there's 2000 VFX shots out of 2500 total shots in the film, it's kind of moot at that point. Many, many, many effects-heavy films are still finished in 2K: I asked a friend of mine who worked on Jedi about the 4K thing, and he laughed and said "if we had finished it completely in 4K, it wouldn't be ready for theaters for six more months." It's more a time thing than a money thing.

HDR is totally possible, but (interestingly) there is no standard for high-def HDR. In order to get HDR, you have to go for the 4K. I would think a sophisticated 4K uprez is going to look fine -- the difference between 2K and 4K is not gigantic.

 

Is the milking scene there?

 

No idea. I haven’t seen it, as I happen to LOVE the female characters in this film.

 

Somewhat off-topic, I remember reading about the early days of digital movie cameras. George said he used them for one scene in The Phantom Menace, but he wouldn't say which. My guess was the scene where Qui-Gon draws Anakin's blood and uploads it to Obi-Wan; it looked a little funky to me, especially the one shot where Anakin says he wants to be the first one to see all the stars in the galaxy. Some kind of stuttered motion there, like something out of Fury Road.

Did George ever tell you which scene was shot digitally?

 

LMAO!!!

 

No, but when I worked on the movie Vertical Limit with DP David Tattersall, he did regale me with many stories about how much of a struggle it was to get the Sony HD cameras to work on those films. Tattersall told me that the prototype Sony F900 was used on that night scene, and I guessed that one because of the noise there. Interestingly, he said the cameras only ran at 25fps -- Sony fought the idea of embracing 24fps and the "film look" -- and they just lived with the speed change, since it was only about a minute long. I thought the whole thing was noisy and a little "jaggedy" looking. He told me that the Sony engineers were reluctant to turn off some of the built-in enhancement designed into the cameras, and they had to kind of beat them up to make sure all that artificial stuff was capable of being defeated. Things went a lot more smoothly on Attack of the Clones, which was pretty much all F35 except for slo-mo explosions, which were shot in 35mm film.

Tattersall is a really gracious and kind man, very low-key, laid-back, but also right on top of anything technical. He also gets how the image fits into telling the story and is a really bright guy in seeing "the big picture."

 

Unbelievable.

 

So basically it's 46 minutes frames of space and space ships, plus one scene with Leia floating in space?

 

I take it back. Rob Cain isn't king Troll. This guy is the once and future Troll king. ( *Takes crown from Mr. Cain...Thanks him for his service). I mean...This HAS to be a joke,right?

All hail the new king of the trolls!!
All hail Supreme leader Kylololo Ren!

 

How Star Wars lost its luster

 

Three movies in three years might do that to any franchise.

 

Not Marvel seemingly... and they're even more frequent. Nor did it happen on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy between 2001-03.

I've come to the conclusion that SW is just creatively spent at this point; it's either a Sequel Trilogy that has offered nothing of substance (but a LOT of regurgitation) or useless prequel standalones that offer stories didn't even need to be told to begin with... and as for the next trilogy, well good luck with that, but I'll not be there; SW without the Skywalker story is like The Godfather without the Corleone story... and both are like a pencil without any lead;

Utterly pointless.

 

I don't know why I wasted my time reading that. Completely pointless highly subjective moaning.

 

Marvel has a much wider universe of characters to draw feature films from. And you want to talk about creatively spent and utterly pointless? The Hobbit Trilogy.

 

I don't understand this view at all. SW is a huge universe with so much to enjoy in it. Limiting it to just the Skywalkers is incredibly silly. It's like limiting the Beatles to songs Ringo sings.

I have watched and read many stories not connected with any Skywalkers, as I expect most SW fans have. For example people love the Old Republic stuff, and I would love to see a trilogy of all that at some point and the Jedi/Sith war. I read Lost Stars which is also a great read and have no problem being in the SW universe with different characters. One of my old favourite games was the Jango Fett Bounty Hunter Game.

The scope of SW is just huge both in geography and time, one of the things that people love about SW is how the whole world is created. Then why limit it to just a soap opera about some dysfunctional family? Nuts.

 

The only point I'll concede is that the one movie every year is too much. I think one every other year would be a happy balance. The fact were getting SOLO in 5 months is crazy.

The rest? Well... It's subjective. I personally don't mind we got prequels. I just wish they were better told, but Lucas had the right to tell that story, even if vocal segments of the fan base preferred to just have their own head canon and would have screamed bloody murder even if the films were the greatest of the three trilogies.

The attitude some have is that there are certain stories you shouldn't tell is frankly fan entitlement. Fans shouldn't ever have veto power over what kinds of stories a franchise does. Hell...It could be argued part of the reason there are so many recycled elements in this trilogy is in part because Disney " listened to the fans" and gave us a sequel trilogy that's Central conflict is Empire vs. Rebellion again, because for about a decade the vocal anti Prequels fanbase wanted a return to what they saw as the fundamentals of Star Wars.

That being said, No story idea should be off limits or considered sacred or taboo. If you don't want to see it... Don't watch it. Ignore it. It's that simple.

And it's hyperbolic of the author that everyone has forgotten TLJ already. Conversations at my workplace New articles every day, and this very thread seems to contradict their assertion that it's inconsequential and forgotten.