Lord of the Rings on Blu Ray — Page 2

C3PX said:

If the use of film were to come to an end, it would be the loss of an art form.

I kind of see it the opposite way.  Digital will get cheaper and cheaper while film will just get more expensive.  So fewer people might end up using film, but it'll still be there as an art form.

Similarly, with digital photography you no longer have to worry about having enough film to get that "killer shot".  As long as you have enough space on the memory card, you can take pictures to your hearts content.  When you get home to your "digital darkroom" you can then pick out that one great shot out of the hundreds of photos you took.  Maybe you didn't get the ISO right or maybe the exposure time was to long on one shot.  As long as it was right on the one shot out of 20, then you still got your shot.  And of course it's also possible to "make" that one great shot if one photo is close but not quite right.  The difference is that instead of it costing you 80% of a roll of film (assuming 24 frames and math I don't feel like doing) it didn't cost you anything for the digital shot.

Of course, there are still people who would prefer to wait and try to get that perfect shot.  To them I say good luck.  It'll be a little more expensive for them, but if they enjoy it, then so be it.

Bah, to me the issue boils down to reality before aesthetics. I do like the feeling that grain gives an image but my reason for that is because its a real thing. Real visuals are filled with chaotic depth that our eyes can get lost in and changes from one instant of time to another. Film that captures images in a grainy way feel more seamless to the way I see in the real world (albeit less fine of course). By comparison, even a fantastic film like Apocalypto feels slightly less real to me with the overly smooth, non-deep visuals it got from using a digital camera.

After that, I find it insulting to think that an old movie has to be smoothed out by some computer program for me to enjoy it. It's absurd to say that grain equals a lack of clarity. I actually think my brain does a far superior job of figuring out what I'm looking at before I need some DNR or "Lowry" program to assist me. When I look at a grainy image I see the separated flecks combining into whole objects and I lose no detail (as apposed to looking at Lowry's "fixed" Sleeping Beauty which looks soft and blurry at parts). In light of that, preserving the statistical reality of the real photons and real molecules that interacted to capture real world images is very important to me. Reality should have value in and of itself when all things are equal. So, then, if grain preserves reality without sacrificing clarity (since brain is already good at piecing it together) why should we then go back and change things for no reason?

Seriously, do the brains of people who greatly dislike film grain function so differently from my own? Are they unable to compute a fleck of light and color as something that should be combined with some other, offset flecks of light and color? I never even noticed film grain until people started talking about it so much. Now that I've been watching for it I'm convinced it feels more natural and real.

(Only after all that will I agree that grain can be an interesting aesthetic choice.)

zombie84 said:

 Audiophiles listen to vinyl records, cinematographers shoot in 35mm film, photographers use chemical emulsions in whatever format and painters use oil or water based pigments on a physical surface. Digital emulation is not a replacement for any of the above, not yet and not ever.

Very well said!

zombie84 said:

lordjedi said:

C3PX said:

If the use of film were to come to an end, it would be the loss of an art form.

I kind of see it the opposite way.  Digital will get cheaper and cheaper while film will just get more expensive.  So fewer people might end up using film, but it'll still be there as an art form.

Similarly, with digital photography you no longer have to worry about having enough film to get that "killer shot".  As long as you have enough space on the memory card, you can take pictures to your hearts content.  When you get home to your "digital darkroom" you can then pick out that one great shot out of the hundreds of photos you took.  Maybe you didn't get the ISO right or maybe the exposure time was to long on one shot.  As long as it was right on the one shot out of 20, then you still got your shot.  And of course it's also possible to "make" that one great shot if one photo is close but not quite right.  The difference is that instead of it costing you 80% of a roll of film (assuming 24 frames and math I don't feel like doing) it didn't cost you anything for the digital shot.

Of course, there are still people who would prefer to wait and try to get that perfect shot.  To them I say good luck.  It'll be a little more expensive for them, but if they enjoy it, then so be it.

 

In photoshop there is an acrylic paintbrush option. It looks the same as a real acrylic brush stroke, you can edit the parameters including strength and brush coarseness, and you have much more precise color mixing options. You can erase and re-paint at the stroke of a mouse click and more importantly you don't have to buy acrylic paints, which are expensive, spend time mixing palettes, use easels and canvases which are bulky, space consuming and cost money, and you dont have to buy fancy brushes with specially made hairs. Plus you have digital filters and plug-ins and the ability to have unlimited image manipulation in the digital realm.

But would you want all fine art made in photoshop?

If the emulation in Photoshop is as good as it sounds, I challenge anyone to tell the difference anyway.

With that said, Adobe must have had some kind of demand for a feature like that.  Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to implement it.  Something tells me that the "purists" didn't want it, but the aspiring artists and others did (this is based on nothing more than the comments here).  If it's indistinguishable from the real thing, why does it matter what tool (that's all Photoshop is, a tool) was used to make it?

Film is the exact same. Anyone who tries to argue differently either doesn't actually  understand the art of photography or doesn't care in the first place. To those people, digital is an efficient trade off in speed and quality, but for people that care about the art its not a replacement. Audiophiles listen to vinyl records, cinematographers shoot n 35mm film, photographers use chemical emulsions in whatever format and painters use oil or water based pigments on a physical surface. Digital emulation is not a replacement for any of the above, not yet and not ever.

Audiophiles listen to vinyl not because it's an art form, but because it more accurately reproduces the sound (or so they say).  Sure, you can reproduce pops and clicks in a digital file, but audiophiles don't listen to vinyl to hear the pops and clicks (those are a side effect of the media).

Cinematographers shoot in 35mm because it has a much higher resolution than digital (for the forseeable future).  I'm sure they also choose their film based on how much grain is there too, but somehow I doubt they'd mind if they could get the same thing with no grain.  If they can indeed choose film that has as little grain as possible, then why wouldn't they choose a medium that could reach the same resolution with no grain at all?

Photographers use chemical emulsions because that was the only way to do it for 100 years.  Digital photography is nearly indistinguishable from film, so many photographers have switched to digital.  They save money and they save time and they're getting the same results.

If a piece of art gets people talking and looks really good, why does it matter if it was done in Photoshop or with brush strokes?  And if you can't tell the difference, why does it matter even more?  Isn't the point of art to express yourself?  If Photoshop lets someone do that for 1/10 the price, what's the problem?  Why does the medium matter at all?

You guys are starting to sound like the people that didn't want sound in movies or didn't want to see color when it arrived.  Both of those ushered in changes to the way movies were made and how things were done.  Digital is no different.  Just because there's no grain does not mean that film making becomes any less of an art.  You'll still have plenty of shit movies, the only thing that will change is the medium.

I've yet to read a convincing argument why digital is somehow worse than film other than the available resolution.  A shitty movie is going to be a shitty movie no matter what it's shot on.  But a good movie, a really good movie, is going to be good whether it has grain or not.  Lack of grain isn't somehow going to make an otherwise stellar movie into a piece of shit.

Man, I can't believe I'd been missing this thread for so long!  Honestly, the title didn't really interest me, but then I noticed that it was suddenly getting a lot of traffic, so I decided to check it out!  Lo and behold, a fun film discussion!

I doubt I have anything new to add at the moment, so I guess I'll just lay my own opinions on the line.  For me, film preservation is a no-brainer.  Yes, keep the grain!  No, don't colorize!  No, don't try to force something made decades ago to fit current, popular aesthetics.  Don't alter aspect ratios to fit the sizes of TVs, whether that ratio is the 4:3 of SD TVs or the 16:9 of new TVs.  It's all ridiculous and is going to continually be a bone of contention between people who know better and the "average consumer."  And, for some reason, the average consumer is never going to be convinced to be educated.

As for the succession of technology, I consider that much more of a gray area.  I've only ever done digital editing.  I'd love the chance to try out editing on actual film.  However, part of me wonders, like lordjedi, if the trade-off does allow for comparable results with much less fuss.  It seems, especially with this digital shift in medium, that there is always some sort of trade-off, and it usually seems to be quality for ease.  Some people see it as being worth it.  Others don't.  I'm on the fence.  However, it seems that most people here agree that, ultimately, technology will win out, for better or for worse.  If that is the case, and digital is ever able to provide a comparable image, I suppose it will have to come down to aesthetics, where digital provides a certain-looking image while film provides another style.

I'm curious, though.  Does anybody here think that digital will ever be able to replicate the look of film (not just match resolution) that not even videophiles will be able to tell the difference?  If that day comes, then I suppose that would truly be the death of film.

Gaffer Tape said:I doubt I have anything new to add at the moment, so I guess I'll just lay my own opinions on the line.  For me, film preservation is a no-brainer.  Yes, keep the grain!  No, don't colorize!  No, don't try to force something made decades ago to fit current, popular aesthetics.  Don't alter aspect ratios to fit the sizes of TVs, whether that ratio is the 4:3 of SD TVs or the 16:9 of new TVs.  It's all ridiculous and is going to continually be a bone of contention between people who know better and the "average consumer."  And, for some reason, the average consumer is never going to be convinced to be educated.

I agree with this 100%.  I still have trouble convincing people that the "black bars" are suppose to be there.  And now the same thing is happening with grain.  If it's suppose to be there, then I have no problem with it.  Hell, I use to be one of those uneducated consumers that didn't know about widescreen.  Once I did find out though, that's all I wanted.  Once I learned the difference between "widescreen" and anamorphic widescreen, the black bars didn't bother me at all (when I first same them on my widescreen TV, I was pissed).

It took years to educate the public about how much better widescreen is.  It's going to take years and many a screwed up release to educate them that the grain they're seeing is suppose to be there and isn't dirt.

As for the succession of technology, I consider that much more of a gray area.  I've only ever done digital editing.  I'd love the chance to try out editing on actual film.  However, part of me wonders, like lordjedi, if the trade-off does allow for comparable results with much less fuss.  It seems, especially with this digital shift in medium, that there is always some sort of trade-off, and it usually seems to be quality for ease.  Some people see it as being worth it.  Others don't.  I'm on the fence.  However, it seems that most people here agree that, ultimately, technology will win out, for better or for worse.  If that is the case, and digital is ever able to provide a comparable image, I suppose it will have to come down to aesthetics, where digital provides a certain-looking image while film provides another style.

I've spliced home videos together.  Personally, I don't ever want to have to do it again.  I was only repairing a broken real, but it was a pain in the ass.  I've spliced VHS movies together too, same pain in the ass.  I would much rather do digital editing than have to painstakingly edit together reals of film into a usable product.  That's mostly because I can see the actual results as I'm working and it's much quicker to zoom in on a frame of video and find the scene change.  I can't imagine splicing film together though, that would be a nightmare (to me) for anything more than a simple repair.

lordjedi said:

I agree with this 100%.  I still have trouble convincing people that the "black bars" are suppose to be there.  And now the same thing is happening with grain.  If it's suppose to be there, then I have no problem with it.  Hell, I use to be one of those uneducated consumers that didn't know about widescreen.  Once I did find out though, that's all I wanted.  Once I learned the difference between "widescreen" and anamorphic widescreen, the black bars didn't bother me at all (when I first same them on my widescreen TV, I was pissed).

Just to make sure we're on the same page, I'm not as concerned about widescreen itself as I am about original aspect ratios.  It's taken nearly two decades of home video (and decades before that of television broadcasts) of chopping up movie frames to holy hell before people finally started to get educated.  The only problem is, that now that widescreen TVs are becoming the norm, the opposite problem is happening with the uninformed consumer:  television shows and movies are being cropped to fit this new wide television screen without pillarboxing.  They did it on those crappy DBZ season box sets, and they've done it on a few Disney movies.  It almost seems like we got across the wrong message.  Widescreen's suddenly the new "thing," so everybody wants it wide, regardless of how it's supposed to be.  Well, that, and the same people who complained about horizontal black bars and never learned any better are now complaining about vertical black bars and still probably won't know any better.  It's cringeworthy when people stretch out a 4:3 image to fit a 16:9 screen.  I saw my roommate go above and beyond that.  He was watching a dual-sided DVD.  One side was 4:3, and the other was widescreen.  He was watching the pan and scan version stretched out to widescreen.  I think a few synapses in my brain blew out when I realized the total lack of logic in that.

Gaffer Tape said:

It's cringeworthy when people stretch out a 4:3 image to fit a 16:9 screen.  I saw my roommate go above and beyond that.  He was watching a dual-sided DVD.  One side was 4:3, and the other was widescreen.  He was watching the pan and scan version stretched out to widescreen.  I think a few synapses in my brain blew out when I realized the total lack of logic in that.

Wow, just reading those few sentences literally made me shudder. How odd such a thing should evoke such a response. I think this would be a far more effective form of torture than waterboarding. I could only watch a few minutes of 4:3 image stretched to fit 16:9 (or 16:9 squished to fit 4:3) before I'd spill the beans and betray my friends, familiy members, or country. Tear off all my finger nails, pull out all my teeth, but please... don't stretch or squish the damn image...

Gaffer Tape said:

lordjedi said:

I agree with this 100%.  I still have trouble convincing people that the "black bars" are suppose to be there.  And now the same thing is happening with grain.  If it's suppose to be there, then I have no problem with it.  Hell, I use to be one of those uneducated consumers that didn't know about widescreen.  Once I did find out though, that's all I wanted.  Once I learned the difference between "widescreen" and anamorphic widescreen, the black bars didn't bother me at all (when I first same them on my widescreen TV, I was pissed).

Just to make sure we're on the same page, I'm not as concerned about widescreen itself as I am about original aspect ratios.  It's taken nearly two decades of home video (and decades before that of television broadcasts) of chopping up movie frames to holy hell before people finally started to get educated.  The only problem is, that now that widescreen TVs are becoming the norm, the opposite problem is happening with the uninformed consumer:  television shows and movies are being cropped to fit this new wide television screen without pillarboxing.  They did it on those crappy DBZ season box sets, and they've done it on a few Disney movies.  It almost seems like we got across the wrong message.  Widescreen's suddenly the new "thing," so everybody wants it wide, regardless of how it's supposed to be.  Well, that, and the same people who complained about horizontal black bars and never learned any better are now complaining about vertical black bars and still probably won't know any better.  It's cringeworthy when people stretch out a 4:3 image to fit a 16:9 screen.  I saw my roommate go above and beyond that.  He was watching a dual-sided DVD.  One side was 4:3, and the other was widescreen.  He was watching the pan and scan version stretched out to widescreen.  I think a few synapses in my brain blew out when I realized the total lack of logic in that.

Haha.  That is pretty strange.  If given the choice, I'll always take the wide aspect version.  Unfortunately, I can't get all my channels in a wide format, so I'm forced to watch 4:3 ratio programming stretched to 16:9.  It's either that or I end up with burn in on the sides (my tv had burn in marks that I could see, so I stopped watching it like that).  But otherwise I agree that watching a 4:3 program stretched out is cringeworthy.

I haven't seen any TV shows that don't use pillarboxing where appropriate.  Most of the local HD news channels use it, they just don't use black (usually some kind of swirly blue color).  As for other tv shows, I'm assuming they're filming them in wide aspect now.  I know the last few seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer were filmed in widescreen, so they match the aspect of a wide tv.  I'm assuming Smallville is filmed the same way now since they also match the aspect of a wide tv (at least the HD channel does).

Aesthetically i cannot abide cgi and HD Video.  HD video looks to clean and plastic and the Colors are all too computer like, almost like watching a videogame.  CGI looks all fake and unrealistic and is still not even a replacement for traditional animation, much less For traditional effects with Models that Look real because they are a phsyical reality and are not 1's and 0's in a computer.

To me the only reason hollywood has adopted these technologies is the same as the Independants for cost saving methods, ease of use, and quick editing and turnaround of footage.  You can have now see what you actually are getting on Video in realtime without having to wait for the rushes to come back from the Lab.

Not only that but because the format is already digital it already conforms to the standard for digital editing and does not need to be scanned in and then manipulated digitally.  Like George Lucas has said you can skip a step and save money and time.

He wanted to shoot Episode one on HD Cams but the technology was just not where it needed to be yet.  He was satfisfied by the Time Episode II came around to use it. 

It is funny that the Avid digital editing system is a throwback to Lucas developed Editdroid.  Lucas was the one who pioneered the Idea of digital editing.  One of the First people to cut on video was a  friend of his Francis Ford Copola .  He experimented with it but did not do the final cut on it.  I believe the rough cut for Apocalypse Now was done on video that was not even broadcast quality.

zombie84 said:

But this notion that grain is inherantly bad is not only wrong, it completely misunderstands the argument in the first place.

And I'm not saying it's bad.  It's a part of the medium.  I get it.  I totally do.  What I was asking, and you answered, is that if you could have the image without the grain, would you take it?  Apparently some DPs wouldn't.  There's nothing wrong with that.  But you also stated that DPs can choose film stock that has a very fine grain.  So by extension, if they needed as little grain in the image as possible, would they not choose a medium that provided no grain if it was available?  Since they can have difference levels of grain in the same movie, I can imagine that if they wanted something with nearly no grain, they would take it.  And if something was available that gave them the same image without the grain and they didn't want any grain, why wouldn't they take it?

Photographers use chemical emulsions because that was the only way to do it for 100 years.

Hmm, yet they still do it. I wonder why that is? Let me guess, they are all old luddites afraid of change who cling on to what they are familiar with. Yeah, sure.

I know plenty of photographers.  The ones that still use traditional film do it because even though it costs them more, they view photography as an art form.  They actually don't like the ability to take 100s of pictures on a single shoot, find that killer shot, and then discard the rest.  They like to take their time and wait for that one killer shot.  They pay for it too.  They have to conserve their film and they have to pay all the costs for processing and storage (they don't throw bad shots away).  Most of them don't do it for anything more than a full time hobby any more since they can't compete with the photographers who are using digital and don't have the same costs they do.  This is what I've heard from photographers and read in photography magazines.

Digital photography is nearly indistinguishable from film, so many photographers have switched to digital.

WRONG!! Maybe to the layman it is.

No, this comes from professional photographers that I know.  As of about 5 megapixels, to the naked eye, they could not tell the difference of an 8x10 35 mm shot vs an 8x10 digital shot.  They had to use a loop to see the differences.  That was 6 or so years ago when I confronted one about his love for digital photography.  At the time, there was a slight split between him and other people he knew between film and digital.  Film was preferred by some simply because they felt there was more detail, even though it was imperceptible.  He had gone straight digital since he had seen side by side comparisons of digital shots and 35mm.  They were indistinguishable to him and many others that looked at them.

 

If a piece of art gets people talking and looks really good, why does it matter if it was done in Photoshop or with brush strokes?

Because if you see the real Starry Night by Van Gough you'd know that what you get in photoshop doesn't even begin to approximate that. Its quite laughable. But hell, using Van Gough is a pretty bold example, go down to an art college and check out any random painting. The photoshop plug-ins weren't meant to replace brush and pigment. They are there for graphic design, for a cheap, quick disposable way of getting "the idea" across that its supposed to be brush and pigment. For photoshop, yeah, its pretty good. For photoshop.

So I'm suppose to judge how good art is by the brush strokes in the painting and not by how it looks?  That sounds kind of lame and elitist to me.

HD was made for news. AOTC was shot using a news camera that had a cine lens frankensteined onto it.

Pardon me for saying this, but AOTC is a horrible example to use.  Hell, any Star Wars prequel is a horrible example to use.  I 100% agree that those movies should not have been shot with "HD cams" simply because they'll never look any better than they do.  They are maxed out right now at 1080p.  If there's something better 10 or 20 years from now, they'll never look any better.  At least with 35mm, they can take the raw 4k scan and give us a 2k HD video (if something like that comes along).  That'll never be available for the prequels.

I know all this because I work in the biz. I'm part of the International Cinematographer's Guild and have seen the key years from 2005-2008 when people outside of George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez actually started adopting HD.

One day, HD will solve MOST of its problems. Maybe by 2020. Maybe not. People have already been brainwashed that "HD=good" so it'll happen unless people start smartening up. You see it in the names of products--they'll throw "HD" in the product label to subconsciously make you think its better, even when it has nothing to do with digital video display (hell, everything from printers to blenders to exercise equipment). And they've already been partially succcessful in brainwashing people that the inherant characteristics of HD--clear images with sharp edges--are good; "look at how CLEAN this is! Its not dirty! Its really SHARP! You can SEE everything really clear!" A lot of this has to do with the parallel explosion in high-res video games. So I guess the public consciousness of the layperson is shifting. They want movies to look like their X-Box and they want their expensive plasma TV's that they paid out of their ass for to display like you are looking into a mirror. The film industry is driven by different pressures than other fine art mediums. But most cinematographers have been doing their best to resist this, to slow down the process and, hopefully, drive high-def video into a more acceptable aesthetic before its ready for wide professional adoption. For the average guy, the ease and versatility of video is a welcome trade off, but there's a reason why, when you are spending millions and millions of dollars to produce a film, photographers are deliberately going with chemical emulsions.

I agree with probably all of this.  It's even happened with radio.  "Listen to us on HD radio 101.1!".  The HD doesn't even stand for hi-def, but people think it does.

IMHO, HD for hi-def is good.  The more resolution you can get on a screen, the better.  If I end up being able to see grain, I'm ok with that.  As long as what's there is what's suppose to be there, I have no problem with it.  Unfortunately, I'm probably in the minority and this isn't in the same league as the "widescreen problem".  You're right that people want a crisp and clear image.  Knowing that, it's going to be nearly impossible to convince people that the grain is suppose to be there without going through everything you've mentioned here.  People are going to see the "flaws" and get angry.

Johnboy3434 said:

zombie84 said:

"look at how CLEAN this is! Its not dirty! Its really SHARP! You can SEE everything really clear!"

 

Are you implying that crystal clarity is an inherently bad thing? Okay, let's flip the argument around. Instead of "Why should we remove grain?" let's ask "Why shouldn't movies have the picture quality of a polished mirror?" And I'm not talking about movies that already exist. I'm talking about for films that have yet to be made.

Your argument is flawed. It assumes that the lack of grain equals more detail. Grain is a detail in and of itself (that may or may not have aesthetic value). This detail, I believe, works with our brains better than some smooth, supposedly solid image does. It reflects a reality that is statistical and random. Hiding that and making an image smooth and solid is simply a different way to display reality and one that I do not believe is as compatible with the way people think. People intuitively grasp physical reality with some chaos more than they can grasp a physical reality designed to be as simple and controlled as possible (though we may understand the latter more in a simplistic, logical sense, I do not believe it resonates with the whole of our beings to the same degree and would love to see some scientists study this issue).

Essentially, film grain is not something apposed to high resolution, it is another approach to resolution entirely, and one that I believe communicates more real data. As such, digital, electronic images designed to make everything look smooth and solid can be just as identified with "low resolution" as grainy film is. Likewise, grainy film can be identified with high resolution. Film grain is simply a different technique to arrive at a low or high resolution, it is not just low or high in and of itself.

I honestly agree.  I'm an audiophile, so I undersatnd where said "purists" of film are coming from.  On the subject of aspect ratios, I don't mind stretching pictures when you're watching it on a widescreen TV; sometimes, that actually is less distracting.  Of course I'd mind if a company did it though, becuase it's tampering.  Don't even get me started on DragonBall.

zombie84 said:Hmm, yet they still do it. I wonder why that is? Let me guess, they are all old luddites afraid of change who cling on to what they are familiar with. Yeah, sure.

I know plenty of photographers.  The ones that still use traditional film do it because even though it costs them more, they view photography as an art form.  They actually don't like the ability to take 100s of pictures on a single shoot, find that killer shot, and then discard the rest.  They like to take their time and wait for that one killer shot.  They pay for it too.  They have to conserve their film and they have to pay all the costs for processing and storage (they don't throw bad shots away).  Most of them don't do it for anything more than a full time hobby any more since they can't compete with the photographers who are using digital and don't have the same costs they do.  This is what I've heard from photographers and read in photography magazines.

But this is the fundamental part of the issue you're apparently not quite understanding--film LOOKS different.

But that's not at all what I said.  What I said was that they like the way film feels.  What I meant was that they do in fact like going through all this trouble because they feel more connected to the images they're taking.  Unlike the person who'll just shoot and shoot and shoot hundreds of photos and not worry about running out of space on the memory card, the person shooting on film has to stop and think about exactly what they're doing.  They have to consider how much film they have left, is this really a good shot, should I wait and maybe get a better one.  That's not to say the digital photographers are just shooting willy nilly hoping to land a shot, but the film photographer has to take a lot more into consideration.

I've seen this myself when I've been out with my wife and son.  I'll take a bunch of photos, say 5 to 10, of them in one spot.  I get home and it turns out that maybe 2 of them are good shots.  If I was still using film, I'd probably take one or two pictures and just deal with the results (which would hopefully be decent).  In a given day, using film, I'd say I end up with maybe 5 good shots.  Using digital, I usually end up with 20 or so.  If I were a professional photographer, having an increase like that would be a godsend.

That is why it's referred to as a dying art form.  The majority of photographers are not willing to spend that much time thinking about what they're shooting.  They just want the shot.  The quicker they can get it, the better.

HD was made for news. AOTC was shot using a news camera that had a cine lens frankensteined onto it.

Pardon me for saying this, but AOTC is a horrible example to use.  Hell, any Star Wars prequel is a horrible example to use.  I 100% agree that those movies should not have been shot with "HD cams" simply because they'll never look any better than they do.  They are maxed out right now at 1080p.  If there's something better 10 or 20 years from now, they'll never look any better.  At least with 35mm, they can take the raw 4k scan and give us a 2k HD video (if something like that comes along).  That'll never be available for the prequels.

Again--resolution is not what I'm talking about. Resolution is the least of the issues. AOTC looks like shit not because its 1080p, but because of the way the digital sensor captures the image. The quality--the characteristics--are ugly. There's no black detail, shadows break up and even show digital artifacts, theres really high depth of field, the edges are really sharp and harsh, everythings way too crisp (despite the low resolution), colors bleed, theres not a very nice pallete, theres noise galore, especially in dark scenes, and everything simply looks mushy and gross. This has nothing to do with resolution. And much of these issues continue to this day. THATS why most photographers refuse to go digital, THATS why, when you are spending millions of dollars on a production you shoot on a chemical emulsion.

But doesn't some of that have more to do with the color correction and other things that were done after it was shot?  We know the 04 DVDs had all the whites turned to blue, so who's to say that the prequels didn't have reds and blues totally blown out at certain points, making it look like shit.

Obviously the cameras weren't ready for primetime either.  I think everybody, including Lucas, knew that.  Lucas, being the hard head he is, just didn't want to admit it.  After all, he was going to usher in a new era of filmmaking, just like he did with the OT.