Star Wars: Episode VII to be directed by J.J. Abrams **NON SPOILER THREAD** — Page 140

I thought my earphones stopped working for a minute there.

I like the guy, but I feel the above is lacking a point of reference (even though he does say that the PT is well made and all that):

http://www.mania.com/smith-gives-high-marks-to-attack-clones_article_35442.html

Anything he says about Star Wars I'm taking with a truckload of salt. That said, it's a cool story :)

Brian Muir confirmed for EP7

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/brian-muir-confirmed-star-wars-vii-115200902.html

J

doubleofive said:

IMAX cameras teased on set.

http://screenrant.com/star-wars-episode-7-imax-tatooine-image/

I wonder if the movie will have shifting aspect ratios then? Seems odd to try to mimic the film stock and cinematography so closely to have some scenes not in 2.35:1...

Yeah, and it better be full 1.44:1 Imax this time!

I skipped seeing Into Darkness in Imax after hearing that they'd matted the large format shots down to 1.66:1 for some reason. They claimed it was to avoid making the aspect ratio switch too jarring for the audience, but I can't help suspecting it had something to do with rendering times and such.

doubleofive said:

I wonder if the movie will have shifting aspect ratios then? Seems odd to try to mimic the film stock and cinematography so closely to have some scenes not in 2.35:1...

I can't say I'm a fan of shifting aspect ratios. It might be fine in IMAX theatres and all, but watching movies with shifting AR at home makes me feel like I'm watching a badly cobbled-together fan edit.

doubleKO said:

doubleofive said:

I wonder if the movie will have shifting aspect ratios then? Seems odd to try to mimic the film stock and cinematography so closely to have some scenes not in 2.35:1...

I can't say I'm a fan of shifting aspect ratios. It might be fine in IMAX theatres and all, but watching movies with shifting AR at home makes me feel like I'm watching a badly cobbled-together fan edit.

Yeah. I feel exactly the same way. Plus it takes me out of the experience every time it happens.

That's a good point. I should've clarified what I meant.

I've never seen Brainstorm (Which I admit is weird, because it's something I should be all over for at least half a dozen reasons), but Galaxy Quest wasn't constantly shifting from aspect ratio to aspect ratio (never seen that one theatrically, though). Same thing with The Grand Budapest Hotel recently. That kind of use of multiple aspect ratios is fine with me - there's a logic behind it beyond "we don't need to record audio for this scene so we can use an IMAX camera" and you're meant to notice it anyway. Finally, perhaps most importantly, it doesn't happen all the time.

Something like, say, The Dark Knight Rises gets pretty jarring, even if they do try to hide it, which doesn't really work for screenings at home. I didn't notice or mind any of that when I saw that movie on the big screen, though.

Honestly, I would just prefer to shoot the whole film with the same camera and aspect ratio as I like consistency.  I's probably wouldn't have much of a problem with it if it was one of the spinoff films, but this a main episode.  It should be more consistent with the original visual style.

BUT, if they have to do it.  It should just be one long continuous sequence that changes at a climactic or emotional point.  I like how Catching Fire did it (seen here), with having the aspect ratio change make sense somewhat logically in terms of the plot.  Also, the shot is dark enough and the bars change slowly enough for it not to be painfully jarring.  In the IMAX theatre, it was a true WOW moment.  Plus it continued that way for 50 full minutes till the whole arena sequence was complete and they even had the character pass out, between the aspect ratio change back to 2:35:1.

Harmy said:

Yeah, I think it would have been fine in TDK and TDKR, if it was just different AR for entire long scenes, but I also found it pretty jarring, when the AR changed for just one shot (usually establishing shots) - in those shots, if they just cropped them to 2.35:1, they'd still get the extra resolution without the jarring AR change.

I've also just recently seen Von Triers' Nymfomaniac, which also has shifting AR, which I felt was pretty jarring (although I guess that may have been the point of it in that case) but it was made even more noticeable by the fact, that on a 16:9 TV, insted of having more picture information on top and bottom, for the 16:9 scenes, like in Nolan's films, you got a windowboxed video in the center of the screen, which was of course more faithful to the way it would have been in a cinema, but I really didn't like it for home viewing.

And I've seen Gallaxy Quest at least three times and I don't even remember any AR chages.

That's probably because the one that made it to home releases is hidden in plain sight ;)

emanswfan said:

Honestly, I would just prefer to shoot the whole film with the same camera and aspect ratio as I like consistency.  I's probably wouldn't have much of a problem with it if it was one of the spinoff films, but this a main episode.  It should be more consistent with the original visual style.

BUT, if they have to do it.  It should just be one long continuous sequence that changes at a climactic or emotional point.  I like how Catching Fire did it (seen here), with having the aspect ratio change make sense somewhat logically in terms of the plot.  Also, the shot is dark enough and the bars change slowly enough for it not to be painfully jarring.  In the IMAX theatre, it was a true WOW moment.  Plus it continued that way for 50 full minutes till the whole arena sequence was complete and they even had the character pass out, between the aspect ratio change back to 2:35:1.

Mission: Impossible 4 also did the slowly-changing bars thing when Ethan Hunt starts his climb up the Burj Khalifa. It was a nice little wink to the audience. They kept the cutaways to interior shots during the climb sequence at the same AR, which means they either shot those in full 15/65 as well or simply used 8/65 or 4/35.

Some of the 50-minute arena scene in Catching Fire was shot in 4/35, since it would've been extremely difficult for the camera man to lug an imax camera around (although they did do exactly that for some of the shots). Getting the proper depth of field for some of the shots was also a factor in using 4/35. Also, as mentioned, there's the issue of recording natural sound without the camera noise.

As for the use of Imax "breaking the tradition," I have way less of a problem with them using a much larger format for certain stretches of the film than I do with them using 2/3" hd cameras for two entire movies. Most people will only be seeing it in constant-height 2.35:1 anyway. The blu-ray and dvd transfer is another issue, but I'd imagine they'd make separate sku's available and would make the constant 2.35:1 version the priority.

SilverWook said:

Best that you don't watch Brainstorm or Galaxy Quest then. ;)

 Just want to chime in and say that I adore Brainstorm.  One of the best 80's science fiction movies.   The story starts out pretty small and then gets huuuuuuge.

Yes indeed, they really know how to tease :)

The new X wing is a beauty,.......cant wait for the kit to come out

J

Doesn't look like an X-Wing to me... it only has one set of wings. More like a Z-95?

Edit: Oh, I see, they don't close on top of each other, but front/back-wise.

Looking at the engines, if the wings are designed to split like an x-wing (and it looks like they are), then this is yet another design inspired by the Ralph McQuarrie paintings.

Laserschwert said:

Edit: Oh, I see, they don't close on top of each other, but front/back-wise.