$14 for a real Imax screening is indeed a steal, and you saw it at an actual multiplex and not a museum where that’s more the normal price.
Here in the DC area your average multiplex will charge $20 just to see something in liemax.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen this fringing problem.
Regal has something weird going on in their theaters where the right and left sides of the screen will be tinged slightly different. It’s not super distracting but I did find it noticeable during brightly lit scenes. Must have something to do with the way their theaters are set up because I’ve noticed this at two entirely separate locations.
When I saw the final Harry Potter movie in 35mm, the screen randomly went dark for several seconds while the sound kept going. This happened a couple times during the movie and they were within only a couple minutes of each other, roughly halfway through. I don’t want to mention specifics on the off-chance I’d be spoiling it for someone, but the first flub happened right in the middle of a pretty significant moment and I seem recall saying out loud “you’ve got to be kidding me.”
When it happened again only a minute or so later the lighting in the scene was, uhhh, much brighter, so the screen going dark again for a few seconds was even more noticeable.
I don’t know what the hell caused it, maybe the shutter in the projector got stuck or something. There was a trio of folks complaining to the management afterwards as we were leaving the theater, and I was tempted to do the same, but I could see the person on duty wasn’t giving in and so I figured it wasn’t worth the trouble.
When I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes at a Thursday midnight screening with my cousin a week or so later, it was at the same theater and we had a choice between digital and film. I chose digital, thinking that would prevent any screwups like what happened with harry potter.
We go inside and I notice the real-d filter is still over the projector. I ask a theater employee to remove it and she does. Eventually the trailers start, and then the movie.
About halfway through, the same exact thing that happened during Harry Potter happens again … only the picture doesn’t come back this time.
We all start making our way out of the auditorium with very little light to guide us, booing the whole time. As we’re finally getting to the hallway, the theater staff emphatically tells us it’s okay and that someone’s coming to fix it. We all take our seats again and someone comes in with a remote (yup, tv in the cinema indeed, Tarantino) and asks us to let her know when we’ve gotten to the right scene as she fast-forwards through the movie.
Goes without saying they were waiting outside to give us all free passes once the movie ended.
tl;dr, digital cinema can be just as bad if not worse than film projection.
Six years later it’s almost worse in certain ways. I’ve complained about them not removing the 3D filter on at least two trips to the movies in the last year. With Rogue One I mentioned it to them afterward and they said “it turns on and off automatically,” completely ignoring my point that it shouldn’t be on there at all. With Wonder Woman I tried letting someone know during the trailers, but the theater was so understaffed that the guy in charge understandably told me there was nothing he could do about it.
Well, the last time I saw a 35mm print of a new release was probably The Muppets back in 2011, and the last time before that was probably Thor earlier that year.
Paramount’s final 35mm release was Anchorman 2 back in 2013. They made an exception for Interstellar.
There are probably many people in their mid-teens who saw film projected pre-2012, but they probably wouldn’t remember now which was which. It’s all the same to them.
I certainly didn’t start to appreciate the finer points of film projection until I was in my late teens.
If any question was worth a double-post, it’s that one.
There will almost definitely be a 4k UHD of The Last Jedi next April.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if Disney puts out TFA and Rogue One on the format later this year.
We’re not getting a UHD of I-VI until 2020 at the earliest, though.
I’ll probably see Homecoming on Saturday morning since I’ve got a surplus of $5 Fandango coupons that expire the end of July and the ticket will only cost me 79 cents.
Plus, I won’t be back in town until tomorrow and want to see this with a DC audience, for obvious reasons.
Oh look, Disneys very first 4K Blu-ray will be Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2
I jumped over to The Digital Bits after seeing this just now only to find that Bill Hunt had posted the announcement from James Gunn in the middle of the night.
Curious that this comes ahead of any announcement from Disney on their plans for the format, although it probably makes more sense to start things off on a more personal and enthusiastic note from an actual director.
Vol 2 will probably be a day one buy since I can finally future-proof a Disney release. I’d much rather pay a few extra bucks for a 4k disc I can’t watch yet than pay for an overpriced combo pack with a dvd I’ll never watch at all and a blu-ray that’s stuck at 1080p and sdr.
Somehow this managed to be the first theatrical run of an MCU movie since Incredible Hulk to completely pass me by.
I liked The People vs George Lucas. Is it time for a new documentary? One that focuses specifically on the special editions and lack of availability of the originals?
Wasn’t a sequel in the works not long after the Disney deal happened?
Yes but seems to have disappeared without trace.
http://ew.com/article/2014/06/17/star-wars-george-lucas-doc-people/
IIRC, someone even started a thread here asking for our feedback.
I liked The People vs George Lucas. Is it time for a new documentary? One that focuses specifically on the special editions and lack of availability of the originals?
Wasn’t a sequel in the works not long after the Disney deal happened?
Remember when I said that not getting the OOT until 2020 might be a good thing because then it would almost certainly be included in 4k?
Well, Blade Runner is being released on UHD later this year, but the final cut is the only version actually being presented on the new format.
It makes sense from a certain standpoint, as the final cut has been ready to go in full 4k ever since it was put together in 2007. The other versions would only have been mastered at 2k, if not 1080p HD.
But it doesn’t even look like the other versions will be included at all, not even on regular bd. This kind of retroactively makes the old blu-ray collection a favor to the fans.
I wouldn’t be surprised, even if the OOT recieves the proper treatment someday, to see the non-final versions eventually fade into memory. Lucasfilm only wants there to be one official version of the saga, and historical curiosity has the potential to get in the way.
It could get pushed back to Dec 2018 and move Mary Poppins Returns because no one gives a crap about that but will still probably give it billions of dollars anyway.
FTFY
After just now discovering that Beauty and the Beast is the highest grossing movie of 2017 here in the States - and by a significant margin over Guardians vol 2 and Wonder Woman - yup, I’d believe it.
Since this is one of the standalones, Disney probably doesn’t care about placing it only three weeks after the next Avengers movie. Similarly, they probably didn’t care about placing Guardians vol 2 - technically also a “standalone” within the Marvel franchise - only three weeks before the original placeholder date for Episode VIII.
I guess that’s why “The Davids” (Cronenberg and Lynch) were both offered RotJ.
All of this crazy news really makes me wonder how they’re going to handle the eventual behind-the-scenes making-of material. The story behind Ford’s accident on the set of TFA was conspicuously absent from the blu-ray, but Kennedy did bring up Michael Arndt’s draft.
I feel like there could be a similarly short mention of Lord & Miller’s “initial contributions” (nevermind that it was the bulk of principal photography) or they could really lean into this and give us the most interesting making-of ever.
The fact that it’s Disney makes me think we’ll get the former, but this has become an elephant in the room big enough to rival the OOT. I didn’t buy Rogue One on blu, but from what I’ve heard the extras don’t really bring up the massive reshoots we heard so much about. I’m sure they’ll figure out how to brush the whole L&M thing under the rug, if they even bring it up at all.
My biggest question is who will be credited in the finished film.
For the Shout remaster they got Dean Cundey to supervise (or at least approve) the finished transfer. They used an IP source, which is probably why they settled for 2k. I’m not sure what film elements were used for Uni’s hd master, if that’s even knowable.
The main issue with Shout’s release (and IIRC this was also a problem with the most recent Halloween transfer, which was also supervised/approved by Cundey) is that the color-timing pushes everything too far towards the cool end of the spectrum. A regrade using the old bd’s colors, which seem to more closely resemble those of a 35mm print, would seem to be the ideal combination. Maybe Arrow’s 4k job will end up being exactly that.
So apparently George wrote the initial story treatment for this movie.
First I’m hearing of this.
Or it’s possible I heard about it forever ago and just forgot.
It only just occurred to me that The Lego Movie had Star Wars characters in it. In fact, after a quick glance at imdb, I see that both Anthony Daniels and Billy Dee Williams provided their voices. Maybe that was Lord and Miller’s built-in connection to the franchise that led to them getting the job.
Maybe they also just really wanted to direct this movie and had a really good agent. In retrospect, it almost seems like Kennedy needed a big name attached to the movie and L&M seemed like a good idea at the time. But it’s still kind of baffling to hear that Kennedy and Kasdan wanted a movie that felt like a Western … and yet hired two guys known pretty much solely for making comedies.
The Thing is getting a 4k restoration.
Well it’s a masterpiece so why not.
It’s notable because this will literally be the third time - by as many different companies - that The Thing has been released on blu-ray.
It was one of the earlier movies Universal released on the format. They reused the existing hd transfer that had been used for the hddvd, which looked fine, but for the blu-ray specifically they applied some dnr (this exact same thing happened with several other Universal titles).
Shout Factory just did a new 2k master of it last year, but there is debate about the color timing.
So both bd releases so far have been a mixed bag.
I was also wondering why a title as big as The Thing was only getting remastered in 2k,
and why this new 4k master is happening so soon after and from yet another company.
I guess Univeral is more than willing to license out the rights to this particular film?
Like I referenced yesterday (before he was officially the replacement), Howard was asked by Lucas to direct Episode I. He told George the same thing everyone else did, “you should direct it yourself.”
I wonder how he feels about taking up a similar role all these years later.
One big thing I never heard anyone talking about is how (unless I’m mistaken) the main reason Man of Steel got made when it did was because WB had to promptly get a Superman film into production as a condition of their settlement with Siegel and Shuster’s estates, or else lose all rights to the character.
Snyder et al weren’t even planning on it being the first installment of a shared DC film pantheon at the time if I remember correctly. Yet, by the time the movie came out, many people assumed that’s exactly what they were doing. The Avengers had just been released the year prior, so cashing in on the superhero cinematic universe craze only made sense. But everyone seemed to have forgotten about the Siegel/Shuster lawsuit, which I’m still assuming is the main reason MoS got made when it did.
They even stayed vague on whether or not this was the same universe as Nolan’s Batman movies. Once BvS was announced, there was a rumor circulating that WB was offering Christian Bale an insane amount of money to return as Bruce Wayne. I’m not sure how valid that rumor ever was, but it’s interesting to consider in retrospect.
Wonder Woman really seems to be the “course correction” of the DCEU many fans were hoping for. I’m even hearing people say things like “oh, if only this one had been the first of these DC universe films.”
But that’s just it. They didn’t really decide to make this the DC equivalent of the MCU until BvS. Suicide Squad wasn’t even connected to the larger milieu in its earlier drafts. I was hearing the same thing about Black Adam, but I can only assume they’ve changes their plans.
It is interesting how we’re finally getting what many consider the “proper” DC movie (complete with a new opening titles logo!) just as The Avengers’ saga comes to a close. I can’t help but wonder how WB would’ve handled their DC properties had the Superman lawsuit not been a concern.
Between this and half of Rogue One being reshot, it seems we won’t ever be getting a new Star Wars film with the director’s vision left entact again.
after that article about Rian Johnson’s near complete creative control on TLJ
I must have missed this somehow.
EDIT: Wait, I’m guessing this was brought up in the spoiler thread (which I’ve been studiously avoiding)?
Ha! I was just thinking last night while watching Moana on Netflix with my sister that it would probably be this time next month that Rogue One shows up.
They’ve followed a pattern of dropping a movie three and a half months after it hits disc. For example, Captain America: Civil War streeted on blu-ray mid-September and debuted on Netflix Christmas Day.
On a side note, I still haven’t seen Guardians vol 2. The recent news that it might end up being one of Disney’s first UHD disc releases and thus “future-proofed” makes me kinda want to buy it (I avoided getting Rogue One on blu for this very reason), but then I remember it will likely be up on Netflix by the end of the year. Ditto WB/Fox/Uni movies and HBO (Fox movies even tend to be properly letterboxed when HBO shows them).
I love physical media and the advantages that come along with it, but it’s really no surprise to hear it’s not selling like it used to.
From Variety’s article:
Kennedy had her own ideas about how the film should be shot. In an interview with Variety last year, she said she wanted the film to have “…a heist or Western type feel,” adding, “We’ve talked about [Frederic] Remington and those primary colors that are used in his paintings defining the look and feel of the film.”
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/star-wars-han-solo-kathleen-kennedy-director-fired-1202473919/
After reading that, I struggle to see why they thought Lord and Miller would be a good fit.
“Unexpected this is, and unfortunate.”
What a truly confusing turn of events.
Going solely on the information we’ve been given, it would seem Kennedy and Kasdan had a problem with how Lord & Miller executed the script. I can’t help but be suspicious of whether that’s really the reason or just the spin both sides are putting on it.
I’m sure it’s possible it just took everyone until this point in time to realize things weren’t working out. But only now (at the end, do you understand?) with principal photography almost over? Yikes. I mean, you don’t hire the guys who made 21 and 22 Jump Street and The Lego Movie and not expect them to do their own thing.
You’ve got to wonder just what exactly LFL thought would happen when they hired the guys in the first place. Based on what we’re hearing, the directors had tensions with LFL from day one.
Lucasfilm has now had issues with its directors on both of the standalone movies made so far. Even on TFA we know Abrams tried to gain as much control over this franchise as he could before Kennedy put her foot down. By contrast, the worst that’s happened with TLJ is Rian Johnson asking the release be pushed back from May to December so he’d have more time to work on the script … and LFL complying.
Speaking of which, it will be very interesting to see if this Han Solo movie doesn’t get delayed as well. Sure, they’re sticking to the release date for now (and no, it wouldn’t look good if they pushed it to December in the next couple weeks with less than a year to go), but is there anything huge from other studios currently scheduled for December of next year?
It would be kind of hilarious if this is what finally puts Ron Howard in the director’s chair of a Star Wars prequel.
What source was used for the early 77 version?
Japanese Special Collection LD shared on myspleen some time ago
Ah, so the print source for that particular laserdisc transfer still had the older version of those effects shots?
Do we know when exactly the TN1 source print is from?