‘Episode IF becomes first
battle of digital revolution
By Robert W. Butler
Knight Ridder Newspapers
SKYWALKER RANCH, MARIN
COUNTY, Calif. (KRT) — The fu
ture is here.
At 12:01 a.m. today, the first
paying customers in selected the
aters will sit back and experience
“Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of
the Clones.”
It will mark the first time a major
Hollywood live-action blockbuster
has been shot, edited and projected
in the digital process. There are
only about 60 digital auditoriums
on the planet, and the nearest ones
to Eugene, Ore., are the Seattle Cin
erama Theatre in Seattle and the
Loews Cineplex Metreon Theatres
& IMAX in San Francisco. Fans
who see the movie in these audito
riums will experience a depth, clar
ity and subtlety of lighting that in
some instances seems practically
three-dimensional.
But that may not necessarily be
to the liking of film buffs. Unlike
projected film, a digital movie
doesn’t flicker. Rather, it flows.
There is no gate — a mechanism in
a conventional movie projector that
rapidly opens and closes to allow
separate frames of film to be illumi
nated. As the gate jiggles, it creates
the flickering sensation that has ac
companied cinema since its cre
ation more than a century ago.
“Some people call the flicker cre
ated by the giggling gate the ‘soul of
film,’” Lucas told reporters last
week during a series of interviews at
his Skywalker Ranch north of San
Francisco. “Really, all it is, is the
gate moving around, making it hard
to see the image, so that it’s sort of
fuzzy. You can create that effect dig
itally if you want. But it’s easier on
the eyes if you don’t have it.”
Some say a digitally made and
projected film gives the viewer the il
lusion of being immersed in the
scene rather than merely watching it.
“It’s like going from a cassette tape
to CD sound,” explains Brett Miller,
vice president of operations for the
Kansas-based Dickinson chain,
which recently installed a digital
projector at its new NorthRock mul
tiplex in Wichita. “It’s so much
sharper — just beautiful. ”
Technically speaking, “Attack of
the Clones” isn’t really a film, be
cause true film — that perforated
strip coated with light-sensitive
chemicals — has been eliminated
from the process.
Instead Lucas shot his latest space
fantasy using a “24-frame high-defi
nition progressive scan” digital cam
era specially made for him by the
Sony and Panavision corporations.
The images he captured were not
frozen on film but collected on a
computer hard drive, then manipu
lated by digital effects artists to cre
ate the fantastic worlds of a long-ago
time in a galaxy far, far away.
Until now, digital filmmaking
has been largely the domain of
moviemakers trying to avoid the
high costs associated with conven
tional film, particularly expensive
laboratory developing fees and the
price of scanning film footage into
a computer so that it can be edited
electronically (a process pioneered
several years ago by Lucas and now
used throughout the industry).
Recent low-budget movies shot
digitally (although they had to be
transferred to film so they could be
shown in the theaters) include
“The Anniversary Party,” “Italian
for Beginners,” “Breaking the
Waves,” “The Center of the World,”
“Time Code” and virtually all docu
mentaries in recent years.
But those projects inhabit the
margins of mainstream moviego
ing. They were made with less
than-perfect cameras and look
more like videotape — fuzzy and
blurred — when projected on the
big screen.
“Attack of the Clones,” though, is
as mainstream as you can get, part
of the most lucrative and popular
movie franchise of all time. Its im
ages are near-perfect. And Lucas is
using the technical excellence of his
latest movie as a sort of velvet
gauntlet to coax— or club -— theater
operators and the big studios into
enlisting in the digital revolution.
The problem is money. Ex
hibitors so far have been unwilling
to pay the $150,000 or so per audi
torium required to install digital
equipment. Most of the more than
3,000 screens showing “Clones”
this weekend will be using conven
tional prints.
And that clearly frustrates Lucas,
who described to reporters a near
conspiracy between the studios
and the exhibitors to block the
spread of digital cinema.
“For about a year we’ve been
struggling to get theaters to go for
this, and they’ve locked arms and
said, basically, ‘We’re not going to
do it,”’ Lucas said. ‘“And if any
body does, they’re breaking this sa
cred oath we have.’
“We’ve even offered to give cer
tain theaters digital equipment for
free. And those theaters are being
told, ‘Don’t take it from them.’
“They’re stalling because they
want to know how they can make
money from this. The issue is, you
don’t make money from this. You
just have to put aside your greed for
the sake of the audience.”
Lucas said he had hoped that
“Attack of the Clones” would be
shown digitally in 400 or more the
aters. He’ll have to settle for only
60, most of them in North America.
So, whether it’s a case of conspir
acy or just industry-wide caution,
most “Star Wars” fans will have to
watch “Attack of the Clones” in
conventional theaters using con
ventional film projection.
And what they’ll get is a rapidly
deteriorating imitation of the real
thing, according to “Attack of the
Clones” producer Rick McCallum,
who came to work for Lucas more
than a decade ago.
“You spend $100 million making
a film over four years. ... Now how
do you get that to the audience so
they can see the exact film you
made?” McCallum said. “Once a re
lease print goes on a platter system
at a multiplex, it’s run 25 to 50 feet
over wires to a projector, and it be
comes degraded very quickly.
Within a couple of days, it doesn’t
even resemble the film we made.
It’s absolutely imperative to us to
change that.”
With digital prints, the movie is
always seen in its pristine state. No
matter how many times it is shown,
there will be no dust spots, tears,
scratches, faded colors or blips.
“The studios just don’t believe
audiences care about it. They’re
about to learn differently.”
In fact, Lucas promises that when
the next “Star Wars” movie comes
out in a couple of years, he’ll allow it
to play only on digital screens.
© 2002, The Kansas City Star.
Features and Pulse editor John Liebhardt
contributed to this report.
Review
continued from page 7
enemies. The feeling of being out
of control comes across well on
the screen.
By far, the most entertaining
scene in the entire movie is the
lightsaber duel between Yoda
(voiced by Frank Oz) and Count
Dooku (played by Christopher Lee).
Don’t let the cane fool you. Yoda
morphs from the aging, Zen-like
philosopher to a rockin’ bad-ass
warrior in this scene.
The animation team recreated
Yoda as an entirely digital charac
ter, but unlike the much-hated Jar
jar Binks, the animators have done
an outstanding job digitizing the
ancient Jedi master. They paid spe
cial detail to Yoda and added many
of the idiosyncrasies of the puppet.
Yoda remains lifelike but has even
more maneuverability and facial
expressions that allow for probably
the most entertaining lightsaber
duel in the history of the Republic.
Lightsaber duels abound in “At
tack of the Clones.” The usually
pacifist Jedi can’t go anywhere
without getting into some kind of
trouble in this movie. Dozens of
Jedi clash with a droid army against
the backdrop of a large Roman-style
coliseum. The contrast of ancient
ruins and modern technology com
bined with the energy of the scene
sets pulses racing.
'The design team also deserves
props for making Coruscant look
like a real city. Instead of simply
having flying vehicles whiz by a
window as in “Phantom Menace,”
the characters actually interact with
the scenery. They have added de
tails such as billboard advertise
ments and news broadcasts that give
a richness to the vast fantasy city.
Finding fault in “Attack of the
Clones” is not an easy task. Al
though some of the politics in the
movie may be hard to follow be
cause of new enemies and various
subplots, the confusion legitimizes
the political feud — politics are
confusing. Besides, anyone who
has seen the classic trilogy knows
how the war ends.
There are also some scenes that
do not flow well with the story, and
on the surface they may seem gra
tuitous. The scene where Anakin’s
mother Shmi Skywalker dies
seems choppy and almost unneces
sary. But we have to remember that
his mother needs to die in order to
help push Anakin down the path to
the dark side. And the scene gives
Anakin a reason to meet the Lars,
who will later become Luke’s Aunt
Bern and Uncle Owen.
“Attack of the Clones” has some
thing for everyone — action, come
dy, romance, drama. It is not geared
toward any one age group or gender,
and it’s wide-based appeal will no
doubt connect with many audiences.
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