Official word from George Lucas himself says that Darth Maul will not make a return in Episode 2. Lucas said, "the reason we had Darth Maul cut in half was so there wouldn't be any rumors about his return." If this is the case, don't worry Darth Maul fans. Lucas will probably have a bigger badder sith to take his place. Maybe this time, one that can talk a little more.
Nothing new with The Phantom Menace, but I want to know what people think is their favorite movie for this summer. Vote below for your favorite summer hit...(new poll added aug 11th. Original poll Episode 1 The Phantom Menace was the overall winner with more than 350 votes. American Pie came in second with just 21 votes and Austin Powers 2 with 11)
Happy fourth of July everyone!! Today's news is about the new song and video by Weird Al Yankovic. His new song "The Saga Begins" is the retold story of The Phantom Menace told to tune of the classic "American Pie". The video premeires on MTV July 7th. To see the video you can go to www.sagabegins.com, the www.starwars.com spoof site, or go to my sounds page to view it with Real Audio.
On June 18, 1999, for the first time in the history of cinema, moviegoers gathered in one of four selected theaters to say their first goodbye to celluloid and lay eyes on a major feature movie brought to life onscreen via a digital projector - no film involved.Episode I opened digitally in two theaters in the Los Angeles area (Pacific's Winnetka Theater in L.A. and AMC's Burbank 14 in Burbank), plus two in the New York area (Loews' Route 4 Paramus in New York City and Loews' Meadows 6 in Secaucus, New Jersey). Early on June 18, a line of excited moviegoers started to form in front of the AMC Burbank 14 theater for the first showing at 1:30 in the afternoon. With an anticipation level running high through the line of fans, the event felt like Episode I was being released for the first time all over again, a mere one day short of its official one month anniversary. When the doors finally opened, the fans hurried to screen 12, determined to get good seats for their initial contact with the new technology. Paul Breedlove, Project Manager at Texas Instruments, happily greeted the assembled fans, welcoming them to "the future of cinema". And with a completely-packed theater, Episode I, digital edition, was under way.
The Phantom Menace will be presented digitally for only a month, and because of this the traditional, celluloid-based projector still stands in the projection booth: the digital projector was installed next to its grandfather, on a temporary structure. This means that the conventional projector could still be used to show the trailers and anything outside of Episode I - but Texas Instruments wanted the audience to truly experiment digital cinema, from beginning to end, and so they had everything transferred to a digital master: their own introduction, the THX logo, the trailers, and even the AMC Theaters introduction sequence. Only one projector was used, and there was no need to load a reel of film at the beginning or to remove it at the end, let alone change reels during the screening.
Moviegoers were treated to an extremely crisp image, completely free of all the defects habitually associated with film, like scratches, dirt, fingerprints, mechanical jumps and shakes, even missing frames cut from the beginning or end of a reel because of excessive damage. The level of picture clarity made it possible to take in the many details contained in each scene, some of which would go completely unnoticed on celluloid. "This much clarity will give our production team brain damage!" laughs Producer Rick McCallum. "The set designers, the make-up artists, the hairdressers, everybody knows what they can get away with in terms of visual economy. They know that something doesn't necessarily have to look good on the set in order to look good on film. But with digital projection, these visual tricks won't work anymore, and new techniques will arise."
Just as the advent of digital sound, in 1990, influenced both the perception of sound for theater audiences and the creation of sound on the part of the filmmakers, digital projection will put movie visuals, literally, in a new light.
From punishing criticism to positive reviews, Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace has steadily kept it's lead in the box office. Grossing 105 million in it's five day opening and reaching 200 million in only 13 days since it's release. Rumors have been flying all over from the net to your nearest water cooler chat. Most are probably 99% false so don't buy into any of them such as the talk of Leonardo DiCaprio being casted in Episode 2(scheduled for 2002) which has even spawned some websites saying "NO to Leo in starwars". There have also been rumors of Episode 1 being readily available for download on the net which could quite possibly be true(and very illegal).
The Phantom Menace is everywhere. Food, commercials, toy stores, tv, it's all over. So with all the merchandising there's bound to be an error. It may already be too late to find it in a store, but there was one toy with a typo. The Qui-Gon Jinn 12" action figure had it. On the back of the box describing Qui-Gon, the box had accidently misspelled "Federation" as "Fedration". Slight overlookable error. Hasbro later corrected this error.
Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace was obviously the number one movie the 5 day week of May 19th. Raking in a new 5 day opening record of approxitely 105 million dollars. Will it beat Titanic?
I hope all of you can get those tickets as soon as you can. With all the media and hype, it looks like it's going to be difficult. (expect long lines) I recently visit my local Toy store in search for maybe one action figure. What did I find? Nothing. "We're all sold out", they said. Amazing. Hope the same doesn't happen with the movie. I didn't plan on waiting in line so I figured I could wait a few days and go a week later, but now I won't have to. Today, Sat. May, 8th I received two free advanced tickets to see the movie.(whew, what a relief)It has made my day.
The new commercials have been released for television. Starwars.com has the commercials available for download if you have not seen them yet. However, when I tried I found it a bit difficult to download and there were only four commercials. Later, I found that there were actually five commercials(one hidden) The fifth commercial is a short 30 second Darth Maul commercial. "One Truth" No need to search for it at starwars.com. Just click here and you can download all five.(Requires Quicktime 3.0 or 4.0)
The newest toys are out in most participating toy stores. You can get collectible such as the Darth Maul lightsaber, Mace Windu, Obi Wan Kenobi, and many other action figures. New figures come with "Commtech Chips" which allow the figures to exchange dialogues with each figure. The commtech chips require the commtech chip reader(sold seperately) for it to work. Get those toys while they last!!
With all the restrictions and bad buzz fans have been sending about no advanced tickets sales, the pressure considered Lucas to change the rule and will allow advanced ticket sales, thus reducing that dreaded wait in line. Tickets will be available for purchase on May 12th. Limit 12 tickets per person.
Can't get enough of The Phantom Menace? Neither can anyone else. Although Lucasfilm said there will not be another trailer for the movie, the force.net has made their own version of a new trailer.(consisting of old scenes from the previous trailers, some new scenes from the George Lucas 60 Minutes interview and brand new scenes as well. You can download the trailer here(11MB) or a choice of other sites at theforce.net
