Official: 3D Star Wars Starting 2012

We knew this was going to happen and tonight, Lucasfilm made it official. The entire Star Wars saga will be rereleased in 3D starting with “The Phantom Menace” come 2012.

The folks at Lucas assure us fanboys that they’ll be taking their time reprocessing each film. ILM will be handling the conversion and Fox will be distributing.

“Getting good results on a stereo conversion is a matter of taking the time and getting it right,” said John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic. “It takes a critical and artistic eye along with an incredible attention to detail to be successful. It is not something that you can rush if you want to expect good results. For Star Wars we will take our time, applying everything we know both aesthetically and technically to bring audiences a fantastic new Star Wars experience.”

There’s no word on when the other films will be released in 3D. But why now? Well, according to various reports, Lucasfilm was simply waiting for the industry to catch up and by the time first 3D release hits theaters in 2012, there will be plenty of 3D screens in the market. For their sake, I hope 3D TVs catch on by then.

More on Techland:
Star Wars Episodes I-VI Out on Blu-ray in 2011

redishbaron

Sooo, it basically sounds like it’s going to have the same 3D quality as, say, Clash of the Titans. Which also wasn’t shot specifically for 3D. Not a comparison that gives me a lot of hope.
charlieromeobravo

blech! I think that Clash of the Titans was a particularly bad example of 3D conversion after the fact because they had a release date to meet but the fact is that movies not shot with 3D in mind don’t convert well. I like 3D. When it’s done well, with the film shot with 3D in mind, it can be very impressive. Otherwise, it’s pretty much Clash of the Titans. But, I guess that this process would be appropriate for the prequels given their (at best) mediocrity. Lucas seems determined to make sure that his recent work is mediocre in all the latest and greatest ways.
http://twitter.com/thepeterha Peter Ha

Despite our opinions of the prequels, ILM will probably get the job done right. Or maybe The Phantom Menace will suck in every dimension.
cydonos

Maybe when they get to episode 4 they’ll make Han slap the alien with a white glove before the alien shoots.
Joseph Lin

I’m still waiting for Star Wars in smell-o-vision.
gminnj

I checked out 3-D tv’s this weekend. To say I was underwhelmed is an understatement.

This 3-D thing is not going to be in our homes, people, and I even think the theatres will remain on the fringe, kind of like IMAX.

3-D is a nice-to-have, not a must-have.
tereglith

Given that they’ll be spending almost three years on the conversion of the first film, and that if there’s one thing George Lucas is good at it’s making computers do pretty things, I think this has the potential to be the best 2D to 3D conversion we’ve seen. I may go when they come out with A New Hope simply for the novelty of seeing it in a theater.
http://twitter.com/thepeterha Peter Ha

@tereglith I’ll go see the original trilogy in 3D IF Lucas cuts out all that extra garbage. But he won’t, so I won’t go see any of them.