Greed, Greed, Greed...there is a Greedo joke here somewhere.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Emperor George Lucas plans on releasing all six Star Wars films in 3-D starting in 2012, starting with the dreadful Phantom Menace. Hot on the heels of the recent press release that the entire series is coming to Blu-ray in 2011, which has not resonated well with die-hard Jedi/Sith who were hoping to see the original 3 films (Episodes IV, V, VI) released and not the special editions, comes this bit of news from the dark side of the Force.
According to sources, George Lucas needed a little nudge into the Sarlacc Pit; in the form of the billions earned by James Cameron's stellar (although we're already tired of waiting for it come out in Blu-ray 3-D) Avatar, before he was convinced that Star Wars would work in 3-D on the big screen, and inevitably on the millions of 3-D sets that should be in people's homes by the time the first film is released. One can only wonder which manufacturer is going to pony up the Galactic credits to get exclusivity with the home releases. Panasonic seems to have taken the plunge with Avatar, so we are going with our frozen tauntaun guts on this one. Assuming that LucasFilm does a good job with the 3-D conversion; and that's an Imperial Star Destroyer-sized "IF" (we're talking about the Executor...Lord Vader's badass flagship that crashes into the second operational Death Star in Return of the Jedi), the question still remains...why?!?!
Can someone please explain to George Lucas that Avatar was filmed in 3-D, hence the reason why it worked so well. Converting 2-D Star Wars (although we would be lying through Natalie Portman's perfect teeth if we said we were not looking forward to seeing Carrie Fisher in that hot metal bikini from Jedi in 3-D...I'd sell my original Death Star with the garbage chute for a first peek at that scene) may not work as well.
The only real answer we can come up with is Greed. Not "Gordon Gekko"-style greed, but "I need to milk these six movies for another five billion dollars, because I have no more original ideas in my head" greed. Star Wars fans are a rather dedicated lot (gone off our Abilify we have), so we suspect that once the initial anger wears off, millions will flock and spend $15 each per film earning George mucho dinero. That doesn't even take into account the millions who will spend at least $100 each for the home versions.
The more we think about this, the more we don't think Star Wars in 3-D will be epic. Some of us will be collecting our first social security checks (if the system hasn't become insolvent by that point...although Lucas may have enough to prop the system up after this is finished) when Episode IV comes out, and that doesn't make our lightsabers stand at attention. This whole affair only makes a specific episode of South Park seem that much more credible.
