I remember a much younger me seeing the above poster in my local multiplex and thinking “ohhhh man… this is going to be the best movie ever!” Of course, I was nearly a teenager at the time (yet already too old for the kiddie-focused film that The Phantom Menace is), but when I finally saw the film when it hit theaters I tried in vain for two weeks to convince myself that no, I was mistaken, it couldn’t have been as bad as I thought it was. Ah, even younger me realized that Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace couldn’t hold a candle to the films I spent roughly half my childhood adoring though I desperately didn’t want to admit it.
With that said, 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm have announced that The Phantom Menace will be the first Star Wars film re-released in 3D on February 10, 2012. I’d imagine George Lucas will have his minions tinker with the film a bit in addition to the 3D conversion, because what’s a Star Wars re-release without “little” changes to the films? The rest of the films will follow a year-by-year release patern until Return of the Jedi is released in 2017, in time for the original film’s fortieth anniversary.
Obviously it makes sense to release the “first” film first, but as the worst-reviewed film of the entire series (not to mention the one that fans seem to deride the most) I’d imagine The Phantom Menace might end up being the lowest grossing of these 3D re-releases. Then again, maybe the massive Star Wars fanbase will prove me wrong. Still, it’ll be interesting to see if the 3D film still pulls the same audiences in 2017 as it did in 2010, or if by 2017 we’ll already be looking at the 3D craze of the early 2010s as a gimmick like… well, people in the 1960s did at 3D films of the 1950s. However, even in The Phantom Menace I can think of a few sequences — the pod race and the Darth Maul/Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi lightsaber battle — that will probably look impressive in 3D.
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