Bad Robot Tweets Confirmation Star Wars Being Shot in IMAX
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- July 9, 2014
By James DeRuvo (doddleNEWS)
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. That is never more true in the Star Wars universe when director JJ Abrams‘ production company Bad Robot tweets an image of an IMAX camera overlooking what is presumed the dunes of Tatooine with the hashtag #bestformatever ….
"All we can say at this point is that we can confirm that JJ Abrams is using the IMAX camera for Star Wars: Episode VII." – IMAX to /Film
It’s not secret that Star Wars Episode VII was going to actually film, rather than rely on digital video cinema cameras. Almost from the get go, JJ Abrams long time cinematographer Dan Mindel said that the old school nature of the next trilogy demanded it. But there was also talk that IMAX was pushing hard for it to be shot in the IMAX format. Now we have proof positive that IMAX won the battle, at least partially.
The Tweet comes from @Bad_Robot, JJ’s official production company Twitter feed, and as we mentioned above, it simply reads … “#bestformatever.” He likely shares that opinion with both Michael Bay, who used it for select scenes in Transformers: Age of Extinction, and Christopher Nolan, who’s Interstellar will be released later this year in November.
JJ also used IMAX for Star Trek, so it’s not very likely that IMAX CEO Richard Gelford?had to push very hard for the format to be used. But likely he had to convince Lucasfilm’s Katheleen Kennedy and Disney’s Chairman Robert Iger more. And even then, since Episode VII is going to be released in IMAX, it wasn’t really that much of a stretch that they’d allow at least part of it the film to be shot using IMAX cameras. As for the rest, we know that Dan Mindel has a pair of PanaFlex XL cameras nicked named “The Millenium Falcon” and “The Death Star.”
And from the looks of the shot, it may just be used for vast establishing shots of what looks to be a return to the desert planet of Tatootine. There’s talk that since Iceland is on the locations list, that they’re also shooting Hoth sequences? This picture definitely shows Luke’s old digs. Frankly, I’d like to see him finally pick up those power converters which are on hold at Toshi Station. But there’s also speculation that it may be the Sith home planet of Korriban.
Regardless of the fanboy speculation, I think it’s cool. In Star Trek Into Darkness, JJ went from 2.35:1 to IMAX on a dime for up to nearly an hour of footage … and then converted it into 3D, to boot.
However, we all know just how bad the Star Wars 3D conversion ended up being, so much so that one of the first things Disney did was cancel the 3D conversion plans after The Phantom Menace?3D re-release was a box office dud. So I’m hoping that if they have plans to showcase Episode VII in 3D, that they will let JJ handle it. I saw Into Darkness?in IMAX 3D and enjoyed it fully. Granted, the Khan rehash was just that, but it looked great. And with 10 times the resolution, it’s easy to see why. I just wish they had chosen to film natively in 70 mm, that’s my personal favorite.
But you can’t have everything.
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