In 1977, the movie "Star Wars" was released on the screens of the film distribution, which instantly gained popularity in many countries of the world and was continued in the form of five more films. Twenty-eight years later, it was decided to modernize the tapes and convert them to 3D.
In Russia, the first three parts of the cult saga were shown only in 1988, but, like in other countries, they delighted the audience. Three more parts in the first half of the 2000s repeated the success of their predecessors, and then the director of all the filmed films, George Lucas, thought about translating them into a format that is more popular among the modern generation.
Work on new versions began back in 2005, immediately after the release of the movie Star Wars. Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. After reviewing all the footage, a team of directors led by Lucas announced a tender, which was won by Prime Focus, famous for its work on such films as Clash of the Titans 2 and the 3D version of the film War of the Gods: Immortals.
This work was headed by John Knoll, who took part in the creation of the last three films as a special effects specialist. We decided to start with the first part - “Star Wars. Episode I: The Phantom Menace . When transferring the tape to a new format, we also had to deal with its reconstruction, since in order to achieve a high result, the film had to be split into small fragments.
Six years later, work on a 3D version of the first film in the saga was completed. Compared to the original tape, the volume of the new version was slightly increased as the 1999 2D version had to be reduced due to technical problems that arose at the time. The premiere took place on February 9, 2012 in all cinemas around the world, and especially for this date, The Phantom Menace magazine appeared on sale, inside which you could find 3D comics.
George Lucas intends to continue working on converting the Star Wars films into 3D, but in a recent interview, he made a reservation, saying that the creation of new versions will depend on the audience's interest. If everything goes well, then, according to Lucas, up to and including 2017, he will delight fans of the saga with 3D versions.
