Star Wars Episode VIII To Be Shot on 35mm Film

Star-Wars-Episode-7-35mmFollowing right on the heels of the announcement that Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One would be made using the new Alexa 65 6k digital camera, comes word that Star Wars Episode VIII will be going in a different and more traditional direction…

 

 

Rian Johnson, the director of the upcoming Episode VIII, let it be known that the as yet untitled sequel will be filmed on the more traditional 35mm film.

 

 

JJ Abrams is also using predominantly 35mm film for The Force Awakens, but is also including a sequence shot in the IMAX format. When questioned on the possibility of IMAX being used for Episode VIII, Johnson had the following to say…

 

 

At this point the “logistical reasons” being referenced by Johnson as the reasoning for the use of film can only be speculated on. It is possible that Lucasfilm has decided to keep the aesthetic consistent throughout the ST by matching the filming medium to that of the original trilogy and is saving new formats for use only in the Anthology films. It could also be something as simple as overlapping filming schedules between Rogue One and Episode VIII. Or, perhaps the studio has already shot some footage that will be used for Episode VIII and needs the look to remain consistent. At this point there is no way to know. But at the very least we do know that the format, and therefore at least a part of the look and feel of the film, will remain consistent in the second portion of the sequel trilogy.

 

+ posts

51 thoughts on “Star Wars Episode VIII To Be Shot on 35mm Film

  • June 13, 2015 at 7:37 pm
    Permalink

    Rockin’ it old school. Nice.

    • June 14, 2015 at 2:18 am
      Permalink

      Hooray for FILM, and PRACTICAL EFFECTS, and NO GEORGE LUCAS, HOORAY!

      • June 14, 2015 at 8:06 pm
        Permalink

        You’re unhappy with Lucas, I get that. But does it really need to be pointed out that he CREATED the entire Star Wars Universe from nothing? And that, without his vision, there would literally be no Star Wars ANYTHING ever?

        I didn’t love the Prequels either, but come on! You’re being a little over-dramatic. (Unless you were being sarcastic, in which case… carry on.)

        • June 15, 2015 at 2:05 am
          Permalink

          Stop pretending that Lucas came up with Star Wars all on his own. It’s a simple mashup of Flash Gordon and Kurosawa, and the first cut of the first movie was a wreck. It was the product of a lot more people than just George. It’s too common a saying, but it’s true: Star Wars was good in spite of him, not because of him.

          • June 15, 2015 at 4:39 pm
            Permalink

            BULLSHIT. As someone who’s lil 6 year old butt was in the seat in 77 and grew up with the OT and speilberg and lucas ruling the world, i CANT STAND hearing this, “star wars was good in spite of lucas, not because of him.” thats utter crap, and to use his influences against him, where do you think every single creation buy anyone ever came from?? Lucas went through hell to get ANH made, the entire world was against him, even his own crew, actors, and special effects house had NO IDEA what they were all doing until it all came together and shocked the world. Lucas alone had the vision. watch empire of dreams and tell me star wars isnt what it is because of lucas. the man created star wars and went through hell to see a vision through when no one else in the world had any clue what he was trying to do. Lucas IS star wars. he revolutionized the way films are made and created all these characters and this universe. yeah many dont like the prequels, weve heard it already, a million times. hate the backlash against ole george. i was there man, all throughout the late 70’s and 80’s, and there was no question who the man was – lucas

          • June 15, 2015 at 4:57 pm
            Permalink

            George did some debatable questionable things come the 90s regarding Star Wars, but I’m with you, 70s and 80s, he da man.

            It’s just the psychology of humanity. We always need a villain.

      • June 15, 2015 at 9:12 pm
        Permalink

        “Hooray for FILM, and PRACTICAL EFFECTS, and NO GEORGE LUCAS, HOORAY!”

        ROFL!!!!!!

        You are going to be so disappointed.

        EACH SINGLE prequel had more practical effects than the ENTIRE OT COMBINED!!!

        The Force Awakens will have Lucas’ story all over it.

        TFA might be shot on film but it’s still going to be a modern digital movie. It will not be optically composited or cut on film or use photochemical color timing.

        People really need to find out how movies are made nowadays.

        “Stop pretending that Lucas came up with Star Wars all on his own. It’s a simple mashup of Flash Gordon and Kurosawa, and the first cut of the first movie was a wreck. It was the product of a lot more people than just George. It’s too common a saying, but it’s true: Star Wars was good in spite of him, not because of him.”

        It’s no wonder you are Anonymous. You wouldn’t want anyone to know how delusional you are. Why you think for one second you will like TFA I don’t know.

        • June 16, 2015 at 11:02 am
          Permalink

          Too bad all the CGI ruined the practical effects. They may as well have used CGI instead of practical effects.

          • June 17, 2015 at 8:55 am
            Permalink

            It’s funnt a lot of the effects people thought were CGI were actually practical and vice versa. Sure effects are better when you don’t know there is a effect, but that’s kind of hard to do with Scifi and fantasy when you know the stuff doesn’t actually exist.

  • June 13, 2015 at 7:55 pm
    Permalink

    Keep Kodak alive!

  • June 13, 2015 at 8:07 pm
    Permalink

    Great. Or producers get wobbly legs at
    the last minute and force filming in 3d…

    • June 14, 2015 at 4:24 pm
      Permalink

      i thought shooting in #D was deemed better than post-conversion now people want converted 3d?

  • June 13, 2015 at 8:25 pm
    Permalink

    They should shoot it on Super 8.

  • June 13, 2015 at 9:02 pm
    Permalink

    How does that technically work? Filming on 35 mm and adding digital components later, do they have to mimmic that 35 mm with emulators or do they scan the 35 mm and then it doesn’t really matter?

    • June 13, 2015 at 9:51 pm
      Permalink

      Think about it the ot is now digital you. Can film it using film and add digitally later but still have that old school look but still feel digital new look plus they have practical effects which make it look real with digital adding a little cgi

      • June 13, 2015 at 10:20 pm
        Permalink

        I think they will composite both together… print the CGI to film, & then composite together with the scanned images from the original shoots onto a digital master. Abrams had mentioned that film helps CGI look more organic… so I think that’s the route they are planning to take.

        I do recording to tape… usually once something leaves tape and enters digital you don’t go back to tape (due to timing issues… the machine can be off by a millisecond or so… but that’s not a limitation that a high budget studio with a converter/clock would have).

        Although it does seem counter intuitive to take a digital source & scan it through tape… but I don’t see how else they could do it if JJ wanted to have CGI spaceships be filmed with tape.

        • June 14, 2015 at 5:58 am
          Permalink

          If I recall the original Toy Story was CGI rendered onto physical Film and edited traditionally in a cuttingroom.
          Kind of doubt they’re still doing that with Pixar, I never considered whether or not it would make much of a difference though, I suppose it would lend a bit of that familiar “film imperfection” we’re subconsciously used to.
          Kind of how people comment that ‘Hobbit’ looks fake due to its 48fps format, removing that slight quality imperfection that you get in other films.
          I don’t exactly know the details of any of this though, I’m not an expert.

          • June 14, 2015 at 7:55 pm
            Permalink

            Oh cool that’s a fun little fact I didn’t know 🙂

            FPS needs to go faster to look more realistic, there is something about that 48 fps that weirds people out… because we are used to the standard speed & motion is faster than 48 fps. There were other experimental films shot at faster speeds & people seemed to enjoy that. I liked the look of HFR in the hobbit though… but I could see why some don’t like it. The problem with expanding that speed to something like 300 fps or beyond is the space limitation… HDMI doesn’t have enough bandwidth to allow for speeds that high @ 4k.

            Some in the film industry that I’ve heard talk about it don’t like the HFR due to how realistic it looks (for fantasy films)… but that’s more to do with taste than anything. They don’t like what it does to the “fairy tale” aesthetic sort of thing.

            Film adds grain & different types of color saturation depending on which chemical baths are used to treat it. It’s not so much imperfection as it is selecting the look of the film. Film could actually be HFR & was & certain theaters… but it’s a niche of a niche, but it is possible. The motion picture society was actually concerned about the high speed being a fire hazard (lol) + the shutter in projectors could break down more easily.

            I’ve heard it debated that contrast levels are better on film… even if digital allows for more f stops. But both mediums are capable of providing intense contrast… the film “drag me to hell” was filmed on 4k digital camera… the contrast in that film is superb.

    • June 14, 2015 at 2:37 am
      Permalink

      Rats,

      Technically speaking, they shoot on 35mm film, then transpose that onto celluloid nodes. This is when the scanning process/emulation begins. The film stock is composited with a digital algorithm, which gives the CGI a more…..”organic” look, if you will. This newly composed celluloid node/digital composite is then bifurcated via Holographic Transposition. The telemetry process is the last stage but that gets a little technical.

      Obviously, this is all in layman’s terms, so I’d be happy to give a more detailed explanation if so desired 🙂

    • June 13, 2015 at 9:08 pm
      Permalink

      Maybe Warwick Davis plays an Ugnaught that found the lightsaber and sells it to Rey.

    • June 13, 2015 at 9:17 pm
      Permalink

      The article quotes the Legends Wookieepedia page, not the Canon one.

      The thing we see falling into Bespin is apparently a pouch on Luke’s shirt, not the lightsaber.

      As far as we know, it just got stuck inside Cloud City. It was probably recovered in a similar way to what you’re describing, though.

        • June 14, 2015 at 6:00 pm
          Permalink

          My kids and I did just watch it last night, and to me it’s too blurry to say difinitively. I had always thought it would be way to convenient for his hand and saber to have landed in the same chute that he did. But to give the effect of dangling high in the clouds, having something fall away into the distance is the simplest solution – I always felt it was just some unidentified object or something from his belt falling off.

          At the start of that sequence looking at the walkway from over head you can see other bridges/walkways far below that I figured they could claim the hand and saber fell onto and someone happened across them. But the statement in the article you link to seems to eliminate that possibility. I guess the question I have now is, how canonical is that statement? Or is it just the authors assumption of facts that got missed in editing?

        • June 15, 2015 at 5:37 am
          Permalink

          Bespin is a giant gas planet. It would be hard to find something on the surface, since there’s no surface. The lightsabe had to be stuck in the underground of Cloud City in order to be recovered by the workers we see in Episode 5.

    • June 13, 2015 at 11:21 pm
      Permalink

      The scene when Luke gets tangled on the rods underneath CloudCity takes place well after Vader cuts his hand off. I agree with previous post, I always though it was a bag or some other shit that fell off Luke.
      It doesn’t make sense that Luke’s hand is severed, then the Vader/father reveal, more dialogue about joining the Dark Side, then Luke jumping off the ledge, then Luke tumbling through the chutes, and then when he almost falls into the clouds to his death, we finally see the hand/saber falling into the clouds?
      That would require alot of explanation as well as a new take on the laws of gravity.

  • June 13, 2015 at 9:39 pm
    Permalink

    Still not good enough. It has to be shot on exactly the same cameras used in the OT, using exactly the same lenses in the OT or consider my childhood abused.

    • June 13, 2015 at 10:15 pm
      Permalink

      Funny

    • June 13, 2015 at 10:50 pm
      Permalink

      The butthurt is swelling in you now

    • June 14, 2015 at 1:05 am
      Permalink

      Strawman

    • June 14, 2015 at 2:16 am
      Permalink

      Butthurt PT Apologist say what?

    • June 15, 2015 at 2:10 am
      Permalink

      I hope there’s gonna be a viewmaster release.

    • June 15, 2015 at 5:42 am
      Permalink

      No no no, the future movie have to be filmed in black and white, in Charlie Chaplin’s style, to respect the oldschool crap

  • June 13, 2015 at 10:45 pm
    Permalink

    I remember when Star Wars used to push the boundaries of special effects, not too much anymore.

    • June 14, 2015 at 12:00 am
      Permalink

      you have no idea wtf you are talking about. you have ZERO clue what they are doing. and apparently you have not seen the teasers

    • June 14, 2015 at 1:35 am
      Permalink

      The characters and story are the reason the OT movies are still beloved today. You look at a movie like Independence Day that had great special effects in 1996, yet the movie doesn’t hold up well today because the characters are lame and all one dimensional. JJ should be focusing on wowing us with Rey, Finn, & Poe over special effects.

      • June 14, 2015 at 2:16 am
        Permalink

        I don’t know man, I enjoyed Independece Day and I still like how it is now as I did back then. As for the OT, sure, I still love it but I’m not going to kid myself; one can easily tell that these movies did t come out yesterday. Sure the OT looks great on Blu-Ray but I can still tell that they’re old movies.

        • June 14, 2015 at 3:19 am
          Permalink

          The Wizard of Oz looks like it was made in 1939, but does that diminish the greatness of the movie? My point is you can wow people every summer with special effects but those type of movies don’t hold up years later unless the story and characters are developed. There’s a reason that the OT is still beloved 30+ years after it was made despite the fact that movies look like they were made 30+ years ago, people love the characters and story. Hopefully JJ realizes that.

          • June 14, 2015 at 2:29 pm
            Permalink

            Describe what you mean by “hold up”? Can you elaborate more on what you mean by that (when you state “X film still holds up because of its story and characters”)?

            As for ID, that was just one movie so comparing it to 3 movies, where the characters’ arcs are can be further fleshed out, isn’t really fair. And to be honest, even to this day, people still remember that movie for its unique story and delivery. It may not be filled with Oscar-winning, superb acting of high acting caliber, but people still admire and like that movie (not just because of the special effects).

      • June 14, 2015 at 6:51 pm
        Permalink

        Not fair!

        Randy Quaid’s character was [i thought] a truly deep and believable character.

        But then again… it could be argued that Randy was method-acting as himself and therefore doesn’t count.

      • June 15, 2015 at 5:45 am
        Permalink

        Depite all people good will, Ep 7 will be more close to PT than OT. Some people have to realize we are in 2015 and no way back in 70-80. I sense there will be a lot of frustastion after ep 7 comes out for PT bahers. You ll be warned guys.

  • June 14, 2015 at 2:27 am
    Permalink

    I wish they would go native 3D- it suits big movies like Star Wars..

  • June 14, 2015 at 5:27 am
    Permalink

    Fuck yeah! Old Skool traditional film making FTW! You can’t beat the look of a REAL film opposed to digital, it’s surely going to bring a really unique look to the movie.

  • June 14, 2015 at 6:35 am
    Permalink

    35mm or not, Im just happy there’s going to be an Episode VIII, since J.J has pretty much fucked up Ep VII by not including Luke more.

  • June 14, 2015 at 8:06 am
    Permalink

    Star Wars Episode VIII: The Liberal propaganda machine Strikes back.

    • June 14, 2015 at 6:49 pm
      Permalink

      You have done that yourself. Quite pathetically, too, I may add.

    • June 15, 2015 at 5:48 am
      Permalink

      It’s obvious you don’t like Star Wars. Why are you going here dude ?

  • June 14, 2015 at 8:28 pm
    Permalink

    Actually, consistancy would be an artistic reason, not a logistical one. I think it has to do with the fact 6K cameras are in very limited availability currently. Plus they require a whole equipement to store, secure and edit 6K lossless images.

  • June 15, 2015 at 5:28 am
    Permalink

    PT rules, OT is shit. Typically, the reversed bashing meme.

  • June 15, 2015 at 8:38 pm
    Permalink

    Makes sense. Let the newbies use the latest tech, while the mainstays remain unique/traditional.

Comments are closed.

LATEST POSTS ON MOVIE NEWS NET