Attack of the 50 Foot Yoda

“Size Matters Not” … I finally gave in to the deluge of Yoda-centric marketing. Suzan, Alice and I headed to the Mall of Georgia IMAX theater on Sunday to see Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones on the big, big, big screen.

I don’t feel like a true geek anymore … this is only the second time I’ve seen this movie in the theater. But I noticed several things about this second presentation of the second prequel:

1. Lots of Edits

Mister Lucas must have learned something from The Phantom Edit, since there’s at least three Jar-Jar scenes cut from the IMAX version. The thing is, these scenes are actually important to the movie. You don’t get to see Jar-Jar greet Obi-Wan and Anikan, which means you don’t get to see Senator Amalamadingdong refer to him as “Annie”. You don’t get to see Palpatine manipulate Jar-Jar into rallying the Senate to vote for the Army.

Face it, there’s not a lot of plot in a Lucas movie … don’t cut out what little character development you have.

But several non-essential scenes were also trimmed. I payed attention to these, because I remember them from the original. These were scenes within the Jedi archives which suffered from bluescreenus suckus, a rare disease that should not appear in a $100,000,000+ film directed by a man who owns one of the premier effects houses in the world.

2. Makeup!

There are several advantages to the IMAX format, but there are a number of pitfalls. One of the largest comes from transferring a film shot for 16:9 aspect theaters. Closeup shots of the principal actors fill the entire screen, making the folks in the front row feel like they’re about to be sucked into an actor’s nostrils. So the audience can now see details they might miss in the back row of your run of the mill popcorn plaza.

One example of this is Ewan McGregor’s forehead, which at times occupied an area larger than the front of my house. Ewan appears to have a zit on his forehead, right smack in the middle. I’m sure this didn’t show up much on the average editor’s screen after some careful makeup, but it’s hard to hide the peaks and valleys of one’s head when a single blemish is projected to the size of a house cat.

Remind me to never appear on 70mm film unless I’m wearing an Incan ceremonial headmask.

3. Diesel Starships

Okay, I know that retro is cool. Even an unstylish engineer like yours truly understands the hipness present in 1940′s cars and airplanes … sweeping lines, chrome details, tails and fins. It’s obvious that Lucas has a love for this era, considering his involvement with the Indiana Jones films. So it’s not surprising that this style shows up in the prequels, especially Senator Hillary Rodham Amadala’s space ships.

But just because her ship looks like a 1940′s Oldsmobile doesn’t mean it has to sound like one. The effects wranglers at Skywalker Sound made these chrome beauties sound like diesel beasts (don’t even get me started on the fact that they make this sound in space).

This effect is amplified in IMAX format, where the theater has more sub-woofers than a parking lot full of riced Honda Civics. The left-to-right flyby of the Senator’s chrome anti-stealth bomber knocked teeth out of my head. I’m waiting for some poor fool with an “aggressive” home theater implementation to loose roof shingles when he plays this scene on DVD.

4. Quick to Start, Quick to Finish

Nice thing about IMAX … very few commercials. Since there’s only one coming attraction on IMAX (The Lion King), we were rolling in minutes.

The bad thing about IMAX … an ass-load of space for credits. They put the entire film credits on five frames. The football-sized screen was covered with grips, best boys and 3D modeling artists. Not bad for the audience, but it sucks for the film unions.

Overall it was an enjoyable way to watch the film, but it does amplify some of it’s flaws. I’m just wondering when they’ll make porn on IMAX [insert joke here].