The Lucas Interview Page 2

Carrie Fisher: Does anyone have a movie-projector thing anymore?Well, I don't know. You're in Hollywood - I'm not. I thought everybody down there had that stuff. Obviously, you can't see a new movie unless you have a projector, but I go to movie theaters and watch with real people. I don't have special screenings. I did have one of Lost in Translation because I'm a close friend of Sofia's and her father [Francis Coppola], mother, and brother. I saw it out at the Ranch in a very large theater.

They ask, "What do you think of the movie theater experience in 2004?"In some cases it's getting better, but in a lot of cases it's the same as it has been. It's very hard to get people to understand that if they would use digital projectors, the quality of the prints - the quality of the film itself - would stay high rather than degenerating over the few weeks it runs in the theater.

Digital projectors?Digital projectors.

As opposed to film projectors.As opposed to film projectors. The theaters refuse to use digital projectors a nd the studios refuse to release digital films. So the film becomes all scratchy and torn up and bad. It's great if you see the movie on the very first day it's released, but if you wait even two or three days, it starts to degenerate.

So why do they refuse to do it?I don't know. You live down there, I don't.

Honey! You keep saying that! I stay at my house.I stay in my little city up here.

I don't go out there amongst them.They have this plan that if they wait long enough, they can figure out a way to exploit the situation, but in the end -

Exploit the situation, how?They're afraid they're going to lose money or lose control, but in the end it's going to happen whether they want it or not.

They're going to use -Digital projectors. And the quality will be much better.

Are you one of the first people to shoot a movie digitally?Yeah, a major motion picture. And I'm the first to have shown one digitally.

I didn't know that.There were some little, independent films shown digitally at festivals, but Phantom Menace was shown digitally in two theaters in New York and two in L.A. Attack of the Clones was shown digitally in a hundred theaters.

See, I don't even understand this stuff. It's like when you said to me that thing wasn't a clicker, it was a computer.Uh huh.

Excuse me, though - my computer does more than that clicker/computer.I know, but that remote is a different kind of computer. It's easier to work than a clicker .

Well, it should be for $5,000!But that's what you're paying for. You're paying for the fact that it's not confusing.

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