I've been watching Attack of the Clones on Fox tonight for the first time since getting an HDTV and couldn't help but notice how incredibly poor this movie looks under such a high resolution. Everything looks like plastic and the actors look like they are amateurishly photoshopped into the film. I never noticed this in the theater when I saw it, perhaps I was too involved in the film then. Has it always been this bad or is HD simply revealing more flaws in the blue screen technology used for Episode II?

For comparison sake, I watched a few minutes of Pirates of the Caribbean on ABC, and that looked incredibly film-like and natural.

The broadcast on Fox was shit. Don't judge it. I did the same thing (switching between the two). In fact, I don't think this was full HD resolution, although I could be wrong. Fox has a habit of broadcasting in "enhanced definition" or some shit.

Btw...i actually prefer this "cut" of the film. I think it's closer to the IMAX cut.

Considering how awesome the third flick looked recently on HBO, I'd imagine it's a Fox issue.

all six movies are going to be in HD on Cinemax

i thought it looked pretty good on HBO, could also be your carrier and too much compression

What is the source of your signal?

Mine was digital cable. I checked with another friend in PA and he said the same thing. It looked like crap.

Saw bits and pieces of it also last night and wasn't very impressed.

Same here in North Carolina, didn't look great.

Um, isn't this in cropped/non-OAR form? That could be part of it.

Yep, 1.78:1 just like when it was on HBO-HD.

Nah. Methinks it had everything to do with Fox. They routinely show things looking like shit.

Wow, that looked nearly as bad as Fox's so-called "HD" baseball broadcasts.

I've seen "TPM" on HBO previously (or maybe Showtime/Cinemax, can't recall), and it looked way better than the Fox broadcast of "Clones" (but also non-OAR).

yeah. i noticed that about their Yankee games. It certainly ain't "real" HD. I think Fox is pretty bogus.

I'm glad I'm not the only once who noticed how crappy their baseball coverage is. I was hoping it wasn't just me. What's the problem over at Fox anyway? Are they too cheap or something?

Keep in mind that the film was shot muchly on HD video 16:9 open matte 1080. The matte was removed, making the resolution of the 2.35:1 film around only 3/4 of the 16:9. (~820 res) Then it was cropped for this showing and blown up to a 16:9 frame again. Then it was cut down to 720p for Fox transmission.

Plus the acting (I'm being generous, here) was stiff and the colors were always a bit strange.

It's really an unsatisfying experience, watching this in HD so far. I didn't even turn it on this time. It does sound as though this time around was worse than last year on Fox, or HBO replays. I haven't seen too many complaints before this week about resolution issues, mainly just non-OAR complaints, so they must've screwed something up. At least a disc would theoretically put it back into OAR without multiple layers of reconfiguration of the shape/signal/resolution. I'm willing to wait til then, whenever then is.

I don't think this was an open matte presentation on Fox. I can't speak for the HBO airing, as I don't have HBO. I was very aware of what might look differently framed. There were scenes where the tops of character heads were cropped off (not abnormal) but if there were 2.35:1 mattes on it, they would come down over the faces of the characters.

I could be wrong, I couldn't bear to watch too much of it. FoxHD sucks.

The broadcast I sampled was definitely cropped (as compared to open matte).

Episode III in OAR 1080i looks AWESOME, I love showing my recording of that to people checking out the movie room

I think its funny that this turned into a debate about the quality of signal from Fox. I was trying to point out how "fake" the movie looked in HD, I'm not sure if that was Fox's fault or simply the effects not being up to snuff at the time. I've seen Episode III on HBO HD and that does look great, but Episode II looks like everything is cut and pasted together quickly and nothing blends.

I caught the end, and it didn't look all that great.

Then, when the credits started, the picture "squeezed" up like I was watching A Fistfull of Dollars or something on late night tv.

If it was OAR it would have been letterboxed and it wasn't

If you are responding to my post, then once again you have failed to actually read my post first.

What's with the anger? I was pretty much agreeing with you.

I thought Fox was only 480P?

They bumped it up to 720p a couple years ago.

Sorry, Qui Gon Jim, no anger at all. Just wasn't sure which you were responding to. My bad.