Judge Palmieri the chief architect and watchdog of the 1948 Paramount decrees (which divested studio ownership of theatres) died last year. With the exception of the Microsoft case, the Justice Department has all but abandoned enforcement of anti-trust laws in this counrty a long time ago. So who's to stop the studios?

After all, it is really a classic battle tactic....let the combatants beat each other to a bloody pulp on the field and then swoop down and pick up the pieces.

2) Once they have a foothold in exhibition the studios will equip all of their own theatres with digital.....at the same time refusing digital product to the rest of us. Why not? Who's going to stop them. The financially strapped majors and the independents won't have the cash for major re-equipment. Do you know any theatre owners with the guts to take on a major studio in court? Pretty soon the studios will reestablish their theatre ownership control....and it wiil be just like it was in the the 20's and 30's.

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The case arose from a small independent twin art house in Philadelphia which was basically refused service by Miramax in favor of a more upscale competitor. Orcon went out of business and sued in Federal Court. They claimed violations of both the federal antitrust laws and the Pennsylvnaia Feature Motion Pictures Trade Practices Act.

The federal court dismissed the anti-trust claims - basically on the theory that there was no significant impact on commerce. The case proceeded to trial under the Pennsylvania Act which required studios to make a picture available to anyone who wanted it after 42 days of release in a given market. (This section of the Pennsylvania law was routinely ignored by several of the distributors). The jury found found for the theatre owner and awarded substantial damages.

On appeal the third circuit held that the area of feature motion picture licensing was pre-empted by the Copyright Act. Under the Copyright Act the court held the studios were free to license to whom they want, when they want or not all if they so choose. The broad language of the opinion in essence make the studios law unto themselves.

Earlier this spring the US Supreme Court denied a futher appeal in the case.

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It was small independants that originally won our rights to get prints anytime, anywhere. And yes it is getting harder to get prints. The bigger your corporation or the closer your ties, the more likely it is that you will be able to prevent your competition from getting product.

And yes boys and girls, it is completely legal. A violation of anti-trust law would only exist if a studio refused to allow you prints unless you refuse to carry other studio prints. In the case where a studio chooses one theater over another, there is no anti-trust law.

The anti-trust laws are there to prevent organizations or individuals from cornering a market. If a studio denies you a print because they want it at this other place, its thier perogative. If you can prove you can deliver grosses and your theater is state of the art, it would be to thier advantage to allow you the print.

Then there is good ol georgy porgy lucas. The man was as close to anti-trust as you can get with episode one. Requiring so many prints carried depending on how many screens you had, and for a guaranteed time frame. I am sorry but THAT is trying to corner the market. He offered no guarantee that the film would perform, he did not allow theaters to pull prints from thier best auditoriums, he did not allow the number of shows and screen to diminish UNTIL 12 WEEKS HAD PASSED.

The industry will NOT fall for that again. IF you ask me, lucas may have been the final straw in the dead camels back.

Do I hear any arguments to the contrary?

I worked at a theatre in 1983 showing a 70mm print of Return of the Jedi for at least 12 weeks. At the time, we only had one screen equipped for stereo sound and it played nothing but that 70mm print. All the other summer blockbusters were stuck in our good, old, analog, mono houses. But nobody seemed to complain. That was the only movie people seemed to want to see in stereo anyway.

So... fast-forward to 1999 and George Lucas believes that his new Star Wars movie can manage to play to large crowds for an entire summer. And he knows a little something about how megaplexes are run in the 1990s and he doesn't like it. So he uses his influence to set up ground rules. His intention is consumer protection and he's not afraid to offend theatre operators in order to make sure his fans get the best presentations they can.

So... if The Phantom Menace had been as great as we all wanted it to be (and if we'd all enjoyed it as much as Mr. Lucas' children enjoyed it) would we be complaining about those ground rules? I like to believe that Episode 2 will be a truly great movie... but it looks like nobody will be able to show it because a) nobody wants to agree to those ground rules again and b) nobody wants to buy DLP equipment.

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At least Microsoft gave us some slighty useful software. George gave us Jar Jar Binks. That should be a crime in and of itself.

Jim Z: No one said that Episode II would only be in DLP! In fact I believe that all that was said is that the movie would be filmed...er digitized with DLP technology meaning that the original master is in a historically(drum roll) first time digital format. I am positvie that they will still strike "film" prints for its exhibition to the public. However, by that time there should be more than a just a handful of Dig cinema screens out there.
http://www.quvis.com/trade_shows.html

Episdoe I on DVD??? WHY???? When you can get the Japanese subtitled version in far superior quality(I know i know ...subtitles) for laser disc. I'd rather watch a laser disc with japanese subtitles than a typical DVD although DVDs are getting quite good nowadays too.

Not to bring past arguments to light but...
(Some of these titles were QCd by DMP at THX)

The 3rd Annual Divi Awards Cermony was held recently and Artisan Home
Entertainment won the following awards:

Best Authoring
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment

Best Special Edition
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment

Here's a list of the nominees for the DiVi Awards in all categories.

Best Video Compression
Fight Club - 20th Century Fox
Men In Black - Columbia TriStar
Prince Of Egypt - Dreamworks
Saving Private Ryan - Dreamworks
The Thin Red Line - 20th Century Fox

Best Audio Compression
Fight Club - 20th Century Fox
Independence Day - 20th Century Fox
Men In Black - Columbia TriStar
Saving Private Ryan - Dreamworks
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment

Best Packaging/Presentation
Fight Club - 20th Century Fox
Repo Man: Limited Edition - Anchor Bay Entertainment
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment
The Nightmare Collection - New Line Home Video
X-Files - 20th Century Fox

Best Authoring
Fight Club - 20th Century Fox
Live And Let Die - Laser Pacific
Men In Black - Columbia TriStar
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment
The Abyss - 20th Century Fox

Best DVD-ROM
Austin Powers 2 - New Line Home Video
Stuart Little - Columbia TriStar
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment
The Abyss - 20th Century Fox
The Matrix - Warner Home Video

Best Special Features
Antz - Dreamworks
Fight Club - 20th Century Fox
Men In Black - Columbia TriStar
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment
The Matrix - Warner Home Video

Best Menu Design
Antz - Dreamworks
Detroit Rock City - New Line Home Video
Prince Of Egypt - Dreamworks
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment
The Abyss - 20th Century Fox

Best Educational/Documentary
Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back - New Video
Mr. Death - Universal Home Video
Rome: Power & Glory - Questar
Super Speedway - Image Entertainment
The Rainbow Fish - Sony Music

Best Standard Release
Alien - 20th Century Fox
Dracula - Universal Home Video
Patton - 20th Century Fox
The Green Mile - Warner Home Video
Titanic - Paramount Home Entertainment

Best Special Edition
Apocalypse Now - Paramount Home Entertainment
Fight Club - 20th Century Fox
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment
The Matrix - Warner Home Video
The Wizard Of Oz - Warner Home Video

Best Music Release
Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back - New Video
Peter Frampton - Image Entertainment
Pink Floyd: The Wall - Sony Music
U2: Rattle & Hum - Paramount Home Entertainment
Whitney Houston - BMG Entertainment

Best Overall DVD
Fight Club - 20th Century Fox
Men In Black - Columbia TriStar
Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition - Artisan Home Entertainment
The Matrix - Warner Home Video
The Nightmare Collection - New Line Home Video

---
T2 - 8 nominations
ABYSS - 3 nominations
ID4 - 1 nomination
MIB - 5 nominations
Fight Club - 7 nominations
Matrix - 4 nominations

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Fact #1 George LOVES money.
Fact #2 The vast majority of everyone on the planet wants to see Jar Jar die a horrible death.

If George killed that damn thing in Episode 2, he very well might beat Titanic's record! Just think of how many more people would come to enjoy "Star Wars" without that bumbling schmuck. Add to that all of the people who would come over and over just to see the shit die...I know I would.

Don't worry, fellas. They'll still make more Terminator and Matrix movies to satisfy your sophisticated taste for violence, nudity, swearing, etc.

Yep... George Lucas just loves money, doesn't he? That must be why he's making movies we hate to watch and ignoring the Jar Jar focus groups. What a greedy rascal.