Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace 3D PosterThere’s a lot riding on this re-release of George Lucas’s Star Wars films (now with added 3D) as this falls before the re-unleashing of James Cameron’s Titanic later in the year and all eyes will be as much on the quality of the post-conversion process as the film itself.

There’s no doubt that The Phantom Menace has a unique place in Star Wars history and it’ll be very interesting to see how the film plays thirteen years later and without the enormous expectation it was greeted with all those years ago.

I spoke to some veteran ILMers last year for the Blu-ray release of the films and their response was firmly that Lucas wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t just right. Say what you like about the changes made over the years there are few films which could lead the 3D Classic-o-convert (my new name for the process of post converting the favourite films of yesteryear) revolution as readily as these.

We’re due to see the film in a couple of days and we’ve got our hands on a number of images, never before seen, peeking behind the scenes of the film’s production as well as reminding us that it’s not all about Jar Jar.

The film is out in cinemas on the 9th of February. These are the pictures you’re looking for, click to make them larger and more powerful than you can possible imagine.