"Star Wars" Blu-ray Sets Announced

[TordelBack]

I know what you mean, Pete, but I think Lucas is perhaps surprisingly fair about these things.  LFL allows you to do pretty much anything you want with its characters and imagery as long as you aren't making money out of it - Lucas seems to genuinely support people working with his stuff, and seems to appreciate (as a businessman) that this is how you engage and sustain interest.   When you start 'cashing in' on their material, they take their cut, as long as they like what you're doing - if they don't, it's C&D time.  It's probably as fair a balance as can be struck in this rights-obsessed world.  Yeah, 25% is steep, but I suppose "One Man Space Fantasy Trilogy" isn't going to bring in many punters.

[Pete Wells]

Have you seen the show TordelBack? It's really, really good, I'm sure you'd love it.

Charlie Ross, the guy who does it, is calling it a day after this tour.

[locustsofdeath!]

LFL allows you to do pretty much anything you want with its characters and imagery as long as you aren't making money out of it.

Heck, why aren't we putting a Star Wars fanzine together then  ?

[John Caliber]

I published two series of Star Wars roleplaying fanzines between 1996-1999: the Jawa Melting Pot and Star Wars Thrilogy. Readers generally considered them better than the licensed books by West End Games; I worked hard to maintain the same sense of style as the movies. I sweat blood over them and loved every minute (until my defective Zip Drive damaged three years of work - I lost the lost, and now only one hardcopy master remains).

[TordelBack]

Have you seen the show TordelBack? It's really, really good, I'm sure you'd love it.

Alas, no.  I've seen chunks on You Tube, and I think it was Charlie that did the intro segments for the first  TV showing of all six movies. What I've seen is indeed brilliant.  

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Apparently the official website crashed as soon as these became available.

Ha -- Stevie's LCS here in Adelaide, South Australia, actually received a couple of calls from bewildered regulars asking if the owners knew what was happening.

[John Caliber]

For the amount of money it makes, Lucasfilm is a shockingly cheap operation. It claims to only want to put out the highest quality Star Wars media, but then commissions shitty art for its webstrips (not sure if they are still published). The crap that made it onto a recent series of trading cards could have been doodled by pre-teens. Aside from their lack of interest in the comic strip arm of their licensing empire, they still allocate the same bandwidth for the Official Star Wars site as though time-locked in 1998.

I have the suspision - nothing much to back this up - that the original Han/Greedo scene has been restored. I wondered if the t-shirt Lucas wore when making Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a hint. Not I'd stress out of some daft notion that fans' complaints mean anything, but that maybe Lucas' adopted children made their voices heard. I don't imagine the other Special Edition scenes have been removed, but possibly have been upgraded.

[locustsofdeath!]

"Definitive" Blu Ray Set my arse. Here's a list of other documentaries/tv segments that could have been included (with thanks to Ryeking and others on IMDB):

Special Effects: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Pretty straight documentary covering the history of special effects and their relationship to TESB, hosted by Mark Hamill. Some great behind the scenes ILM and on-set stuff. Hard to find on VHS, but also easier to find in next-gen copies online and at conventions.

Clap Board (UK TV Programme) "The Empire Strikes Back" Episode (1980)
Hosted by Chris Kelly, this 'behind the scenes' TV show has interviews with Daniels, Prowse and some FX guys, and some great on-set b-t-s footage.

From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making Of A Saga (1983)
Despite the title, there's not a lot of SW and TESB in this, it's mostly ROTJ. That said, it's pretty good. Narrated by Mark Hamill. Strangely easy to find on Original VHS (I've owned two and seen plenty more on the shelves).

Extras from The Definitive Laser Disc Collection (1993)
-War Stories: An Interview with George Lucas
-Art Gallery: Narrated by Ralph McQuarrie
-The Lucasfilm Archive Tour
-Sound Advice: An Interview Ben Burt
-How the Walkers Walk: Narrated by Dennis Murrin
-Story-board comparison
-ABCs of Jedi Effects: An Interview with Dennis Murrin
-Jedi Video-matics
-Lapti Nek- music video
-Various Videomatics, with Stills of Production Photos,
Conceptual Art, and Storyboards

George Lucas Interview (Part 1 of 3) (1995)
Leonard Maltin interviews GL and they discuss Star Wars. From the 1995 OT Remaster Laserdisc.

George Lucas Interview (Part 2 of 3) (1995)
Leonard Maltin interviews GL and they discuss TESB. From the 1995 OT Remaster Laserdisc.

George Lucas Interview (Part 3 of 3) (1995)
Leonard Maltin interviews GL and they discuss ROTJ. From the 1995 OT Remaster Laserdisc.

Untitled Special Edition Featurette (Full Version) (1997)
Featurette on the making of the Special Editions, focusing on the new CGI and remastered elements, with cast, crew and GL interviews. The Full Version is only on the 1997 Laserdisc. An edited version appears on the 1997 VHS. Later releases remove this and put and Episode II preview on instead (see below). Look for the silver (widescreen) or gold (full-frame) boxes.

Filmmaking Has Turned A Corner (2000)
Appears on The Phantom Menace Widescreen VHS (not the full-frame version). It's the original b-t-s featurette for EPI, with cast, crew and GL interviews. It wasn't included on the DVD, but the DVD's doc uses some of the footage. Not bad (if you like TPM).

Episode II: The Saga Continues (Preview) (2001)
Replacing the previous Special Ed. featurette from the 1997 OT release, this Preview is a b-t-s look at the EPII recasting of Owen and Beru and the homestead scenes. Short and sweet, with cast and crew interviews.

Star Wars: A Musical Journey (2005)
A bonus DVD with the ROTS soundtrack. Hosted by Ian McDairmid, it features score selections set to clips from the films. You can watch it with or without the host segments.

There are also the Kenner Toy spots (but then...one of them shows Han shoot Greedo preemptively, ha, so Lucas would have to change that one), the Muppets Meet Star Wars, the animated segment from the Holiday Special.......

....what else can we think of...?

[O Lucky Stevie!]

The Star Wars character appearances on Sesame Street.

Caravan of Courage

The Making of Star Wars 1 hour tv special that was broadcast here in Auxtralia back in 1978.

& the respective Making of Empire Strikes Back.

[Keef Monkey]

I'm absolutely going to buy this (or more likely get it for xmas), and when I have my marathon all day session (starting with Episode 1, that way it'll get better as it goes on!) I know I'll forget all the complaints I've had about the prequels and just bask in it's HD glory. Plus, I really liked Episode 3 (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO aside) and haven't seen it since the cinema.

[Pete Wells]

What else can we think of?

I recorded a show with Robin Williams in his Mork days looking at all different aliens from Sci-Fi movies. It had Artoo and Threepio on it, some Star Wars beasties as well as cool stuff like the Twilight Zone, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Lost in Space and more. I must have watched it hundreds of times...

EDIT - Ha! A quick look on IMDB shows that it was actually ET and Friends: Magical Movie Visitors. Maybe Lucas shouldn't put a TV special for another movie on his box set!

[Bat King]

Lost count of the versions I own of 4,5&6...  Do I need the Blu ray...???

[John Caliber]

Depends if you want to see what SFX enhancements may have been made to the OT, Steve. Even excluding the Special Edition changes, the original sequences have retained annoying garbage mattes, shoddy colour grading and inconsistent lightsabre colours (and varying quality blades).

[Dandontdare]

So can anyone tell me just how many different releases there have actually been, including VHS?

[Goaty]

So can anyone tell me just how many different releases there have actually been, including VHS?

1) The Original Home Video Release
In the 1980s and 90s, the original trilogy saw various releases on VHS, Betamax, and Laserdisc. Isn't 80s technology amusing?

2) The Special Edition
In 1997, George Lucas spent $10 million reworking the original trilogy. Since this edition was released in cinemas, it was admittedly pretty exciting to those of us who hadn't been alive the first time around and had hitherto only seen the films on tiny, tiny television screens; however, it was also pretty controversial, because this is when Lucas began his grand tradition of changing things people knew and loved. For example, Han apparently didn't shoot first, even though we all thought he had for years.

3) The Prequel Trilogy
Starting with The Phantom Menace in 2000, the prequels began their first run of home releases. The Phantom Menace was initially only released on VHS, but there were two separate editions: The regular one with the ends chopped off to make the picture fit your television screen, and the widescreen Collector's Edition. It came out on DVD in 2001, and thereafter, each of the prequel's first home release came in both VHS and DVD. Lucas continued to edit the films for their DVD releases, so none of them are technically the original theatrical versions.