And quite predictably, only the Special Editions, no original versions.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=4996

Lucas says it's just SO e xp ensive to do restorations. There are two answers to that....

1. Since most of the original edition footage has already been restored in order to make the special editions, why were there be that much extra to do?

and

2. If anyone has the money to do this, it's Lucas! He's just giving BS reasons why he doesn't want anything but his revisionist, Han-doesn't-shoot-first versions available.

And as a special bonus, here's a third reason....

3. So in 2016 or so, they can trot out the original editions on another release of the BD set, still not restored and looking like crap. Believe me, I popped in the DVD of the ROTK:SE the other day, and even the restored SE version did not look all that hot.

[end mini-rant]

I'll have to get that it when it comes out. I only got my Blu-ray player yesterday and still only have an HD ready telly.... maybes one day I can get a full HD one.

[quote=""Olorin""]And quite predictably, only the Special Editions, no original versions.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=4996

Lucas says it's just SO e xp ensive to do restorations. There are two answers to that....

1. Since most of the original edition footage has already been restored in order to make the special editions, why were there be that much extra to do?

and

2. If anyone has the money to do this, it's Lucas! He's just giving BS reasons why he doesn't want anything but his revisionist, Han-doesn't-shoot-first versions available.

And as a special bonus, here's a third reason....

3. So in 2016 or so, they can trot out the original editions on another release of the BD set, still not restored and looking like crap. Believe me, I popped in the DVD of the ROTK:SE the other day, and even the restored SE version did not look all that hot.

[end mini-rant][/quote]

I really wish I had kept the movies when they came out on VHS in their original form. I can't stand some of the stuff he did, like change the musical ending of Jedi or change Anakin at the end. The man continues to ride this dead horse (referring to movie changes) in and out of the burning barn.

[quote=""Legion""]I really wish I had kept the movies when they came out on VHS in their original form. I can't stand some of the stuff he did, like change the musical ending of Jedi or change Anakin at the end. The man continues to ride this dead horse (referring to movie changes) in and out of the burning barn.[/quote]

I don't mind him making changes, as long as the original version is maintained and kept available to the public. That's the part that Lucas just doesn't get.

[quote=""Legion""]The man continues to ride this dead horse ... in and out of the burning barn.[/quote]

Legion, I don't know if that saying has been around for a while (I never heard it before) or you made it up, but that has to be one of the best mixed metaphors I have ever read.

Lol Legion! My band director says that all the time. "You're riding a psychotic horse into a burning barn. Stop now, get off, and play with better tone!"


I agree with Olorin. I really dont have nearly as many issues with the Special Editions or the prequels as most people do, but why can't I get the Originals? Must I borrow my uncle's VHS copies everytime I get sick of seeing Hayden Chirstensen in the original trilogy?

When Lucas was talking about a "galaxy far, far away" who knew his head was way up his butt and he was just describing the view?

[quote=""Valkrist""]When Lucas was talking about a "galaxy far, far away" who knew his head was way up his butt and he was just describing the view? [/quote]
And then we cut to 2001: A Space Odyssey to hear Bowman say,
"My God, it's full of stars!"

[quote=""Thranduil""]And then we cut to 2001: A Space Odyssey to hear Bowman say,
"My God, it's full of stars!"[/quote]

Actually, he never says that in 2001. They later added it in the 2010 sequel. One of those retroactive changes that would have made Lucas proud, ironically enough.

Of course, I assume you are talking about the movie, because he does say it in the novel.

I will only buy these if there is a ton of special features.

It's official: http://starwars.com/video/view/001175.html

And yes, Beans, there will be 3 discs worth of supplements, so I think we can safely say there will be "tons." Also, from the Digital Bits:

[font=arial, helvetica, courier, *]Well, folks... it's official. Though strangely, the press event at CES was not up to the hype. And it contained few details other than these: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm will release The Star Wars Saga on Blu-ray Disc this September (street date is TBA). The set will include all 6 films with exclusive new bonus material. After Vader and his Stormtroopers arrived on stage, Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn told the crowd that the films will be offered on BD-50s with a bit rate of up to 40mpbs. The project is being personally supervised by George Lucas himself. And that's about it for the event itself.

The good news is that their official press release contains MUCH more information. Here are all the details:

"Pre-order Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray Now!

January 6, 2011

The most anticipated Blu-ray release ever -- the Star Wars Saga -- emerges from light speed this September 2011. For the first time, all six of George Lucas' epic films (Episodes I-VI) are united in one complete set. Fans worldwide are able to pre-order now with online retailers.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Star Wars in three distinct sets to meet the needs of every Star Wars fan:

Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray (9-disc Set includes all six films)
Star Wars: Prequel Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes I-III)
Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes IV-VI)

Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray will feature all six live-action Star Wars feature films utilizing the highest possible picture and audio presentation, along with three additional discs and more than 30 hours of extensive special features including never-before-seen deleted and alternate scenes, an e xp loration of the exclusive Star Wars archives, and much more.

Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray will be available for $139.99 US/$179.99 CAN and the Star Wars: Trilogy Sets for $69.99 US/89.99 CAN. Pricing for each set will vary by international territory.

Flanked by a legion of his finest Imperial stormtroopers, Darth Vader himself joined Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment President Mike Dunn at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to announce the release, vowing "The forces of the Empire will be at your disposal to assure the success of this endeavor."

"The Star Wars Saga is the most anticipated Blu-ray collection since the launch of the high-def format," Dunn said. "The epic franchise pioneered sound and visual presentation in theaters and is perfectly suited to do it again in the home, with a viewing e xp erience only possible with Blu-ray."

"With all six episodes available for the first time in one collection, this is a great way for families and home audiences to e xp erience the complete Saga from start to finish," said Doug Yates, Vice President of Marketing, Online, Distribution, Lucasfilm Ltd. "And with the quality of high-definition, Blu-ray provides the most immersive home e xp erience possible."

"The Star Wars franchise has been the most anticipated Blu-ray release by Amazon's customers," said Bill Carr, Vice President of Music and Video at Amazon.com. "We think that Star Wars will be incredibly popular with our customers, and we e xp ect pre-orders to be very strong."

Star Wars.com has the official teaser video here (looks cool, but no other details). Rest assured, we'll post any additional Star Wars Blu-ray information that we might get our hands on here over the course of the day. And be sure to check back early tomorrow morning for lots more Digital Bits coverage from CES 2011![/font]

Well I guess now its finally time for me to be able to buy star wars... I have never bought them on DVD because I always wanted a 1-6 movie set and then when BD came out I wanted to wait for a 1-6 BD set... so here it is, I guess now (or september 2011) it is time to get them!

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Star Wars in three distinct sets to meet the needs of every Star Wars fan:


Sadly, the statement above is the biggest lie of all!

The needs of THIS and MANY other Star Wars are NOT met by these sets, nor will they ever be. I'm talking about releasing cleaned up and restored versions of the original trilogy without all the stupid tinkering that Lucas did after. I want to e xp erience the original theatrical releases in BD glory. As long as Lucas lives, I think the man has sworn to destroy those prints at the time of his death so no one can go behind his back and do exactly what we all want.

Despite having a mild dislike of the films overall, I'm not ashamed to admit I preordered the 1-6 set from Amazon. $90 for 6 films on BD isn't bad.

Val, as far as I'm concerned I'd just like to see some middle ground. I don't -mind- the "new" versions, there are several things that need to be fixed. I own the original trilogy on DVD and it's kind of a mess. Not to mention I enjoyed not having Hayden Christensen in them. That was part of their appeal. Lucas ruined that. With a major plot hole. I personally think Lucas went senile years ago but he's built such an empire (no pun intended) that no one calls him out on his terrible ideas.

Well, GW, I think you're pretty close to right about Lucas. Anybody who has so much money is usually surrounded by lackeys afraid to tell him the truth, that the Emperor has no clothes (now there's a scary thought), for fear of getting cut out of the money train.

"It's ok to sleep in the same bed with those small children, Michael. Nobody will think anything bad about it."

"It's OK to make all sorts of second-guess changes to widely acknowledged cinema classics, George, and withhold the original versions. Nobody will object."

Anyway, I haven't pre-ordered yet. I've been pretty cool to Star Wars for quite a few years now. Lucas' intractability about the original editions is annoying enough, but beyond that, the prequels really undermined the original trilogy in my esteem. The cinematic villain of our time was reduced to a whiny, love-sick teenager, and I can never look at him the same way again.

I don't doubt I'll get them, but I'd like to read a bit about the video quality first. The DVDs look fairly dreadful on a big TV, even the special editions, and so I'm hoping they did some significant cleanup on these. The Alien set looked great on BD, and Star Wars deserves no less. If I read that these are substandard transfers, I'll not be buying.

Well I was going to hold off, and I may end up cancelling the preorder, but for $90, I figure that's a pretty decent deal.

I'm in complete agreement with you. Vader in the original trilogy was at least intimidating. Then the prequel trilogies show him to be a whiny little punk. The real nail in the coffin for me was learning about Darth Revan and Darth Bane in the e xp anded universe. Now I'm certain that the -films- probably have the best Jedi but the absolute worst Sith.

Darth Revan has to be the coolest sith ever, but Darth Nihlus is probably the coolest looking (to me).

As far as Darth Vader... He had to come from somewhere, but my biggest problem with Anakin wasnt Hayden Christenen, but the little boy that played him in episode I! Now that was my definition of annoying kid!

I am with Olorin, these better be the best transfers and quality that is possible! I want these movies to look so good that it looks better than anything I have ever seen! Then again, like GW says, 90 bucks for 6 BDs plus special features is quite a good deal!

[quote=""BladeCollector""]Darth Revan has to be the coolest sith ever[/quote]

A few months ago I would've agreed with you entirely. Then I picked up the Darth Bane trilogy. Written by the same fellow who wrote KOTOR (and now, TOR), the books are amazing. I'm not even -that- big of a Star Wars fan. I've never read any of the other stuff. The most I ever did was play some of the video games. The Darth Bane books are easily some of my favorite books period. If you were disappointed watching Anakin fall to the Dark Side in the lamest way possible, I promise you Darth Bane redeems the Sith entirely. I strongly recommend if you enjoyed KOTOR that you pick up at least the first book.

[quote=""Valkrist""]Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Star Wars in three distinct sets to meet the needs of every Star Wars fan:


Sadly, the statement above is the biggest lie of all!

The needs of THIS and MANY other Star Wars are NOT met by these sets, nor will they ever be. I'm talking about releasing cleaned up and restored versions of the original trilogy without all the stupid tinkering that Lucas did after. I want to e xp erience the original theatrical releases in BD glory. As long as Lucas lives, I think the man has sworn to destroy those prints at the time of his death so no one can go behind his back and do exactly what we all want. [/quote]
Well I've got the original trilogy on laser disc, and while the quality can't compare to BR, I am planning on burning them to DVD. Who's to say a BR burner isn't coming down the pike one day?
George Lucas can forget about the extinction of original SW. Such an attitude promotes piracy (stupid, George).

Heck, with the right programs and equipment it can be done today;

Long live the Original Star Wars!

[quote=""Valkrist""]I'm talking about releasing cleaned up and restored versions of the original trilogy without all the stupid tinkering that Lucas did after. I want to e xp erience the original theatrical releases in BD glory.[/quote]

I'm with you in this. But, if I'm not mistaken, there were some limited DVD
editions with both versions of the old trilogy? The problem is, they're not
restored properly, right (I'm no SW e xp ert)? I'd really like to own episodes IV
to VI in their original form, and yes, without added surround sound (like The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and without overzealous filtering (like Predator
Hunter Edition) -- some of these classics have no evidence anymore they're
originally shot on film.

Let me conclude it this way: I desire 1977, 1980 and 1983 originals to look
like "Alien" and "Aliens" from the new "Anthology" boxed set. All other versions,
films and spin-offs can burn in hell for all I care.

And I'm sure we'll get them [eternal optimist...], but they're not gonna be
announced before we buy 3-4 other editions first [...with e xp erience].


[quote=""Thranduil""]Well I've got the original trilogy on laser disc, and while the quality can't compare to BR, I am planning on burning them to DVD. Who's to say a BR burner isn't coming down the pike one day?[/quote]

I don't get it; what are you achieving by doing this? If you burn something
from a laser disc onto a BD, you're not increasing it's quality.

I can easily see going from laser disc to DVD to Bluray. The quality won't go up, but the medium is more favorable. Can get rid of the giant laser disc player to go to a nice and compact DVD player. Then you can go from DVD to Bluray to fit all 3 of the films on a single disc (most likely). I don't think any of us are too concerned over upping the quality of the originals. We'd just like to see it on a compatible medium.

It's not about over-upping the quality. What you get in a DVD is under-quality of the original format. Blurays simply help preserve that. So when you take a DVD and try to make a BR out of it, it just doesn't work. It's like taking a 3x5" image and upscaling to a 9x15. You can downscale, yes. But it's impossible to get quality that isn't present in the first place.

[quote=""Sedhal""]It's not about over-upping the quality. What you get in a DVD is under-quality of the original format. Blurays simply help preserve that. So when you take a DVD and try to make a BR out of it, it just doesn't work. It's like taking a 3x5" image and upscaling to a 9x15. You can downscale, yes. But it's impossible to get quality that isn't present in the first place.[/quote]

Who were you replying too exactly, Thrandu-Ill or me? You got me confused
here, boy. I mean, first sentence was like a correction of my post, but from
that point on, everything was exactly what I would say if I weren't lazy.

GW, actually. I'm making the point that a bluray wouldn't over-increase the quality so much as restore quality from when the film was shot, as opposed to taking a DVD (sub-quality transfer) and trying to make a BR out of it.

You'll have to forgive me, then. I'm not too knowledgeable of the quality of laser discs. I figured the quality of laser disc to DVD would be the same. Or at least the transfer from DVD vs. the transfer to Bluray would yield the same quality. Bluray would simply give more space for all three films.

Unless the proper remastering techniques and equipment are used, I think transferring from one media format to another will always result in a loss of picture and sound quality, even if the new format is of higher quality. Am I right, or way off base?

It depends on how you do it. If I rip a DVD to my computer it maintains the quality (assuming I rip it using the highest quality options...). I'm just moving a file from one media to another. If I were to then burn that file to DVD it should be identical. It's when you start playing with compression formats that it becomes a problem. For example, if you were to convert that DVD file to say .avi or .mpg format, then you'd definitely lose quality. If you went from DVD file to .avi to .mpg to .mov, etc. you'd have a pretty horrible looking/sounding movie.

Yes, agreed, but there are also limitations involved in both the original source and the destination formats. If the original is a VHS tape, for example, no amount of copying that to a DVD is going to increase the resolution of the original because it is already at the maximum possible for the source. Placing that data on a DVD won't magically increase its quality simply because DVD is a better format by default.

My original statement isn't meant to say that the data would actually physically degrade due to the transfer, but only that transferring something that was recorded at a lower resolution onto something that has higher capabilities is only going to enhance the imperfections and make them more glaring. It's the same as watching standard definition programming on very large screen tv designed for HD programming: it's going to look awful. Put that same image on a standard picture tube and it will look very decent.

[quote=""ed209""]
I don't get it; what are you achieving by doing this? If you burn something
from a laser disc onto a BD, you're not increasing it's quality.

[/quote]

I didn't say that ed.
I said I was planning to burn my laser discs to DVD (so I can watch them without a laser disc player- obsolete u know).
I said that the technology exists with the proper programs and equipment to burn a BR with increased quality.

My statements were directed toward Val's quote about Lucas destroying the original films so the only versions to remain would be the ones he toyed with and altered.

Agreed. My last job was for a local university and among other things one of my tasks was to help faculty do video editing. One of the most popular editing jobs was converting older VHS tapes to digital/DVD format. 95% of the faculty who had this done would complain that the quality of the video was so terrible. And every time I'd e xp lain to them that the VHS was naturally a lower quality than DVD and there was no way for our consumer grade equipment to make the video better they wouldn't understand.

It's not entirely their fault. The industry tells them otherwise. Bluray players constantly advertise that they "upconvert" DVDs to Bluray quality. Which, as our discussion has shown, just isn't going to magically make DVDs play at Bluray quality.

But to bring it all back around, I'm hoping that the Bluray version of Star Wars is simply better than the DVD release. Apart from creative changes, the DVDs are just shoddy. I haven't watched them for some time because it agitates me so. Some of the "cleaning" resulted in my favorite annoyances of lightsabers looking strange, sometimes the wrong color, and strange artifacts surrounding ships in space. But, knowing Lucas and folks, they'll simply add a dance number for Hayden Christensen in Empire Strikes Back, change all of the blaster rifles to radios, and add more dialogue between Anakin and Padme in Revenge of the Sith about their lovely loving love.

EDIT: Also, Thranduil, how are you converting from laser disc to DVD? Do you have a special drive that connects to your computer?

Gee, why doesn't it surprise me I opened a can of worms causing misunderstanding?

Apparently a book of e xp lanation works better.

Digital is digital. A 1 is always a 1 and NEVER a zero.

Laser disc is the original digital format.
A DVD is a newer version of the same format. Higher tech equals smaller package for the SAME amount of information.

Blue Ray is the same size as DVD but higher tech so it allows MORE information in the same space without compromising the amount of information.

I assumed you all understand these things and can read between the lines.

Digital grading of a film is a computer program that allows such changes to the information.
Photoshop allows a photo to be altered in the same way.

The original Star Wars on a laser disc can be loaded into a computer, graded and altered to improve it's quality and burned to Blue Ray.

My statement had everything to do with saving the original Star Wars to a BR in spite of any notion that George Lucas may plan to destroy it so it can never be enjoyed as it was (forget about altering quality here).

I have no intentions to buy half a million dollars of equipment and programs to do such a thing (not to mention the time).

I worked in a theater as an usher (before most of you were even thought of) I got off work and was walking out the door of Employee Only. There at the foot of the stairs sat Star Wars in it's entirety, in it's shipping cannisters and reels. I considered picking it up and having away with it.

Looking back on that, and adding that fact to this thread, I made my post based on the possibility that Lucas wants the original gone for good. If that is his intention today, knowing that back then, I would have stole the film without hesitation. And I mean that even if it meant prison time. Screw the thought of the original being lost forever.

I'm sorry if you took offense to my question, Thranduil. I was simply curious as to how you were planning to go from laser disc to DVD. I haven't seen a laser disc drive for a computer in my travels and was curious if that's what you had and were planning to use.

[quote=""Thranduil""]
Photoshop allows a photo to be altered in the same way.[/quote]


But it's fake. You're not getting the original definition which was filmed, you're getting a program's interpretation of an up-scale. This is why I don't see the logic in going from a DVD to Blu-ray. That extra information isn't present, it's fabricated.

[quote=""Thranduil""]The original Star Wars on a laser disc can be loaded into a computer, graded and altered to improve its quality and burned to Blu Ray.[/quote]

Meaning DNR (Digital Noise Reduction) and EE (Edge Enhancement)? Because again, it's like taking brush strokes out of the Mona Lisa and calling it "better". Even with the higher resolution versions of Gladiator and the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, for example, they screwed them up by "altering" content that should not be altered. Blu-rays aren't for adding definition or anything, they're for replacing it.

In any case, the real issue I think most folks here have is that Lucas refuses to give us the original, theatrical versions of Episodes IV-VI in their original quality. He seems more intent on only giving us what the casual movie watcher would be happy with. Basically it's a repeat of the Bluray release of LOTR. The average movie goer will be more than happy with the theatrical editions, while us die-hard fans want the extended. Unfortunately for Star Wars fans, I don't see Lucas and Co. double dipping with a theatrical version release later.

I read once (was it here?) that Lucas gets the royalties from the Special Editions, while he has to share the royalties from the unaltered versions with his ex-wife, providing a different (perhaps untrue, I have no idea) possible motive for Lucas' insistence on pushing the special editions.

If all that new CG stuff in the SEs just meshed with everything else in the films I would be much happier. If it were *needed* or added to the richness of the films, I'd be much happier (although I do admit it helps in RotJ seeing the celebrations of freedom across the galaxy in the SE). So little of that SE content is even necessary to me, that's what makes me sad

I wouldn't be surprised if the original editions did have some sort of legal/monetary issue keeping them from being released proper...

For me the SE content doesn't add too much to the films. I mean, I won't toss it all out. It's the ridiculous things. Like having Hayden Christensen at the end of ROTJ. There's no need for that. And it actually open up a plot hole!

[quote=""GuardianWolf""]I'm sorry if you took offense to my question, Thranduil. I was simply curious as to how you were planning to go from laser disc to DVD. I haven't seen a laser disc drive for a computer in my travels and was curious if that's what you had and were planning to use.[/quote]
I took no offense GW, sorry if I came across that way. Irritated a bit, yes, but more so because I e xp ected the simplicity of my statement to be easily understood.

The thread title is, "Star Wars coming to BD in 2011".
Apparently the word transferred to BD might have helped.
Digitally Remastered- another term I e xp ect may have helped.

Anyway, there are times when I have no clue what's being talked about in discussions that have to do with computers and video gaming, etc, because of the acronyms being used. So when I do talk about such high tech stuff I assume most of you already understand these technologies (my bad).

My laser disc collection is substantial, with my player screwed up with a tracking problem, I need to get a new one, fix the old one, or buy a used one.
All three choices still leave the dilemma of the future use of the format.

So I found an article about transferring the laser disc to DVD using a DVD recorder. A high quality stand alone DVD Recorder allows for this without the loss of quality.
Decent stand alones start at about $300, and with the other e xp enses I figure I can do my transfers for about $5 per flick and be done with the problem. I have about 100 titles, but won't do all of them. The ones that are most important are those which were special editions never offered on any other format. The others are just flicks like Star Wars which now, apparently, are unique since they lack the glitterized crap thrown in for what ever reason.

I'm with you all who see that most of those "enhancements" do nothing for the film.
It's funny, I look at those laser discs and think, "That's just Star Wars", nothing special about them at all. But now I see them just like I saw those three cannisters 30 years ago, "That's Star Wars! In it's entire original glory".

This conversation has made me aware that some of you younger members may have never seen these films without the changes. For that reason alone they deserve to be preserved. For them to be lost forever rings hauntingly of Hitler's book burning.

[quote=""Sedhal""]But it's fake. You're not getting the original definition which was filmed, you're getting a program's interpretation of an up-scale. This is why I don't see the logic in going from a DVD to Blu-ray. That extra information isn't present, it's fabricated.
The title of the thread is: Star Wars coming to BD in 2011.


Meaning DNR (Digital Noise Reduction) and EE (Edge Enhancement)? Because again, it's like taking brush strokes out of the Mona Lisa and calling it "better". Even with the higher resolution versions of Gladiator and the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, for example, they screwed them up by "altering" content that should not be altered. Blu-rays aren't for adding definition or anything, they're for replacing it.[/quote]
"My statement had everything to do with saving the original Star Wars to a BR in spite of any notion that George Lucas may plan to destroy it so it can never be enjoyed as it was (forget about altering quality here).
"

[quote=""GuardianWolf""]Unfortunately for Star Wars fans, I don't see Lucas and Co. double dipping with a theatrical version release later.[/quote]

I think they will definitely release the theatrical versions as bonus discs in a future set, just as they did in the DVD era. I strongly doubt that they will be cleaned up for the release, though.

[quote=""Jamanticus""]I read once (was it here?) that Lucas gets the royalties from the Special Editions, while he has to share the royalties from the unaltered versions with his ex-wife, providing a different (perhaps untrue, I have no idea) possible motive for Lucas' insistence on pushing the special editions.[/quote]

Now there's a very interesting theory! It certainly has the whiff of plausibility, if not also truth, to it.

They released the theatrical cuts on DVD? I must've missed those...guess my fair weather fanness of the films is really showing through now.

[quote=""Thranduil""]"My statement had everything to do with saving the original Star Wars to a BR in spite of any notion that George Lucas may plan to destroy it so it can never be enjoyed as it was (forget about altering quality here).
"[/quote]



Yep, I'm aware. I'm also aware of what the thread title is. It should have been obvious that I was referring to the comment about transferring a DVD to a Blu-Ray, as that makes very little sense beyond GW's (I believe) mention of having them all on one disc. Because the picture quality will not be improved (and by "improved" we mean brought closer to the definition of the original footage, not altered). Might as well just keep them on DVD. But sorry for the confusion. Sometimes when I talk about such high tech stuff I assume most of you already understand these technologies (my bad).

Yes, they did, about 5 years ago. I don't remember exactly what they called it...it was something like Star Wars Trilogy: the 27th Double Dip Edition. Each movie had two discs, the SE on the first disc with remastered picture and 5.1 sound, and the original version in cruddy-looking non-restored picture and 2.0 sound. It was almost like Lucas thumbing his nose at us and condescending to let us have a crumb from his table of greatness at the same time. I bought them ONLY to have the original version on DVD to be able to unload my laserdiscs.

Gotcha, Olorin.

It really bothers me what studios are doing with the HD craze. Most of the movies I own on Bluray came out on Bluray on their first release date. With movies like Star Wars, it's like the studios just slap it on Bluray and don't make it worthwhile. Much like Fellowship. A movie that should be in HD but gets a horrible conversion so it's really not worth it. That's why I avoided picking up the whole trilogy.

This is a little off-topic since it's a Star Wars thread, but since GW mentioned FOTR, I'll forge ahead. I have the LOTR TE BD set, and I think they all look fine. It's been a few months since I watched them, so take it with a grain of salt, but I don't remember seeing any noticeable difference between FOTR and the other two movies. In fact, I just recently watched the EE DVD set and was very pleased at how good it looked on a 65" plasma...and it's "just" DVDs.

In general, I think many times that a person has to have perfect eyesight and maybe then some to pick up on what some of the reviewers said about the picture quality. That said, I thought the the Star Wars TEs and SEs both looked pretty bad on the big home screen, the TEs moreso.

[quote=""Valkrist""]Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Star Wars in three distinct sets to meet the needs of every Star Wars fan:

Sadly, the statement above is the biggest lie of all! [/quote]

Furthermore to my response to that claim, now this: http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/stor ... 136125.asp

I know digital copies have few fans but I, for one, like the ability to place a few favourite movies on my laptop for easy portability, out of the box, and with a minimum of fuss. About the only thing I despise about them is the assinine practice of putting e xp iry dates on them.

At any rate, this claim that these sets will cover every fan's needs are becoming more bogus by the minute. Lucas, you and your council of sycophantic boot-lickers are becoming more deluded by the minute.

Val, back in the day I would've agreed with you. But even digital versions are difficult to move from devices. Personally, I just rip DVD's now. These are plenty portable and easy enough to do. I haven't tried ripping Blurays, but I can't imagine that tech is too far away.

The way I see it: http://xkcd.com/488/

[quote=""Thranduil""]George Lucas can forget about the extinction of original SW. Such an attitude promotes piracy (stupid, George).[/quote]
Again, we find Lucas promoting the piracy of his own work (reelly, STUPID George)

[quote=""Valkrist""]At any rate, this claim that these sets will cover every fan's needs are becoming more bogus by the minute. Lucas, you and your council of sycophantic boot-lickers are becoming more deluded by the minute.[/quote]

A buddy was telling me that he either saw or read something about a group of Lucas lackeys being in a room to give an interview or whatever, and when Lucas himself walked in, there was just this complete change in body language and so forth, pretty much as though Emperor Palpatine had just walked in the room. They are totally beholden to Lucas in much the same way that the Nazgul are beholden to Sauron.

Sorry for the mixed analogies....

Yeah, I think I saw a clip with that air to it as well, Olorin.

I agree with what's been said in this thread: Lucas is still brilliant, but it was when he *didn't* have absolute power over his films that they were at their best. Like you said, everyone's beholden to him now and he can do whatever he pleases. No more art from adversity, sadly.

[quote=""Jamanticus""]Yeah, I think I saw a clip with that air to it as well, Olorin.

I agree with what's been said in this thread: Lucas is still brilliant, but it was when he *didn't* have absolute power over his films that they were at their best. Like you said, everyone's beholden to him now and he can do whatever he pleases. No more art from adversity, sadly.[/quote]

When you've got more money than Croesus, you can do what you want and nobody will tell you it's a bad idea because they don't want to get bumped off the chow wagon.