Starwars Episode 1 DVD?

|GopheR| writes "Mr. George changed his mind and is planning to release episode 1 on DVD before 2005? If The digital bits rumormill is right, then he probably did change his mind. " Note that they don't really have a date set, and Lucas hasn't said he *won't* release DVDs... just that it'll be years before they do. To bad. I own two copies of the original trilogy on VHS (Original and Special edition) but I've sworn off video. I woulda bought the DVD the day it came out, but I won't spend a penny on VHS.

Comments

Bullcrap

[Randy Rathbun]

These rumors fly around every few months. They have been since May 1997 when DVD hit the shelves.

This same rumor mill (that is at The Digital Bits) is the same rumor mill that in Sept. 1997 was saying "Star Wars on DVD in Feb. 1998!" Then it became "There is a warehouse full of DVDs!" Then it became "Here is the cover art!" which was basically cover art from the Hong Kong black market VCD. Then we got to hear about "They have a warehouse full of discs they are sitting on!"

In other words, unless starwars.com says it is so, don't believe a bit of what you hear on from Digital Bits, E-Town, DVD Resource, or any of the other "In the Know" websites. They don't know.

Re:Interesting argument brewing

[Nostafa]

Well a simple solution is to buy a dvd player and catch up. Many people didnt own CD players in 85-88 yet that didnt stop the record companys from supporting the format. It was obviously superior and significantly more difficult, at the time, to copy. The same applys for dvd, Much better format and much harder to copy. A signal amplifier on my coxial can take care of copy protection and all i got do is watch the movie once and record at the same time and its copied with VHS. With dvd on a p333 it takes about 10 hours to convert one. You cant rent everything on DVD yet but the way I look at it, as a married individual, It costs 7.50 each for my wife and I to see the movie + more if the kids are seeing it. Add popcorn and drinks and your in the 30-40 dollar range at a theator. Video store is about 5 bucks, knowing myself and most truely technical people I know are about the same, A bit quirky, by the time you get done playing the 5 bucks and the 5-10 bucks in late fees your back at 15 bucks. Its the cost of buying the movie on DVD. My wife decreed that if I didnt see it in the theator and I didnt rent it I could buy it so I've completely stopped seeing theator movies and renting videos. Gone are the days of 70 dollar first run videos. Even Disney got around to dropping there 30 dollar DVD's to 20. I dont have to work hard to buy a subtitled version of DAS Boot. Just jump onto dvdexpress.com or buy.com and order the thing and it comes a day or three later.

I havent owned a single cassette tape since about 87 and I have thrown out most of my VHS. I have a few odds and ends that arent available on dvd yet which I dont want to lose but the minute I see them come out on dvd I'll replace them. You will always be penalized for owning obsolete technology. You just have to go with the flow and update your equipment. Thats like saying I own a 386sx 16 because I dont really need the speed of a pentium. Sure linux runs fine on a 386 16 but do you really want to? Id been penalized for years because my sun was only an old Sparc 5 but eventually I was forced to upgrade. I didnt immediatly throw out the 5 but now it makes a nice Xterm for my new machine which doesnt have a frame buffer. Upgrading is a way of life. When the technology expands beyond your capabilities you become obsolete. Its just part of life.

I marked my fathers retirement 2 years ago as the end of the executives who didnt know how to read email. He was obsolete, It was time to go. There will always be a few hold outs and theres alot of nostalgia out there on old stuff. I bought an apple ][ at a garage sale not long ago for 10 bucks cause I thought it would be fun to play with since I used one for years. Wasnt worth the 10 bucks. In another 10 years someone will say the same for VHS. Sometimes this fails of course. While I dont own a single cassette player in my house the one in my truck gets used to play books on tape. Why? Well the library has them, most of which were donated by people who got rid of there casettes in favor of cd. Of course anyone whos ever tried to look up anything current in there local library on computers knows its a losing battle. They are never current, just part of life. On the flip side if i need to remember how to program that apple 2 I can go down to the library and get an applesoft basic book. Librarys are basicly museums of one form or another, VHS belongs in one such museum as is evidenced by the fact that you can now check out VHS movies in the local library. Mines even started to offer a few DVD's.

Re:the fuss?

[klieber]

Or, we could take a novel approach and consider the movie for exactly what it is:

PURE ENTERTAINMENT

Why should we infer any moral lessons from Star Wars? In case you didn't catch it, Star Wars is a Science Fiction movie. Meaning it isn't real. Meaning you shouldn't read too deeply into it.

I get sick and tired of all the people who want to draw social, economic and moral conclusions from a damn movie. Maybe some of those Indie artsy-fartsy movies are trying to send a message, but most Holywood blockbusters are only trying to do one thing; make money.

Get over it.

the fuss?

[geekpress]

Okay, so I understand the fuss about not being able to buy a desired movie on DVD. However, TPM was a pretty bad movie -- disjoined and meandering. The special effects were, of course, pretty spectacular, but that just can't make up for the weak plot. Lucas doesn't deserve anyone's money -- whether from DVD or VHS sales!

On a more serious note, David Brin wrote a thought provoking article for Salon a while back entitled "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" Populists. He seriously examines the moral themes of the Star Wars series and compares them to Star Trek.

Brin argues that the moral lessons that we are supposed to draw from Star Wars include:

Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.

"Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.

Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.

True leaders are born. It's genetic. The right to rule is inherited.

Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.

Not too surprising given Lucas's view that "there's probably no better form of government than a good despot." (New York Times interview, March 1999)

Brin makes one particularly interesting point about Darth Vader's redemption in Return of the Jedi. He writes:

To put it in perspective, let's imagine that the United States and its allies managed to capture Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War, putting him on trial for war crimes. The prosecution spends months listing all the horrors done at his behest. Then it is the turn of Hitler's defense attorney, who rises and utters just one sentence:

"But, your honors ... Adolf did save the life of his own son!"

Gasp! The prosecutors blanch in chagrin. "We didn't know that! Of course all charges should be dismissed at once!"

The allies then throw a big parade for Hitler, down the avenues of Nuremberg.

It may sound silly, but that's exactly the lesson taught by "Return of the Jedi," wherein Darth Vader is forgiven all his sins, because he saved the life of his own son.

-- Diana Hsieh

Re:the fuss?

[rasilon]

An interesting article, but decidedly one sided,

WRT the supposed inherent right to rule, Leia and Luke earned their role in the rebellion. It should be noted perhaps that Leia doesn't run the rebellion, Mon-Mothma does. Later, in the books, Mon-Mothma steps down and Leia is ELECTED president, she in turn steps down to be replaced by Borsk Fe'lya. Luke's only permanent command is Rougue squadron. He is head of the Jedi academy, but only because others choose to follow him.

As for the "Elites" acting on a whim, the lesson is rather that you should follow your conscience, something that is lacking in modern times. As for accountability, during the rebellion all the charactors are accountable to the leaders of the rebellion, in the New Republic, everybody is accountable to the senate. Even the jedi are accountable. This was true in the old Republic as well. The actions of the Jedi had to be accounted for to the Jedi Council, who were in turn accountable to the (elected)President.

Darth Vader was never forgiven, by anyone. Not by Luke, certainly never by Leia. Brin points out the amount of havoc that Yoda, Obi-Wan and Anakin have caused but the potential for things to have turned out worse is immense. If Yoda had not trained the Skywalkers, there would have been no-one to stand aginst the Emperor at all. Palpatine and Darth Maul would have had complete rule over the galaxy. Yoda's training Anakin gave him the inner strength to return to tha light at the end. If it had only been Palpatine trainiing him, then there would have been no light side in him. As Obi-Wan pointed out, may things that seem untrue, just depend on your point of view. If Brin thinks that the world is black and white, he should think again. Not only is the world shades of grey, but that shade changes depending on the light you look at them in.

Star Wars makes no claim that leadership is inherited. The force may be inherited, but in the Star Wars universe, there are force strong individuals are born to families otherwise without any trace of the force. Secondly, over the timespan that we have to study, there were two force strong President, out of the five that we know about, in a saga specifically about the force. There are also very few force strong individuals in positions of power in other institutions across the galaxy.

The last, about justified human emotions turning people evil. We see this in everyday life, incidents across the world have led to a greater concern for the safety of children, a perfectly justified emotion, the hatred of evil. But this emotion has led to programs like WAVE America that was discussed recentlt on slashdot. Brin's "Perfectly justifiable emotions" are among the seven "deadly" sins. In our fight agains the Nazis, we produced Bomber Harris and argument still rages to this day as to whether he was better or worse than the enemy we were fighting. For those of you who don't know him, Bomber Harris led the British bomber command during the second world war. The phrase "Kill them all, let God sort them out" is attributed to him. This was in reference to German civillians and how he could know that he was killing only the guilty with his large scale bombing raids. One lesson that we should learn from that war is that hatred breeds evil, Germany learned to hate and created the Nazis. While hate seems justifiable, it inevitably leads to someone or some people becoming worse than those they hate.

In response to your last point, Vader was not forgiven, ever, by anyone.

Second That

[Skyshadow]

Hear hear,

Personally, I'd much rather see the original (you know, the "good") Star Wars episodes on DVD before anything else, including an episode 1 DVD or even before the theatrical release of episode 2.

I think Lucas ought to hand Ep. 2 over to a director who knows how to make movies not suck ass and work on doing his required lot of smarmy, self-congradulatory psudo-interviews which he seems to think we all want to see on the DVD version and just get them out.

I mean, do we really want to see more of Jar Jar? Wouldn't you rather have the original movies with digital sound and picture?

----

Episode 1 DVD

[phoem]

It was my understanding that when they released the DVD it was to be done "right" meaning with deleted scenes, directors cuts, etc. and that Mr. Lucas would not have time to do this until after the other 2 episodes are completed. I for one would like to see it on DVD and will not pay for VHS but I can see where he does have a point. I dont see why there cannot be two versions, one of the movie released now and a collectors edition a few years from now. just my 2 cents