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Star Wars EP1 On DVD Confirmed By Lucas

Posted by Hemos on from the back-and-forth-back-and-forth dept.

Bigmell was one of several people to write about a phone call George Lucas made to KROQ Radio in Los Angeles. Ain't-it-cool-news also had a piece running with the same information. In any case, it looks like a DVD is being worked on, with a September release date. Bonus material includes unfinished scenes from Episodes 4-6. Harry @ aintitcool also had a release date of Sept 12.

9 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. hmm... by DrEldarion · · Score: 4

    Does anyone else find it kinda hypocritical how /. is always so much against the MPAA and telling us to boycott them and the like, but then when news like this comes up, it creates such an excitement? "WOO! The DVD! Now I can go support the people who I was just saying are trying to screw us over!"

    Pick a side, stay there... don't jump back and forth.

    -- Dr. Eldarion --

    1. Re:hmm... by SgtPepper · · Score: 5

      The Boycot MPAA page specifically lists LucasFilm Ltd as being a "freezone" film house. Because SUPRISE if you do some research you'd know that LucasFilms Ltd is NOT, yes NOT, a member of the MPAA. So why boycott them?

    2. Re:hmm... by DrEldarion · · Score: 4

      So why boycott them?

      Because it's still on DVD.

      Isn't the whole argument against DVD based on the way they're trying to control how we view the discs that *WE BOUGHT*? Now, if the S/W DVD wasn't encrypted and didn't have region codes, this wouldn't be an issue... but you can bet your pants that it will.

      -- Dr. Eldarion --

  2. Feature Request... by Paranoid+Diatribe · · Score: 5
    I want a menu option to view the movie without Jar-Jar.

    And to think everyone pooh-poohed the petition!

  3. Don't Trust It by Vir · · Score: 4

    As far as the Aint-it-cool-news piece, I wouldn't put too much stock in it. First of all, this news comes second hand from a minimum-wage employee of a video store, not the greatest of sources. Also, on the very same page is someone else who seems much more reliable saying that there will be absolutely no DVD in the forseeable future. Furtheremore, Lucas has said time and time again that there will be no Star Wars DVDs until all 6 are finished, so I think it's a safe bet that we still have a long wait ahead of us.

  4. Completely Outrageous by ecampbel · · Score: 5
    This move by Lucas is motivated purely by greed. He tells everyone that a DVD will not be released for 4-5 years and that we should all go out and buy the VHS copy bsecause he needed time to create the perfect DVD. Now, after all of his fans have bought the VHS version of his movie, he is now saying that a DVD will made. This is completely outrageous, and no one should buy this version.

    Many people believed Lucas, and bought the VHS version under the false impression that a DVD version was not forthcoming. What Lucas should be required to do is offer all the poor saps who bought the VHS version an option to upgrade their copy to the superior DVD format.

    I imagine that in 4-5 years Lucas is going to come out with a special edition DVD/VHS box set with all Star Wars movies. This means that if you listen to the marketing machine at Lucas films, and bought all of the versions of his Star Wars movies you'll have
    • 3 copies of each of Episode's 4-6 (the regular edition, the special edition, and the DVD/VHS Episodes 1-6 special edition).
    • 3 copies of the Phantom Menace (the VHS version, the DVD version, and the DVD/VHS Episodes 1-6 special edition)
    • 2 copies of Episode's 2 and 3 (the regular DVD/VHS version, and the DVD/VHS Episodes 1-6 special edition).

    If I did my addition and multiplication right, it means you'll have bought 16 copies of the various Star Wars movies for a total price of of at least $400. Pretty amazing.
    --

    Sig goes here
  5. Re:Tapes not selling as well as expected by ostiguy · · Score: 4

    What on *EARTH* are you talking about?

    Go to www.imdb.com, and see the second headline:
    Over $100 million in VHS sales in its first two days of release!

    This is ridiculous. This is informative?

    matt

  6. Rumor or Fact? by Wanker · · Score: 4

    Let's consider the options on whether to believe this. I figure there are two options:

    Option one, Lucas decides to release the DVD version of Episode 1. By doing this, he goes back on several years of announcing there would be no DVD version until the series was complete. In addition, he decides not to make a general announcement but instead leaks the information to one distributor, forgoing the chance to make a big deal of the fact that this will indeed be the first Star Wars DVD released.

    Option two, Suncoast messed up by announcing something that doesn't really exist, which happens all the time

    Seriously, in all likelihood this is just a misunderstanding based on a mistake made at Suncoast.

  7. In all seriousness: this is not news by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 4

    Sadly, the Star Wars news needs to be laid to rest. I didn't see TPM when it was released, because there was just too much hype, and I didn't want to get sucked in by it. I have great memories of the first three movies, so I was certainly eager to see it, but I didn't. I finally saw TPM recently and, in all honesty, there's only one thing that can be said about it: It's a bad movie.

    The characters were flat; you didn't care about them at all. The acting was wooden, with no exceptions. The plot was poorly written and suspenseless. It jumped all over the place, throwing out names and terms like crazy, but I just didn't *care* about what was going on. The presentation waffled between trying to be complex--with all the diplomatic nonsense and so on--and trying to be a kids movie, with goofy characters that used comedy accents (Italian, Asian, JarJar's faux Jamaican). Nothing was played up like it should have been. Darth Maul was just sort of thrown into the plot in a casual way and didn't seem to fit. And yet he turned out to be in the climactic battle at the end? Strange. Anakin accidentally blows up the control ship to save the planet? Uh, I guess that was supposed to be the force guiding him but that was never brought up. An army is exterminating JarJar's people, yet he's making pratfalls throughout the scene. Come on, why didn't Saving Private Ryan bring out the vaudeville during battles? And that oh, so sophisticated droid army doesn't seem to have advanced beyond US revolutionary war tactics: get in a big line and march forward so to be easy targets.

    The CG effects were nice, but they didn't save the rest of the movie. I like SF, but I have to admit that TPM was abysmal. To say otherwise would be to belittle the good movies I've seen in the last few years.