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Star Wars Episode I DVD Review
dswensen writes: "Theforce.net has an in-depth review of the forthcoming Star Wars: Episode I DVD (due for release October 16th). Looking at all the great features packed into this DVD, I'm glad Lucas decided not to just toss off a cheap version a year ago. Love it or hate it, it looks like they really pulled out all the stops." Plus Ant points out that there is some teaser movie available for Star Wars Galaxies, the upcoming massively multiplayer game.
We still haven't seen the original trilogy that didn't suck on DVD, and there is no plan to release it. I find it somewhat ridickulous.
My Karma is so good, I'm the Dalai Lama...or something.
He probably postponed it so he could include some teasers of Episode 2...
Yeah, but its going to be an RCE disc, and it isn't going to work on a region 0 multi-region player..
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If only the movie were any good. Lucas should get Kasdan in on this one, too. "Yippee," indeed.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
It depends on the player. There are patched BIOS files for the Apex600A that allow RCE disks to work if the player is in Region 0 mode. Also, it isn't too hard to put mulitple BIOSen in many players and switch between them. RCE is ineffective on players that can actually be switched to a target region. I would assume by now that many players other than the Apex have been hacked to deal with this.
Is there anything about Star Wars that the TheForce.net doesn't wet their pants over? Granted, the DVD is chock full of stuff, but it could've been encoded as MPEG-1 and they still would have been flipping out about how great it is.
Yes, it's called the director's cut. I'm personally all for them, but they even appeared back in the days of *gasp* VHS. And some people might be a tad bit annoyed that they can't get the version that they saw in theaters on DVD.
50 does seem higher than many DVDs, I'll give that. But there is a point that's it's too much--you spend more time flipping through the channel selection (there's no way they show all 50 chapters on one screen) than actually watching the scene you want to see.
Yes, I'm fairly sure I've heard of the rare DVD have 5.1 surround sound.
I can't make a judgement here, since the reviewer doesn't mention the only aspect I truly care about with menus: do I have to spend 8 hours watching flashy menu transitions just to watch the movie? On the other hand, if the DVD bucks this trend, it's approximately the only DVD in existence that does, and I salute the makers.
As for the huge wait, I would like to point out that this DVD seems ~about the same level in terms of effort as the Gladiator DVD, which was a 2-disc set released simultaneously with the VHS version. If Lucas was _so_ intent on spending hours upon hours to make this DVD, I don't quite understand why they didn't release a standard DVD (with the usual "extra" of 5.1 surround sound and widescreen) at the same time as the VHS, and then market this as the Director's Cut/Collector's Edition, which it obviously is.
~=Keelor
Actually, there were quite a few things I liked about Episode I.
First of all, he established the groundwork for what are sure to be two very dark and combat-filled movies.
Also, the lightsaber fight at the end was the best filmed so far.
Even during a second viewing, I was still laughing every time I saw the "thin client" attack droids in action. IMHO, anybody who doesn't think an entire army of Crow T. Robots getting their asses kicked by lizzard men is funny needs to lighten up a little. That battle alone was worth my seven bucks.
On the downside, turning The Force into super-intelligent germs was a huge mistake. In two brief scenes, he ruined the whole series by turning a beautifully impossible fantasy into a very implausable sci-fi load of crap.
This was even less forgivable than the cartoony Jar Jar, the Bat-Grapling-Guns that Amidala's royal guard used, or the fact that Brian Blessed (voice of the Gungan King) put in the corniest performance of his carreer since his hammy appearance in Flash Gordon.
Everything but Z
Also conspicuously missing from DVD releases are two major triologies: Back to the Future, and Indiana Jones. You'd think having both of these out as well as SW on DVD, all in maximum featuritis, would help to improve the acceptance of DVD.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
In fact it was remarkably mediocre.
In fact, the only way this DVD could not suck is if you got a copy which accidentally had a different movie pressed onto it.
If you're looking for another review that doesn't involve Force.net drool, here's one from The Digital Bits which has a lot of the same information, but some different criticisms.
"The Episode I DVD is even worth your investment in a DVD player if you have continued to delay the purchase."
Well, I decided to go all the way to setup a full-size, no expenses spared, home theater nearly two years ago, just to be able to see 'The Fifth Element' again.
Since my family and I have been watching hundreds of rented movies on DVD, and we all agree that the investment has been utterly worthwhile.
Why invest $10000 in a home theater when you can go and see a movie on a much bigger screen with a family of four for $25 ?
Well, there are a couple of reasons:
All said, even if this movie isn't going to make anyone go out and buy a DVD player, I'm glad it's finally there.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
I mean this in all honesty:
1. Phantom Menace was a poor to mediocre movie no matter what your point of view, unless you saw it when you were 7 without seeing the original movies. It does not deserve to be talked about any more that Waterworld does.
2. DVD extras cannot change #1.
Region Code Enhanced. It basically tells the player that it is region 0 disk(so the player switches to region 0), then during the menu sequence checks that the player is region 1. The Idea being that only region 1 locked players will be able to play. I have heard that a lot of mods get around this, mine for example wont change to Region 0, so in theory it should work. All of the RCE disks so far have been crap so I havent tested this so far.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is all well and good. But when is the DVD of the Star Wars Christmas Special coming out?
s ta r_wars_tv/index.html
http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2000/12/05/
I guess we're going to go through that whole long, drawn-out discussion of TPM:It Sucked vs. TPM:I Loved It again. The way I see it, TPM was no more hokey or badly acted than ANH. The casting was about the same, maybe better than ANH. The story is still classic space opera.
I don't bother comparing the SW films to truly great moviemaking much. ANH is obviously a far inferior film when compared to the earlier 2001:A Space Odyssey. What's important about the films is the sea change they brought in the acceptance of SF in mainstream American culture, and the role it played in many of our childhoods.
Bringing TPM do DVD in such a spectacular way can only be a good thing. If you don't like the movie, you shouldn't even be wasting your time reading this thread.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Lucas has publicly stated that he will release the original trilogy on DVD, but after Episode 3 comes out. He wants to release all 6 films in a special box set. If the review of Episode I is any indication, it should be worth the wait.
Personally, I hope there is an option to watch the original trilogy before they mucked it up with that "Special Edition" crap....
No, what he SHOULD do, is release the original trilogy on DVD soon, one at a time, then a boxed set with maybe a fourth disc of extra crap, then episode 2 on vhs, then on dvd, then epsisode 3 on vhs, then dvd, then a boxed set of all three 'episodes' with an extra feature disc, then all six with a ton of crap. Only then will Lucas have "Used the Force" (of marketing).
I wish he'd just hurry up and release the original trilogy like everyone else though....
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
The bitmap can easily be ignored, but it's hard to put six or eight integers simultaneously into a single register without resorting to quantum computing, which is still a few years off. So-called "region zero" players have the bitmap bypassed, but "region switchable" players let the user choose (and maybe automatically try based on the bitmap) which region number will be presented to the DVD's scripting code.
Region switchable players also let you take advantage of discs which enable extra features (like subtitles in Asian languages) based on the player's region number.
Anyhow, I don't expect to be getting this disc because I don't f'ing care about Episode I. I know it's heresy, but I never saw it in the theatres, and aside from Wierd Al Yankovic's summary of the movie, I have only the vaguest idea of what is contained within. I do know that I would hate Jar Jar, though.
I also doubt I'll be getting the Episode 4-6 DVDs, because they'll likely only be available in the "Ministry of Information approved" edition. I've got the widescreen stereo release and the widescreen THX release on LD, without the "Han Solo didn't really shoot first" crap. I'll live with the disc change to watch the end of the movies on side 3, if that's what it takes to avoid the Politically Correct version.
--
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"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
This review is dreadful. Are the reviewers suffering from tunnel vision? Did they have their Lucas goggles on? Were they paid by Lucas? It's a bit of a brown-noser and the tone suggests to me that even if the quality of DVD had been really crap, they would still have written good things about it.
4 /starwars_episode_i.html.
I prefer the review at dvdfile.com. When they discuss the transfer to DVD, you can't but help feel that they know what they're talking about. Perhaps I also share the same opinion as the reviewer: this wasn't a great great film, but we all liked the *idea* of a Star Wars film. The review is here: http://www.dvdfile.com/software/review/dvd-video_
I had it on Laserdisc for almost a year now.
No region encoding, No content controls.
Same resolution you have on your DVD and in Dolby 5.1
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Phantom Menace was a poor to mediocre movie no matter what your point of view...
So no matter what I actually thought of it, it was a poor movie? And here I thought movies were subjective! Good thing your comment was moderated as +1 Insightful, or I might never have learned this valuable information.
P.S. I thought it sucked ass, too.
"And like that
Using the zoom feature of a DVD player to zoom in past the letterbox strips is not an option for me. It blindly cuts an equal amount off both the left and right sides, regardless of the scene.
I'd like to know why very few DVDs include pan-and-scan information to allow proper viewing in a 4:3 aspact ratio. Is it that much more expensive to produce a DVD this way?
In a DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, there are 6 independent sountracks-- one for each speaker. The .1 bit refers to the fact that the Low Frequency Effects channel contains about one tenth as much information as a front or surround channel.
In the old Dolby Surround system, the surround and center channels were extracted from the left and right stereo channels...
For example, if the left and right channels contained the same audio at a particular time, the audio would be directed to the center channel. Don't ask me how the surround channel was extracted.
Unfortunately, such a system is essentially unable to play sound from two speakers at once. Dolby Digital 5.1 improved on this system by seperating the surround channel into a left and right surround, and futher, by eliminating the extraction step-- six tracks are recorded instead of just the right and left. This allows the sountrack to use all of the speakers simultaneously.
With Dolby 5.1 Surround EX, we're back to matrix surround. If the right and left surround channels contain the same audio, that bit is directed to the rear surround. 5.1 EX is 6 channels mixed so that a seventh can be extracted.
6.1 would imply that the rear surround channel is recorded seperately. I believe that DTS has a discrete 6.1 mode.
I want a copy of The Phantom Edit. Heck, I just want to see The Phantom Edit. Any hints?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I personally don't think it would have been possible for Jesus to give a better review of God.
Reread the sentence, consider the originating website of the article (theforce.net) and you'll see what I mean exactly.
I read about five paragraphs of it, and very nearly puked. I viewed source, expecting to see a suspected <drool> review </drool> tag set in there somewhere. No luck.
This isn't a review- it's Lucasfilm Masturbigratification.
I like how they, for no apparent reason, tied the SWG teaser into a download from doubleclick.net. Will I be expected to sign up for the game through doubleclick also? As far as I'm concerned, this is a criminal organization that bribes and lobbies it's way out of legal trouble. Why not just have the mafia handle the subscriptions? Does anyone have a mirror for the movie?
I'd like to a review from non-zealots as well.