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Star Wars Original Trilogy Gets DVD Release Date
Angry Black Man writes "The Digital Bits is reporting that there is finally some official information from Lucasfilm regarding the release of the Star Wars OT (episodes IV, V, and VI) on DVD. The movies are coming to DVD in September of 2004. The animated series of Clone Wars shorts appearing soon on the Cartoon Network will also be released on DVD, possibly before the end of this year. The teaser campaign for Episode III will begin in January of 2005, leading up to the May theatrical release. Finally... Episode III will hit DVD in November of 2005."
the original trilogy i'll buy. that's all.
Will these be the remastered versions of the original trilogy that were released in the 90s, or will these be the "true" originals?
The "official information" is from an anonymous source on Aint It Cool News.
From a bit further down the page:
Also, Lucasfilm has said in the past that there aren't a lot of behind-the-scenes materials available for the original films, so having a single bonus disc of extras (as opposed to three) would make life easier for them.
I thought I remembered quite a bit of info on various "making-of" shows that showed the original models, how they did cutting-edge special effects on a shoestring budget, and the occasional flaws that made it through (like a TIE fighter shadow where the fighter itself had been removed).
Of course, nowadays I guess we expect someone to be filming the entire filmaking process for the express purpose of creating the ultimate making-of special. When even a film like Monsters, Inc., where every frame requires painstaking design and hours of rendering time, has "outtakes", "deleted scenes", and "goofs". Soon, we'll have cameramen following the cameramen, so we can see "The Making Of 'The Making Of "Star Wars VII: Attack Of The Menacing Phantom Jedi Clone Empire"'"
You know... maybe, just maybe, Lucas & co. should spend more time telling a coherent story with believable characters, and less time worrying about how he'll look in the outtakes?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I'm just surprised it took Lucas this long to release the original movies on DVD in the first place. It's easy money - we'd all like to get the original movies on a nice digital format. Instead they wait nearly a decade before they rerelease. With a track record for milking franchises like LucasArts has, this seems to be a rather foolish missed opportunity.
"By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth." - George Carlin
DVD has the technology to allow you to watch the original cut of the film or the special edition yet Lucas will just say that the original cut wasn't his original vision for the film. Yeah right, the first film was nearly chopped around and turned into a TV series. The original Star Wars release doesn't have the Episode IV: A New Hope at the start either, that was slipped in later. The original versions need to be seen in the context of when they were made.
Bad wording on my part (it made sense in my head). The reason we hear from George Lucas why the DVD releases for the original trilogy were taking forever is that he doesn't have the time/materials to put together a collection like he can for the new prequels (except he dragged his feet on those, too, remember the net' campaign to get Episode 1 out on DVD before the heat death of universe?) They had a smaller budget, fewer behind the scenes things (because folks weren't concerned about it back then), etc etc.
However, considering the massive fan base that the original trilogy has (screw special features, give us the movie)... many have speculated that he's dragging his feet because he was a big supporter of Laserdisc, and not DVD. Bitter? It's possibly hogwash, but I've grown tired of hearing the conspiracy, and I'm glad he's at least sort of answering the cries of the fans who want their high-quality DVDs.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
I thought I remembered quite a bit of info on various "making-of" shows that showed the original models, how they did cutting-edge special effects on a shoestring budget, and the occasional flaws that made it through (like a TIE fighter shadow where the fighter itself had been removed).
I remember watching those when I was a kid. The one on The Empire Strikes Back clearly sticks out in my mind. I was about 11 or 12 then and this was the first time I had ever gotten a chance to see movie magic in the making. I remember being stunned at the painstaking process of stop-motion animation that was used to animate the AT-ATs. The fact that they actually built a full-scale X-wing fighter that was lifted by a crane to simulate Yoda lifting the fighter out of the Degoba swamp. The Degoba sound stage, incidently, was the largest indoor stage in the world at that time. The rebel fighters who formed the ground forces on Hoth were actually Norwegian (or Scandanavian) people who didn't understand a lot of the english instructions being called out by the director.
I also remember fondly The Making of Return of the Jedi. They showed how some poor linguist sap had to don a giant Admiral Ackbar arm puppet and control his lips to match the sounds without being able to see Ackbar's mouth! I could go on and on. Those shows were great!
Does anyone have any idea how I can get copies of these? If there was any legal way of obtaining them, I'd gladly pay for them. However, as with so many things these days, they have disappeared into the ether because of the neglect of the copyright owners so I assume that I will have to rely on bootlegs. Please, any help would be appreciated.
And, oh yeah, what the fuck is wrong with you Lucas? What are you trying to pull with this "there aren't a lot of behind-the-scenes materials available for the original films" bullshit? Christ, at least you could have said that whatever stuff you did have all rotted because of failure to preserve it. To say there weren't a lot of behind-the-scenes materials shot is an obvious lie.
GMD
watch this
There is a petition online to try and gain mass support to get the oringinal trilogy published on DVD. They have almost 45,000 digital signatures. Let's slashdot that number up to 100k.
http://www.kubuntu.org/