Slashdot Mirror
Star Wars Coming To Blu-ray In September
wiredog writes "A bundle of all six movies will sell for $139.99, while sets of the original three films, and the three prequels, will go for $69.99 apiece. Obsessive types can pre-order them on Amazon now. Han shot first!"
I can be at my post in *HD*!
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
In this edition, obi wan shoots first.
Can I see the original theater version or do I have to watch parodies of the original?
Fifth time I've paid for a license to three of these movies.
If I'm going to respect copyright, tell me why I don't deserve to have these movies on my Nintendo DS, Netbook HDD, PS3, etc in whatever the latest resolution is. I've cumulatively shelled out hundreds of dollars (with inflation adjustments) for these three movies and yet I'm continually paying for them in the latest format. I bet if they figured out a way to approve lifetime licenses to this media, a lot more people would feel okay buying a copyright. Right now, I'm 28 years old and I've been nickel and dimed since age 12. Also, for those who didn't like the sequels, there appears to be a cheaper subset for $45 of the original three.
I'm sad that there isn't BD-Live for these in the Amazon description, I'd love to listen to fan commentary and possibly add my own. Has anyone had good/bad experiences with BD-Live commentaries? I was hoping that'd be used to do MST3K versions of popular movies or add insight to movies like Donnie Darko or Lost maybe. Unfortunately, having only received my PS3 this last holiday I've discovered that very very few movies are BD-Live.
My work here is dung.
I was beginning to think Lucas stopped liking money.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
by buying the two boxes separately?
There is a bundle of all 3 Star Wars movies available on DVD that comes with two disks for each movie: the crap version and the original theatrical release. I picked it up at Costco a couple of weeks ago. It isn't Blu Ray, but it's a lot better quality than an analog Laser Disc copy. Here it is on Amazon (not a referral link).
I think those DVDs were covered here on Slashdot a couple of years ago. Again, not Blu-ray (and hence not high def), but the best quality purists among us are going to get of the original releases for the foreseeable future.
Unless it includes the most excellent Star Wars Christmas Special it isn't complete.
Yes that's what I was talking about. - The Original Edition DVD is a copy of the 1988 analog Laserdisc. Literally. George Lucas claimed the laserdisc was the only copy of the OE that still existed.
Unlike some people here, I've not bought Star Wars multiple times (and therefore saved money). I bought 3 of them on VHS which I later sold on ebay to recoup my money. Then I bought the Laserdisc-to-DVD from Lucas. And that's it. (Yes I'm a cheapass.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I was really looking forward to seeing Han shoot Jar Jar first. I've been waiting for that version forever.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Imagine if you will a dead horse that deposited millions of dollars into your bank account every time you beat it.
crazy dynamite monkey
You obviously haven't seen them, or you would know that they did a *lot* more than just some "retouches." Entire sequences on Cloud City and Tatooine are now unwatchable because of all the distracting CGI shit in the background. And it isn't even *good* CGI (you would think they could have at least sprang for some decent work).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It was hand-waved months ago, when they first made the announcement.
http://geektyrant.com/news/2010/8/14/george-lucas-star-wars-blu-ray-coming-in-2011-and-watch-a-de.html
Lucas also went on to explain that the original trilogy films included on the Blu-Ray release will be the remastered special editions.
Releasing the originals is kind of an oxymoron because the quality of the original is not very good. You have to go through and do a whole restoration on it, and you have to do that digitally. It’s a very, very expensive process to do it. So when we did the transfer to digital, we only transferred really the upgraded version.
In other words, no ORIGINAL original trilogy, cause that would mean some "people" would actually have to be "hired" to do some "work" on those and they would presumably require to be "paid" in return.
But have no fear. Few years down the road, and Lucas will have his slaves do that for free.
Or for more actual coffee in their coffee and an additional bathroom brake.
Cause nothing is too good for his slaves if it will help sell everyone yet another "very, very expensive" set of plastic discs.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I have seen them. And no, they didn't do a lot more than retouches. There's no "unwatchable" scene because of "distracting" CGI. It fits nicely into the background, like it should. The reason you get distracted is because you're looking for reasons to hate, not because they are actually distracting.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I've been saying for years that ultimately, the system I describe below is the most fair and equitable for both consumers and studios.
Someone--probably either the government or a government-regulated entity--should set up a "copyright clearinghouse" for media such as movies. If you want to buy a movie, you play a license fee plus a media fee. So say you went out and bought the original Star Wars movie (Episode IV) on DVD for $15. That $15 would technically be, say, $12 for the unlimited private viewing license, plus $3 for the cost of the box, media, distribution, etc. Inside the DVD case you would get a code that you register with the clearinghouse so that they now know that you own the rights to watch Episode IV.
Okay, now let's say that you want to be able to stream it online. Instead of paying another $15, you only pay $3, which covers the cost of hosting and bandwidth for whoever it is streaming it to you. Want to Blu-ray version? Okay, that will be an extra $5. $2 of that $5 is the cost of upgrading your license to the high-def remastered version, and $3 of it is for the cost again of the media and distribution. Oh, now you want the whole original trilogy? Well, normally it's $45, but since you already own a license for Episode IV, you get $8 shaved off the license cost and only pay $37.
Content providers could offer discounts on license fees for things like stores that buy the licenses in volume, or for customers who buy several licenses for different products (e.g. a Star Wars/Indiana Jones bundle) at once. Retailers like Amazon could pass those discounts on to customers, or have bundle discounts by applying some of their cut of the media fee to the license fee as a loss leader.
Content providers win because there would be a shitload more legal copies of the premium editions of their products sold. Retailers win because their profit comes from a cut of the media fee, not the license, and more sales--even for lower amounts--means more money. Consumers win because when you buy a movie on physical media x today, you don't get screwed from having to re-buy it on media y tomorrow or media z in five years.
Some of you may have had pause when I mentioned the government being involved. The reason why the government needs to be involved is twofold. First, for this idea to work, there needs to be one and only one clearinghouse. Because it would be a monopoly, it would need to be regulated as such. Second, if it's solely a private company endeavor, it would take exactly three nanoseconds for that company to say, "Hey, you know, with all of this data on what media people own, we could make a killing if we sold it to marketing companies," and it would take either direct government ownership or strict government regulation to ensure that privacy is upheld.