Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The first six Star Wars movies are getting yet another Blu-ray makeover. The limited edition commemorative steelbooks look neat, but it doesn’t seem like they’ll have any new content. The ‘Complete Saga’ collection is also getting a facelift for re-release.
The steelbooks will be available for preorder on August 7 for a November 10 release, and the Complete Saga collection of all six films (so far) will drop on October 13.
With the Blu-rays out today, the Star Wars publicity machine has been out in full force this week, the shamelessness cumulating (…perhaps) with letting three Jawas and a Stormtrooper loose in New York City. Do they double as a sitcom pitch? (Can we get Humpy in on that?) Meanwhile, London got a giant lightsaber.
We’re hearing reports that some stores are not stocking huge amounts of the discs, so if you’re picking it up today, plan accordingly. (If not, Amazon’s still pricing the set at $79.99.)
But it’s really all about the Blu-rays themselves… And as they’ve made their way into more hands, the more reports we have of the inevitable tweaks that have been made to the movies. Screenrant hits the (so-far) major notes, while DVD Active takes a more detailed look at the original trilogy changes, comparing frames from several different releases.
We’ll likely see more reviews throughout the day (check back!) but Entertainment Weekly and The Toronto Sun got a jump on things Thursday evening. Today, we have reviews from Big Shiny Robot, IGN, and GeekDad.
But of course, we all know the best way to deal with George and co. tweaking the movies yet again: Make funnies. The most popular spoof making the rounds is probably George Lucas re-edits classic movies, and maybe it’s the hour, but I couldn’t help but crack up at Conan’s take. And, of course, no controversy is complete without a ridiculous video by Taiwan’s NMA World Edition.
But of course, eventually your rage will cool, and you just have to make your peace with the fact that George doesn’t care, George doesn’t give a shit, and make your peace with it. If not, well, there’s a t-shirt for that.
But enough of that emo bullshit. Got your copy yet?
The price of the box set has been lowered to $79.99 on Amazon!
New Way (above,) Phenomenon and Galaxies. Anyone seen any of the commercials live yet?
Bill Hunt of Digital Bits got a look at the Star Wars Blu-rays last week, and he’s wrote up an extensive post with all those technical details folks have been wondering about. It includes this interesting bit:
Now, you’ll recall that a little bit ago, I said these should probably be best considered new 2011 versions of these films, and not the 2004 DVD versions. All the fixes and corrections alone justify this in my opinion, but there’s another reason too… and you can probably guess what it is: Once again, George has apparently added a few new “surprises” into these films. I don’t know what they are and didn’t get to see any of them on Friday, but I was assured that there will be “new things to notice” when we watch the films.
Though – again – nothing is confirmed, he goes on to mention the digital Phantom Menace Yoda that’s been knocking around in DVD extras for years.
But overall, his prognosis looks good, particularly for those disappointed by the last few releases.
UPDATE: Another report from Chris Chiarella at Big Picture, Big Sound. Adam Gregorich of Home Theater Forum was there too, and he has pictures of the inside movie page sleeves, which we have yet to see so clearly.
One thing missing from last week’s Blu-Ray announcement was the audio details, but the DTS Facebook has confirmed that they will be in DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1. I have no idea what that means (here’s their own explanation) but folks seem pleased.
Meanwhile, there were rumors floating around the other day that the saga box art might be lenticular. Alas, The Forcecast’s Jimmy Mac talked to Lucasfilm, and it’s not true.
Don’t forget to take our latests sidebar poll on the Blu-Ray box art!
The rush of fans wanting Blu-Ray details initially crashed the May the 4th site. When it finally got up and running, it began revealing images on the number of social media shares… An act which strikes me as rather sleazy.
Thankfully, I was finally able to procure some decent art, and you’ll see it above. I’m not all that impressed with the art of the individual sets, but I was never a fan of that style to begin with. The art for the saga set, on the other hand, is straight-up awful: It looks less like Star Wars and more like Precious Moments: The Movie.
Hopefully some retailer somewhere will be providing a better-looking exclusive.
LFL will be revealing some additional tidbits on their brand-new Facebook.
The special features list audio commentary for each movie, all involving George Lucas and various notables including Rick McCallum, Irvin Kershner, Carrie Fisher and Ben Burtt, as well as archival audio.
Each trilogy has an entire archive disc… And the ninth includes documentaries including 1977’s The Making of Star Wars and three brand new ones: Star Warriors, on the 501st Legion; A Conversation with the Masters: The Empire Strikes Back 30 Years Later with George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Lawrence Kasdan and John Williams; And Star Wars Spoofs, containing footage from Family Guy, The Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother and Weird Al.
I’ve cut and paste the complete list under the cut. Please don’t hate me, LFL. Continue reading “9-disc Star Wars Blu-Ray set revealed!”
Though originally set for September 27 (that’s still the date on Amazon,) StarWars.com is now confirming that the three box sets will be coming out on September 16. Better swap out your vacation days, superfans.
If Amazon is to be believed, the three Star Wars Blu-Ray sets will be out on September 27. Prepare yourself now for the inevitable media blitz!
Darth Vader and various minions announced today at CES that the saga is coming to Blu-Ray in three different configurations: A 9-disc Complete Saga for $139.99 and 3-disc sets for the Original and Prequel trilogies both priced at $69.99. All three can now be pre-ordered at Amazon. They’ll all be released in September.
The Complete Saga set will also include 30-plus hours of “extensive special features including never-before-seen deleted and alternate scenes, an exploration of the exclusive Star Wars archives, and much more.” We’ll be hearing more about those in the coming months, I’m sure.