Original Star Wars finally hits DVD

[Jurassosaurus]

Looks like hardcore fans don't have to rely on just the laserdisc versions in order to see a high quality version of the original trilogy.

According to a story on Digg from The Digital Bits, Lucasfilm is going to be releasing the original trilogy on DVD later this year.

This rumour was later validated on IGN DVD. The classic trilogy will be released in September and include the original theatrical releases as well as the original cut of the special editions. The cited reason for Lucas's change of heart was fan outcry.

Just goes to show that if enough fans whine loud enough about it, they might actually get what they wish for.

Be warned though, this is a limited release and will be pulled (apparently) after December 31st.

Last edited by Jurassosaurus on Thursday 11th May 2006 19.25.31; edited 1 time in total

[Hunter]

Maybe it was all the fans downloading DVDed versions of the LD that finally got him to do it. If he never releases it again, he doesn't get to make money off it, and I don't think he gets to complain when fans share it out, or something.

I wish he would've done it sooner. Would've saved me some time and money...

[Gremlin]

It's at http://www.starwars.com/episode-iv/release/video/news20060503.html too.

The original cuts are actually a bit more original than my laserdisc versions:

Quote:

See the title crawl to Star Wars before it was known as Episode IV; see the pioneering, if dated, motion control model work on the attack on the Death Star; groove to Lapti Nek or the Ewok Celebration song like you did when you were a kid; and yes, see Han Solo shoot first.

Apart from a quick shot of the crawl without the subtitle on the disc released in 2004, I haven't seen the film start without it since 1977.

This might also count as good news:

Quote:

Each original theatrical version will feature Dolby 2.0 Surround sound

I suppose that, if people really want to see and hear the original, they could process the sound through a cheap amplifier, squelched up to the point that it's all grainy, staticky mono. Personally, I can live without that atavism.

Of course, the first thing I'd do with this thing is rip both versions and splice them correctly. Most of the updates were valid enough. The only things I've ever regretted in the belated director's cuts were Greedo firing [and missing], and that awkward jumpcut to Vader demanding his shuttle over Bespin. Then, of course, I ponder yanking that hybrid into LightWave and replacing a few tauntauns with something less stopmotioned.

I might also go a bit further with http://gremlin.net/images/cg/greedosucks.swf with a better sourcefile than the laserdisc rip. If Lucas really wants Greedo trying and failing to shoot Solo in the film, it should really begin at the time Solo first sits down to introduce himself. Given a year of having nothing better to do, I'd even have Greedo survive [that's even plausible, since he, or something just like him, appears two minutes later in the streets of Mos Eisley anyway] and continue to stalk Solo, firing and missing for the next six hours.

Like it wouldn't be funny to see Greedo trying to hit the carbonite slab through the first half of Jedi....

In a way, I'm hoping that the '2004 digitally remastered version' is further updated for this release. There are still a number of things to be replaced with CG improvements: tauntauns, ATATs, Yoda, and so on.

Maybe that'll be the next big update: all six films fixed up to the same level of technology and released in 2009 or so.

Huh. I wonder whether the set will include the original shot of Jabba from 1976 somewhere. Not that I didn't like the CG Jabba; I just didn't like Fett being crowbarred into the scene.