A lot of people will stew this year over the fact that no anniversary set is coming, no anamorphic transfers of the 'unmolested originals' are on the way... and then NEXT year... BAM. You'll most likely get it. What gets more demand for something so popular, than taking it away for a while?

Knowing Lucas, this is just a ploy to scare people into buying up lingering copies of the 2004 discs so that he can can then announce a "surprise" anniversary set after all which they'll have to buy all over again.

So maybe if I buy enough crap I'll eventually get ice cream?

In the DVD world, yes. There are only two votes you can cast when buying DVDs... YES and NO. When you vote YES, you contribute to the <b>one</b> statistic that studios use to gauge demand. When you vote NO, you take away from that statistic. No matter how much people want to think they can, you CANNOT vote "No, I'd rather have something better." You will NOT get something better unless enough people buy what you didn't like.

I'm not saying you personally have to buy it -- if only a few people had passed on the 2-disc sets, we still might have a 30th Anniversary set coming. As it is, the people who like the 2004 versions just fine had no reason to buy the 2-disc sets, and the fanboys who cared about the pristine original trilogy passed it up because it wasn't anamorphic. Since sales of the 2-disc sets depended on those fanboys, the fact that many of them didn't buy it showed Lucasfilm that there was little demand for STAR WARS right now.

It doesn't matter if that is NOT the case, it's what your buying habits tell the studios. It's simply a fact -- whether you buy or don't buy something doesn't send an articulate message, it's a binary system, on or off. Doesn't matter why the "off", just being "off" tells the studios there's no demand, even if that couldn't be further from the truth.

I realize you're trying to apply your analogy literally, because even if they did sell crap in stores, it wouldn't magically turn to ice cream if you bought enough of it. If you must have an analogy that can be universally applied, try this: if you eat your broccoli, you can have ice cream. No broccoli, no ice cream, and it won't matter that the only reason you won't eat your broccoli is that you really prefer ice cream. To go a bit further, other fans who don't mind that the OT discs were not anamorphic are like your dog. If your dog ate the broccoli, you could still have ice cream. Unfortunately, your dog also refused to eat the broccoli.

That said, I can't imagine the 30th Anniversary of these films going by without something being done, if only being the 3D versions, if they're ready. If they wait a year or two, it certainly couldn't be advertised as a 30th Anniversary set, but perhaps they could tie it into the animated or live-action TV series.

You don't <b>know</b> Lucas, Josh. Nobody here does. I wish people would stop pretending that they do.

Quite frankly, I'm with Josh. We may not learn every secret thought and desire, but if you deal with a "celebrity" long enough, you start to figure things out about them.

And something we've learned about Lucas is that he *is* a businessman. Now he's not exactly a savvy one if this latest rumor is true. He truly does not understand the DVD buyer, never has, probably never will.

I'd start a petition or something, but honestly, I'm truly starting to not give a crap anymore. If those releases last Sept had been 16x9, I would have sold body parts to buy them if I had to. Understand that George?

I really hope that gossip in the Rumor Mill at the Bits is just that: gossip.

Mike may think this is a long shot here, and it probably is more trouble than Fox of Lucasfolks would go to, but...

What if it's a market test? Release anti-inteligence and watch the result. What better way to know what folks are thinking then to tell them they aren't getting it. They use these and more sophisticated means to determine courses of action in wars.

Bit of a long shot I realise.

Having bought the Sept release (Best Buy tin) I can say that it is a good feeling. I've got my OOT on a durable media (DVD) with the best quality it has ever been released in a consumer format to-date.

If a 30th Anniv. edition is released with anamorphic versions of the OOT, then that'll be great! I'll give my current set away as a gift and get this set. If it doesn't get released, then I've still got the current set. Either way, it'll be an "eh, ok".

Am I the only one who bought the Sept release that feels this way?

:wave:

For the casual fan, the last releases were, for all intents and purposes, just the films being released individually from the boxset. And considering most everyone bought that set, why would Lucas expect the singles to be flying off the shelves? You have to wonder if the 30th Anniversary set was going to be nothing more than another repackaging of the existing material.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Plenty of dvd talkers work within the film and television industry. I'm sure more than a few know him on a working level.

Actually, he's my father. He used to go by a different name and I thought he was my mortal enemy. I didn't want to believe we were related until my wise but strange mentor confirmed it. Turns out my almost-girlfriend is also my twin sister. What are the odds?

Sracer, Tom Opus, I recently was gifted the September releases and I'm pretty happy with mine as well. Sracer, you've got a good view of things. It's a bit flumoxing that there are so many DVDs of these that have come out. But I've never owned one because I figured they would make a maxi-set and blow everyone's mind. Maybe there would be some fancy package a la Alien Head Quadrilogy set. How cool would it be to have Vader's mask open to reveal 8 or 9 discs of yummies? Likewise I'd settle for a nondescript box like the Matrix uber set (the non translucent cases.)

Oh, I bet we'll see exactly what they'll do.

It's interesting that their representative is not scheduled to appear at any pop-culture/comic cons. I bet folks will be watching the web for scuttlebut from Celebration, huh?

Neither can I imagine that. The franchise turns 30, and there's nothing to commemorate? Doesn't seem possible. Lucas could wait for one of the TV series to premiere, and then release the six-film set in an "ultimate collection" as a tie-in, taking the 30th anniversary out of the equation. But that's so anticlimactic.

Your assessment regarding the buying habits of consumers, and how they determine the value of a given product, sounds right on to me, which is why these comments from Bill Hunt...

...are so frustrating-- in the sense that his assessment is also correct.

We think we're sending the studios a message by refusing to buy a sub par product, but really, all it tells them is that there's no market for that product. Probably don't care why, nor do they likely give a second thought when the product doesn't fly off store shelves. "Didn't sell? Okay, scrap it-- no one cares." Never mind that only minimal effort was put into its production. People see through it, and they don't care to bow down and thank the studio for crap. The studio probably understands that. They just don't care. That's what's so maddening.

--THX

In the case of Lucas, et al; they act like they don't want to hear us. Since the very inception of DVD, fans have asked for these movies on DVD. Lucas has had ten years to get these right, and it just has happened yet. We know they heard us last year when we raised the stink about the non-anamorphic transfers, (and basically told us to go pound sand). So, it seems like little only little bits and pieces of what we say gets through to The Ranch, and what does get through apparently gets garbled into nonsense.

Sorry CertifiedTHX, I have to disagree with you.

Lucas has been pretty stand-off-ish towards his fans over the course of time. If he feels like we're undeserving because we all haven't behaved like the fans he wants us to be, he'll take something away, or keep something from us. Lucas isn't a retard. He knows that if he released this 30th anniversary box set, people will eat it up like candy. But because apparantly his deception towards his fans, by releasing sets of the original trilogy in non-anamorphic transfers that were relaly no more than a bonus feature didn't bide too well with the fans, there's now a possibility that we won't get this set.

Even if it doesn't get released this year, I'm sure it won't be very long before Lucas will wait to release that thing. I highly doubt this experience with the re-released sets featuring non-anamorphic transfers of the OT cut is making him really sit down and realize 'wow, maybe I should provide quality product instead of dicking around all the time'. All that will happen, is that Star Wars will gain buzz again because it will come off the shelves and be unavailable for a year or so tops, and then the big ole' box set will get released. It's all rather predictable... and that's IF he doesn't decide to release it this year. That could still very well happen.

Yeah.

I honestly think that Lucas doesn't know how to approach the future of SW, and that is why this set has been held off.

This set will be the definitetive set among how SW fans look at the saga, and I still believe if it contains a remastered OOT that looks and sounds like the SE, then that goes against everything Lucas has been saying for the past 10 years.

He is in a catch-22 among the fans now cause he knows many fans are just OOT fans, and not 'saga' fans. He can stick to his principles and just release future boxsets with the OT/SE & PT and stand by his vision of how the saga should be watched: 1-6 with Hayden as the ghost at the end of ROTJ and Han not shooting first.

Or he can sell out his 'vision' and just put both versions of the OT fully remastered on every boxset and let fans decide if they want to see Sebastian Shaw or Hayden at the end of ROTJ. Lucas knows that he will make more money with option B and releasing the OOT everytime, and that is his catch-22.

The whole thing is just fucked up now, and I will still stand by that the SE should have been an experiment in 1997 just to get people back in the theaters with updated graphics, and in that context, they were cool to see that year. But now he has split the OT fanbase among lines of OOT fans and SE fans, and they are just more loyal and greater in numbers then the PT fans cause they are more popular, so he is now speaking to two fanbases everytime, and it does cloud everything up. If he just kept the OT as the OOT versions, then this whole debacle of what versions to put on any future boxset wouldn't have been an issue.

George Lucas stated in 2003 that the OOT versions did not exist anymore, and all the fans took him up on that offer and chose a version they loved. I mean what did he expect?

Is it worth picking up the copies that came out in September? Granted they are only about 14.99 a pop, it's not gonna break the bank to have the originals....any thoughts?

That's purely a matter of personal preference:

-If your love of the original films is strong enough to overcome the poor non-anamorphic video quality, then yes I think you should get them.
I did, and I don't regret it because it's better than my VHS widescreen tapes, and seeing the original versions again is just fantastic.

-If presentation trumps content, and you must have superior image quality and the longtime-standard anamorphic transfer which this lacks, then stay away.

By Lucas' reasoning, the originals dont exist anymore, only the special editions(1997), so wouldnt the 30th anniversary be in 2027? We will all be waiting along time.

Nick & Quack: I agree with Nick's conclusion. I can look past the defects of the original. I do hope that they will be remastered and released on DVD for the 30th aniversary... but I'm happy with them.

I know of some who heard the 30th was maybe not coming out and they went and baught them. Another friend was looking a week ago for the boxed set of the september release and saw on Amazon that it was $100+. So he went out fast and tried to get them. He had trouble finding wide screen versions. Went to several stores.

Perhaps this little Marketing Gag will get folks to buy some extra Star Wars and then Fox/Lucas' master plan will have worked.

Let's suppose something: (I realise this is a bit off topic, but it's an interesting idea to me and I feel worht sharing in the course of this conversation) What if: The High Def war goes on long enough, would a major exclusively HD Star Wars release end it?

I've dallied enough.

Lucas wants people to keep buying the same movies over and over again. He'll make a few changes for the 30th anniversary edition, then a few years later on he make a few more and release them all again. The only movies I care about are the orginial trilogy in their original form. Lucas knows that people will buy and buy again. Hopefuly people will catch on and do not buy anything from him again.

Lucas will not make another movie because he knows he has a steady income from people buying star wars over and over again.

What are you talking about here? There was no box set released in September, only individual DVDs for the OOT (unless you mean the exclusive, limited Best Buy tin, which I could see being scarce).

Might you point to an example of that? Just curious.

Lucas knows exactly why the SE/OT sets didn't sell well. And he knows exactly what would have increased those sales dramatically. And he knows exactly what the majority of his fans, the first generation fans, really want. He simply doesn't care. But withholding the anniversary set as punishment for not buying the SE/OT sets, knowing full well why we didn't, seems a little crazy.

The numbers were lower than expected, so they conclude market saturation? They don't really have their heads that deep in the sand, do they?

--THX