re: Star Wars
 

well atleast Han shoots greeedo first in the Cantina Rough cut deleted scene on the disc. lol

re: Star Wars
 

Short review:

If you're buying this set for the extras, I advise you not to. What I looked at wasn't exactly terrible, but not worth $90, and the setup (lacking "Play All" options in too many places) is quite frustrating. Deleted scenes for the OT are maybe an hour if you look at the runtime of each actual "extra", but these are padded with intros and sometimes footage from the finished films. The set basically touts the mediocre 90-minute "Spoofs" program as the central "documentary" of the disc, (on the sticker on the front of the set and on the disc itself, which includes it on the "main menu" while all the other docs go under a "documentaries" tab. The major flaw here is that this is a compilation reel instead of a gallery of clips, and most of the clips seem to be incomplete and often without as much context as one would hope. The gallery features I looked at were kinda neat, but they hardly seem as comprehensive and extensive as the press releases would have you believe.

PQ looked okay, although I only looked at Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, and I wasn't really being that critical. However, one thing I absolutely noticed is that this talk of color correction isn't all it's cracked up to be. Not all of the shots exhibit the fully corrected color. There are still parts of the lightsaber training bit where Luke's saber is more green-blue than blue, and once in awhile in Empire, Vader's saber core is pink. In general, color seems a bit unbalanced; character's skintones will practically glow with red-brown tan in one scene and then they'll look fairly naturalistic in another. Did not hear the audio defect when Tarkin says "You prefer another target, a military target?," and the fanfare is restored to the opening of the Death Star attack.

Had this set included all of the existing DVD extras, it'd be a MUCH better value. As it stands, it's easily $30 too expensive.

re: Star Wars
 

It would have been cool to include the Imax cut of Episode II, with aproximately 20 mins cut from the film to accomidate Imax platter limits of the time, the movie actually flowed much better than the regular theatrical cut.

re: Star Wars
 

I didn't check myself, but I am pretty sure in the electronics area of the stores had the spider-wired sets. I wouldn't wait too long, I'm sure they'll put spider-wraps on them once the kiosk goes down.

re: Star Wars
 

I don't like the cardboard case.. I don't want to get 9 individual cases, would much rather have three 3-disc blu-ray cases.

re: Star Wars
 

12 Audio commentaries across 6 films, three discs full of bonus features, and it's still 30 dollars too expensive? Of what price? 90 or 80? How much did we originally plunk down for JUST the OT back on the previous DVD release?

I can gauruntee many users on this board bought all the prequels, and the OT box set for more than this is retailing for right now, and there's no doubt what's the better "value."

Isn't every film/movie/box set about 20-30 dollars overpriced? You already knew what the content was going to be, if you knew it wouldn't be worth the price, why not wait a few months till a better deal came around?

Is the set perfect? No, I'm not saying it is, but there is plenty of content available to the consumer. We plunked down hard earned cash for VHS tapes and DVDs with little-to-nothing content wise. Regardless of how exactly the films look, this is the best it ever has, and are we paying a premium? Compared to what we've paid in the past? I wouldn't say so. 12-13 dollars a film approximately, not including the extras, for a much better bundle.

They could have crapped on us and gave us a regular box like I-III and IV-VI had, but the package itself is very classy, the audio/video isn't perfect, but it's still much better than we've ever had, and exponentially better bonus features than we've ever had.

I think you really have to put things in perspective of what we've gotten in the past. Just because we're spoiled by some films with perfect PQ and seemingly unlimited extras doesn't mean you should hold every film to this standard. I think it's much more fair to judge something based on how it has improved from the previous iteration.

You're a fool if you think they would retail this at something like 40-50 dollars. Will there be a point where it is that cheap? An Amazon Lightning Deal? Perhaps. But that's not what the point is.

Even if the PQ isn't ideal, how often do you pay 12 dollars a film anymore on release day? Thor? X-Men: First Class? How many times do we get bonus features on a separate disc? Or as many bonus features as this set has per film? And yet some Blu's are 20 dollars, and are bare-bones. And you're implying it's overpriced? In relation to what?

12 commentaries are a given you could say, but 7 documentaries totaling almost four hours, and numerous deleted scenes/interviews/etc?

Not even counting the three bonus discs, 13 dollars a film, and just under 9 dollars a disc.

re: Star Wars
 

I wish Target would use the clear boxes for security like Wal-Mart does. My local Target ALWAYS has a great selection but just yesterday I left there empty handed because they had every copy of Supernatural Season 6 beat to hell with those spider locks.

re: Star Wars
 

When I picked mine up at store opening, they had no security device. I went back later in the day and they were now in plastic cases. I went to another store out of curiosity, and they had spiderwraps. Maybe you got lucky like I did and got to your Target before the clerk got around to them.


To the guy that thinks these are overpriced at $80 because they didn't include some old bonus material, please tell us of other big name blu-rays that are released at $13, let alone that these are some of the most anticipated blu-ray releases and biggest grossing movies of all time. And that is not even counting the value of 3 blurays full of bonus material it does have.

re: Star Wars
 

Anyone else expericing menus freezing and lagging on the extras disks? I have a samsung BD player.

re: Star Wars
 

Firstly, two words: BLADE RUNNER


Sorry, but Phantom Menace isn't worth $13 and Attack of the Clones is an iffy purchase at that price too. The bonus features are self-indulgent fluff. If you want to argue the ~$13 per film price tag, then I'll counter with the SUPERMAN set, 5 films, 5x the bonus features, and the cost per film worked out to be in the same ballpark.

Several high-profile releases put this set to shame.

AVATAR: 3-Disc (I bought it because the features were high quality, even though I'm not a huge fan of the film)

ALIEN Saga is a benchmark for what this set should have been at the very least.

LORD OF THE RINGS is something the set should have been aspiring to try and compete with.

Other releases that shame this in terms of quantity and quality:

Hot Fuzz
Apocalypse Now
Wizard of Oz
The Matrix Trilogy

re: Star Wars
 

lol wtf that set barely had anything new on it at all.

re: Star Wars
 

Well said, Boba Fett.

I really have no issue with the set's price but I've found the special features content a huge letdown since it was announced on May 4th.

I'm shocked by the amount of people who give things about this set a pass just because it's Star Wars in HD. People who are normally quite concerned about A/V quality and special features suddenly lower their standards when Star Wars is involved, just to get it in some form. This set should be amazing, to say the least. The DVD's came out 7 years ago and there hasn't been a film in 6 years. They've had many years to make these films look and sound perfect and porting all previously-released special features should have been a no-brainer considering the massive storage space that Blu-ray allows.

Jim Ward of Lucasfilm bragged about the DVD set making $100 million in its first day of release back in 2004. George Lucas is a multi-billionaire running a multi-billion dollar company. Star Wars is the most popular film franchise in existence and always the most anticipated home video release as each new format has come into being throughout the years, therefore it should set the standard. Considering its popularity and LFL's incredible resources, they really have no legitimate excuse as to why this set should be anything less than incredible.

In terms of the extras, someone mentioned it having 12 commentaries. True, though 6 are ported over from the DVD's, which is fine. I'm glad they carried them over. The new discs 7 and 8 look interesting but disc 9 is where the wheels start to come off.

To me, all previous LFL home video extras from the earliest documentaries on VHS/LD to the recent DVD features should have all been included. It would have been quite easy to do and I'll get to that in a minute.

Unlike some, I don't mind if previous, older extras are ported over without upgrading them to HD. I don't expect any studio to spend the money to make new HD transfers for past special features. In fact, leaving them in SD is where Blu-ray allows studios to easily include everything for us. That is, except for Lucasfilm and their penny-pinching ways.

With the addition of a 10th disc to this set, just one BD-50, one additional disc, they could have brought over all previous DVD extras as these are all standard definition. The 2004 OT bonus disc and the three prequel bonus DVD's total 37.6GB. That's allowing for (4) 9.4GB DL DVD's. They also released the "Star Wars: A Musical Journey" bonus DVD, the Wal-Mart "Story of Star Wars" bonus DVD, and hell, throw on the R2D2 bonus DVD they released. That's a total of 46GB for those 7 DVD's. It would have taken the addition of just a 10th disc. 10 discs for a Star Wars release of six films should have been expected, and the minimum number, quite frankly. Since all those features are owned by Lucasfilm and wouldn't require new transfers as they are recent releases, it would have been lucky to increase the price of the set by $10. Yet they're not here. So we lose the good documentaries like "The Beginning", the trailers, the prequel deleted scenes for those that want them, and "Empire of Dreams", to name a few. Blu-ray has been around for 5 years. We shouldn't have to hold onto DVD's, LD's, and VHS tapes for the extras anymore.

Back to Disc 9. This set included 3 of the 4 original documentaries but left off "From Star Wars to Jedi" for some odd reason. Yet we got 91 minutes of "spoofs" in HD and 84 minutes on the 501st costume group in SD-screwy- They also left off the extras from three of the laserdisc releases: the '93 Definitive Collection features, the '95 Faces set's Lucas interview, and the '97 SE set's "Making of the Special Edition" featurette. Around four hours and in SD for FSWTJ and the three sets of LD extras.

The spoofs doc was pretty lame, in my opinion, and most of them are available on You Tube. The doc is in HD yet many of them are just upscaled and not true HD on this set. Consider the disc space that 91 minutes of HD material takes up on a disc. Removing just that one doc would have left enough room for "From Star Wars to Jedi" and the special features from the three laserdisc sets I mentioned. Including almost 3 hours of spoofs and fans in costumes at the expense of some good classic behind-the-scenes material? On top of that, 8 of the discs are BD-50's. Disc 8, the OT bonus disc, is only a BD-25. Upgrading that obvious cost-cutting measure would have allowed them another 25GB of space on Disc 8, which could have been used for the "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed" doc.

To sum up my long story, adding just a 10th disc to the set and dropping the spoofs doc would have allowed us to have everything previously released on home video from VHS to LD to DVD.

Considering what all of the other major franchises have done in terms of carrying over all special features, this is a huge disappointment and inexcusable, in my opinion.

re: Star Wars
 

I don't think any of those debuted below $13 per movie and most are currently higher right now on amazon. How does any of what you said justify his claim that this set is $30 overpriced? Star Wars has a bigger following than any of those other franchises, but is only worth $10 per blu-ray movie? And bonus content worth $0?

re: Star Wars
 

Well put. I can't believe the emphasis they're putting on that dumb spoofs documentary. I'd rather have a 15 minute documentary on the Kenner toy line than every SW spoof ever filmed.

re: Star Wars
 

maybe with the 3D versions of the films, they'll release another bluray edition with all the extras Fox left off from this release ... ;)

re: Star Wars
 

Don't paint Fox with that broad brush, this is all Lucasfilm. If it were up to Fox, we'd have DVDs with the originals, the 97s, every previous extra.

Somebody brought up the Alien saga, which Fox did. All the previous extras, both cuts of each film, etc. Brings to mind when the first Star Wars DVD set came out and Lucasfilm tried to sell it as a slice of fried gold, and even back then I said it was barely above the level of the very first Alien DVD set. I just find it funny that LFL is trying again to push a sub standard product, and it's getting compared to the Alien movies again.

Sad to hear about the extras, I've kept the possibility of buying this used in the back of my mind for the extras, but I guess I shouldn't even bother with that.

As for the films...I've begun researching alternate sources...I've had enough of George's nonsense.

re: Star Wars
 

And only 2 of the movies were really any good so don't compare the sets.

re: Star Wars
 

I disagree.
You rate it against its peers.
In this instance, rating it based on what we've gotten in the past only glorifies the fact that there'll probably be another, 'better' release down the line (ie; there is obvious room for improvement).

...And even without that, c'mon, you talk of being spoiled by other releases??? I guess you're right, this is Star Wars, it's not like it's an important release, or something fans everywhere were clamoring for, or that guy whats-his-name, oh yeah, Lucas, had the funds to do right. Oh wait...

re: Star Wars
 

Easy menu navigation. After pressing play, the movies just start after a Fox Home Entertainment Video. Why no big THX logos here? I sorta missed those. Has Blu-ray sound advanced beyond that?

I also like when you stop and restart, you are given the option to resume the movie at the exact frame you left off at. I wish all other Blus had that.

re: Star Wars
 

Well, I seem to recall the 2004 DVDs retailing for $50 on release day. That came with a comprehensive, three-hour documentary about the making of the trilogy, three of the audio commentaries, and I wasn't forced to buy three films I don't like very much. Not quite as comprehensive as I was hoping, perhaps, but if that release had included deleted scenes, that'd be a pretty well-rounded set. No, and I didn't know it wouldn't be worth it. Knowing the content by name and knowing whether it's good content are two totally different things. When I got the unaltered OT bonus discs with the SEs for $12-$13 apiece, that was a good bundle. Obviously, I don't agree that these are "exponentially better" bonus features. In fact, unless the commentaries are some sort of miracle tracks, I think this is worse than we've had. More is not necessarily better. Well, you know, I did. Not including the extras from the previous iteration means this set automatically takes a step backwards, and the extras that replace those extras with on this set are only okay, and some of which (the spoofs doc) are exceptionally lazy -- it's a reel of clips you could easily find on YouTube (in fact, some of the videos in the reel ARE YouTube videos, presented in YouTube quality on the disc). The whole reason I dropped the extra $50 to get the "Complete Saga" over the OT set is for these bonus discs, and they don't seem to be worth the extra cash. Worse, I sold my prequel DVDs because I expected that material to carry over, and it doesn't. Obviously, it's not Lucasfilm's fault I sold my old discs, but that's another sting to the wallet and the value of the set as a replacement for my DVDs. Note that I have a thread on this very forum (incomplete, but still) of the Blu-Rays that don't carry over all the features from the DVD, and it's only like 150 titles long, and nearly all of them are from the first generations of Blu-Ray releases. How many titles are there on Blu-Ray? Thousands.

Also, note that the PQ only took a jump in terms of disc space, allowing it to be presented in HD. This is not a new transfer, and honestly, Star Wars ought to rate a new 2k or 4k or even 8k master. The ones Boba Fett listed are certainly good examples, namely the Blade Runner and Alien sets, both of which contained all existing cuts of the film, feature-length documentaries on the making of the films, and in the case of Alien, both the existing and 20 or so hours of all-new Blu-exclusive extras, in packaging that is exactly as attractive as Star Wars' packaging, because it's the same design. I did not feel like I overpaid for Alien when I dropped $94.99 on it, and that has two less films and one less bonus disc.

re: Star Wars
 

I watched A New Hope last night, and I noticed that there are A LOT of green flashes during the battle between Vader and Obi-Wan. Ob-Wan's light saber is blue, but whenever he swings it quickly, there is a flash of green light.

This issue is really obvious. I was not watching with a critical eye. I was just watching for entertainment.

re: Star Wars
 

Watched IV last yesterday, loved it. Removing the boxes from around the space ships was great, that use to really annoy me.

Watched III this morning, wow the VQ is AWESOME. Love the movie, great story line, it is just some of the acting and lines that make me tense up. But, those lines only last about 1 min in total, so I can live with it - love the overall movie, ties it perfectly to the next movie.

re: Star Wars
 

Like I've said before, I wish this included the substantial missing documentaries (I really don't need to see the 10min vhs interviews ever again) and marketing stuff (trailers, tv spots, poster gallery) but other that and the packaging art (should've just used posters) I really have no complaints. This is far from a sub-standard product. Couldn't hand over my $80 fast enough. I could see a truly "ultimate" set coming for the 40th anniversary, but this will do nicely until then.

Forcing myself to go thru the films in order, watched the first two last night... looked and sounded pretty great to me. (and as I understand it those are the weakest in pic quality)

re: Star Wars
 

:lol: Some would argue the same about this set as well mind you ;)

I know personally I don't put 1,2 and 3 in the same category of "good" to 4 and 5. I then have 6 in between as far as grading the films, so in a way it is definitely a fair comparison.

re: Star Wars
 

Boba Fett makes some good points, which is why I think I'm gonna just wait another year to see what comes out. Priorities is what it comes down to, and if you're a true fan of SW, then a purchase like this is probably automatic.