More power to you. You enjoy your shitty DVD versions for the next 10+ years.

I may throw up a little bit in my mouth every time one of these scenes comes on, but I'm not going to deny myself the chance to see the greatest movies of all time in beautiful HD clarity.

I completely agree that it sucks, but it's the best we've got. I applaud people for standing up and making a statement with their wallets. I wish I could be that strong but I love these movies too much to not have them in blu. In the end, Lucas will release what he wants to release when he wants to release it. I guarantee you there's already a release date for the originals on a board in someone's office somewhere at the Ranch - but it won't be until all of the life has been sucked out of these versions (3d, etc. ). All the bitching and moaning in the worldwon't make a difference in this case - it'll just make for better marketing when the originals are finally announced.

I still say though that most people here (who had the intentions of buying it before these changes were announced) will still end up getting them at some point.

Exactly. Once he releases the remastered originals he's done (besides 3d). It's the same thing he did with DVD - wait until the format's almost dead and then release the originals as a last gasp (he packaged them with re-releases of the SE's knowing we'd buy the same crap again just to get the originals) - and he'll do it again with blu-ray.

AND, think it's a coincidence there aren't digital copies included? He probably won't even release the HD versions as digital downloads (ANOTHER product I failed to mention before) until the blu-rays have sold through in order to market the digital versions as the "next big deal" - a la The Beatles. I'll bet digital downloads aren't available until at least next year.

So that's another two releases added to the six I mentioned before. So 8 completely different sets of releases based on one set of movies.

Wow, I actually canceled my pre-order, didn't think I would, but I did. Saved myself 90 bucks or so.

Hey, thanks for the kind words! If it's all the same to you, I think I'm going to just fall back and just use these again:

Ha! I like it! Cheers!

Damn! Was that the last time he used the correct art as well?

I went all illegal.

No, I don't give a shit if I'm judged for it.

Glad I did because I really won't be watching these again afterward.

Watched "A New Hope" only so far, and:

-blue 'haze' is still there on the Star Destroyer engines in opening shot.
-the alarm klaxons are different in the opening scene. It's not like any version I know of. It's more subtle.
-blue-tinted walls from 2004 are now properly white again.
-the scene with R2 and 3P0 on the planet's surface still suffers from the fading color saturation from 2004, where the sand and sky's color goes from natural to near-colorless, to oversaturated, all slight, so it's unchanged.

-Yes, there are indeed inconsistent rocks hiding R2.
-Yes, that stupid scream (what the hell is a krayt dragon anyway? ) is there.
-the Han / Greedo scene is the same as 2004 in terms of the effects work done to it, but in this version a few frames were cut from the beginning to make it as sudden as the original, so they still "shoot each other".
-Jabba's scene was not improved at all.

-On board the Falcon, Luke's saber is inconsistent. It starts off blue-tinted instead of green, but it's sort of a turquoise since it wasn't a full-on fix. Occasionally it's white, occasionally it's slightly green-tinted. Nothing was done to the blade itself in terms of new effects.

-Darth Vader's hand gesture when he stopped talking before the "terminate her immediately" line is still there.
How the hell does THAT go unfixed for all this time when it's probably THE most obvious goof since the film's original release?

-Tarkin's dialogue is no longer inconsistent in terms of clarity, the line "then name the system!" from before which was dull is very clear here. At the same time, some lines spoken later inside the trash compactor are both clipped (Han's "look I had everything under control" and that argument) and dull, while subsequent lines later in the scene are clear.

-The lightsaber duel sees improvements to Obi-Wan's saber blade for only a few shots, while Vader's is unaltered. It's not pink anymore, but does come a little close on occasion.

When Obi-Wan's saber completely fizzles out in one shot, just as before it has NOT been fixed.
The glow-tipped rod of his prop saber blade is still there.

-Compare / contrast: The Alderaan explosion is very vivid in color, while the Death Star explosion is colorful for about 2 seconds, then becomes completely colorless, probably as a means of hiding that strange blue-tinted 'edge' of the explosion added to the 2004 version. The edge is still there, just colorless.

Sampled the other two but haven't watched them all the way through and the other changes are indeed there, like Vader's "no" and so on.

Also:

THAT set was my first owned copy of the trilogy, which I got for Christmas (along with "Batman Returns") in 1992.

I loved that set and literally wore it out!

Just last year I found one at a flea market sale and picked it up. Loved the Oscar nomination / win stats on the flaps!

Funny thing is the one you posted was the version from that year 1992, while the one I had was from 1990. The difference is in the font used on the flaps for the information.

Gotta love nostalgia.

Also, for fellow Constant Image Height enthusiasts, the subtitles for alien languages are apparently below the picture, appearing only in the black bars, as they are not burned into the image.

Yep, I LOVED that VHS set cover arts and the collectors preview trailers of each movie and From Star Wars To Jedi they had before each movie.

Sigh. This thread isn't good for my blood pressure.

One other difference is the 1990 version was under the CBS/FOX video brand, around 1991 or so CBS/Fox ceased to exist and Fox Home Video started up (who then released the films in 1992). I don't think there was a widescreen VHS release for the 1990 version, but the 1992 releases did have a widescreen release IIRC.

Well, I'm going to sit this DVD out. I could live with the changes made in the Special Editions. But these new changes, plus the lack of any cleanup or lightsaber fixes, and the obvious lies told by Lucasfilm, just borders on stupidity. I've still got the DVDs and Definitive Collection laserdics. I'll just watch those, warts and all.

The muffled "father" line in Jedi people are now citing, to be fair, was always muddled and some people didn't even realize it was anything more than Luke writing in pain until it was pointed out today.

Not excusing it, but just saying there are a lot of changes even big Star Wars fans don't notice and post-outrage is incredibly annoying.

Yeah, really, what is with this shot? It has always bothered me, even when I was a kid. Could someone well-versed in special effects tell me why this is apparently impossible to fix in the 35 years since the original release?

And I canceled my pre-order, too. Look, the amount of changes made in the SE version that bothers me could probably be counted on a few fingers (and no, Greedo shooting first is not one of them); it's just the constant revisionism is starting to wear me down, and paying $90 for a trio of bonus discs (that really do sound fantastic to go through) just isn't cutting it for me. Maybe I'll pick them up when there's a used set for fairly cheap...and something tells me that'll be happening sooner than you would normally think.

But I'm not going to bitch and moan over this; at the end of the day, Star Wars is George Lucas' creation and vision, and he's free to do whatever he wants with them, just as I'm free to not hand over my money for what he's offering.

So if there's all these color correction issues etc, why did Lucasarts blatantly lie about fixing them?

Supposedly the press releases (I'm too lazy to look them up), in hindsight are intentionally vague.

And technically they fixed the coloring...for a few frames.

This has always bugged me. How could that possibly have made it through so many iterations? I remember when they talked about fixed obvious flaws for the '97 special editions and I couldn't wait to have that flub corrected, but it was still there! And now it's made it to Blu-ray. But hey, now we can see Vader go to his shuttle in Empire, so it's all good.

I'm just glad the obvious "e" flaw in your username has been corrected. WTF?

Yup, I have the 1992 widescreen collector's set, which came with "From Star Wars To Jedi" and an abridged version of a book that came out at the time called "George Lucas: The Creative Impulse". All with a nifty little holographic sticker on the front.

I loved the "Star Wars Trilogy" VHS preview as well. Recorded it onto my computer as a video file.

I didn't get that set in 1992, I got it in 2003 or so, from a pawn shop-type store called "Cash Converters", only it was still brand new - the tapes themselves still had the red Fox Video seal attached on the bottom!

I viewed them a couple of times but didn't want anything to happen to them, so I just avoided playing them. Also, the audio track on "Empire" was messed up because it was full of static. Adjust the tracking and you minimize the static, but that messes up the video. Oh VCRs, how I've missed thee...

"Jedi" was interesting because they shifted the widescreen frame up by making the lower black border thicker to accommodate the subtitles, so they didn't appear in the film's frame. The same was not done for the first film though.

They still had the CBS/Fox video logos at the start of each film, only in a Dolby Surround widescreen presentation.

I should put it on my YouTube channel since I recorded it to computer a couple of years ago.

I'm going to find the file and put it up. I'll link it here.

Edit:

<iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aRf-W0oasmA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I still think the new Vader line at the end of Jedi is a hoax. Although if its true, then Lucas has really lost it and somebody over there needs to do an intervention. He is like an alcoholic at this point as he is just tampering with the movies because he can.

Even though the direct use of the label ceased around 91, they must have still be bound to the contract with CBS/FOX for a few years. It's interesting because even the 1995 "Faces" release of ANH has the CBS/FOX logo on the back case. At that time the label had been gone for almost 5 years. ESB and ROTJ didn't use the CBS/FOX logo in 95, only the Fox Home Video logo.

Thanks for the upload, ah... The Memories.

I, somewhat, give a pass to the '97 versions because it meant getting to see the films on the big screen again. Everything since has just slowly gotten worse.



Still have one of those sealed.

Well, IF all is true as far as not a whole lot of "clean-up" being done after all. And the new additions are real most likely, then I will be getting this but probably not until say Black Friday and not release now. My price point has gone from the mid $60's down to $45 or less. I have PLENTY of other things to keep me occupied, especially Gears of War 3 which comes out on the 20th.

Right now, I am doing my best to get my hands on the 2006 DVD's since I'll be damned if the 1st time I show my son the original trilogy is not the movies that I got to see growing up.

For those who have the 2006 DVDs, you can make the UOT anamorphic by using AutoGK. Using this program, I converted all 3 films to 1GB XVID files and when I plug my external hd into my HDTV, they were anamorphic. Happy camper!

I've seen star wars at least 50 times (10 times in 1977 in the theatres ). I have never noticed this. I guess I just spend my time enjoying the movie.

When can we expect a review to be up?

Typically Fox does not send review copies out until the day of or before release date.

But in this case, it might go out early - especially to those 'extra special people'. I imagine it will only take one site 3 or so hours to review all 3 movies + special features