Mazje

Are there any commentaries on the Harmy Editions?

Also, I'm not sure who owns what in regards to distribution of the original trilogy, but it's odd to think that the next release (or future releases) of the original trilogy won't have a George Lucas commentary (based on his current attitude towards the new movie and owners).

kefrank

Not sure what we should say here, but you can get that info in the official thread on originaltrilogy.com

Jay G.

It's possible the existing commentaries could be re-edited to fit the original cuts, or use audio culled from interviews (like one of the existing commentary tracks does).

Josh-da-man

I'd rather have a Mark Hamill commentary on the OT than another Lucas commentary.

Gary Kurtz would be an interesting one, too.

hanshotfirst1138

I'd rather actually have the films the package depicts on the discs. That'd be nice. Kurtz would be interesting, but I doubt Disney or Lucas would like his blunt version of the story to get out there, much less on a sanctioned product.

rocket1312

Kurtz was on Empire of Dreams, so it's not like Lucasfilm is afraid to involve him. Besides, I don't think he has anything particularly controversial to say on Star Wars or Empire. And since he didn't work on Jedi or the prequels, he would have no reason to be on a commentary track for those movies. His thoughts on them are easily found elsewhere anyways.

John Pannozzi

Didn't the Definitive Edition laserdisc of the OT from 1993 have commentaries?

stvn1974

Disney could just use the current commentaries since Lucas didn't even have the balls to discuss the changes he made in them for the DVDs and BD sets.

Josh Z

Yes, but they were terrible. The "commentaries" were just audio interview soundbytes (most 20-30 seconds long) sprinkled over specific scenes with long gaps of dead silence (not even the movie soundtrack playing) in between. The only way to find them was to search for time codes listed in the box set's printed booklet, but the list was full of errors and half the comments weren't where it said they were. All told, there was maybe a half hour of "commentary" spread out over the entire trilogy.

To rub salt in the wound, it turned out that most of the audio soundbytes were taken from video interviews found elsewhere in the box set's supplements. So there was no need to go through the hassle of listening to the commentary at all.

hanshotfirst1138

He doesn't see them as changes, he sees them as "how they should have been all along," and ignores them.

mrhan

For me it wasn't all about the SFX; it was always Han shot first. If he really wanted it the other way there would have been at least an alternate take of that scene and not some dumb special effect to make the change. So lame.

hanshotfirst1138

Here's what else he could've done: filmed and released it that way in 1977!! I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on his "original vision," but even that changed at least three times.

Chrisedge

Yes, pretty much all the officially released commentaries are sync to it...my version has about 10 audio tracks.

story

Ha, ha, that's funny, 2011 story. Except... what you didn't count on... is that 2016 story is pretty sure that 2015 story accidentally threw away or recycled your Star Wars DVDs.

While redoing our media storage and home theater set-up, I think they got tossed by mistake. Everything is accounted for except that one box set and the three loose prequels. Just no idea. So, now I'm left trying to decide if I'm willing to shell out $90 on something I said I never would buy. The Force Awakens has, of course, awakened a desire to watch all of them again and it's been a while since my daughter has seen ANH and she's been asking about it since she can tell Star Wars is out there in a big way (she isn't really aware yet of the rest of them, since she's young). I'm tempted to get the OT on its own but I'd wonder what I'm missing out on with that bonus disc because those documentaries are usually so good.

What's a guy to do?

You already said that!

Trevor

In a moment of weakness a few years ago, I almost sold all my Star Wars DVDs for pennies, thinking I would inevitably soon get them on BD. Of course, now I'm thankful to have kept those discs for the bonus discs.

But, sorry, as for what should you do; don't buy the current BDs. Either download the Harmy versions, or pay for the old DVDs, or wait for a better release.

Jay G.

If only there was a way to look up what's on the 3 bonus discs in the set and what people's impressions of them are....

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/3894...ollection.html
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Star-W.../14903/#Review
http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/09/...-review?page=2

Note that that "Star Wars Trilogy: Episodes IV-VI" contains no bonus discs, so you only get the movie discs with the only bonus feature being the commentaries on said discs.

story

Yes, but can you at least click the links for me?

Thank you for the resources, I appreciate it.

Trevor

Crap, maybe all those bonus discs are worth spending $60 on for a used copy. The 2012 and 2015 releases are the same outside of packaging, right?

Jay G.

Yes, even the disc artwork is the same.

Trevor

Thanks Jay! I think I can justify $60 for 9 discs of somewhat unique to me special features. If a proper official releases ever happens, I'm sure at least some of these special features will be missing, right?

Jay G.

The next release with anything new (Unaltered versions, remastered, new extras, etc.) is likely to be a Disney release, so if any current bonus features are owned by Fox and not Lucasfilm directly, they could go missing.

Also, I think Disney tends to be good in carrying forward special features, but things could go missing.

For example, the DVD set of the original trilogy had a bonus disc with the Empire of Dreams documentary, which is missing from the current Blu-ray set.

hanshotfirst1138

Would Lucasfilm own any of the deleted scenes, documentaries, etc? Since the last BR release was a FOX one, I'd assume they just dropped EOD for some reason? It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, to be honest, unless they're trying to incentivize double-dipping.

stvn1974

Lucasfilm most likely owns everything outright and just told FOX what to put out and when. This includes extras.

hdnmickey

Actually I consider Disney to be pretty bad an carrying forward special features. Even some of the animated SE/Platinum/Diamond releases have lost features along the way.

If one includes the prequel trilogy in the scope I believe Fox has already lost multiple SW features along the way, including that great "The Beginning" doc that was part of the original Episode I DVD 2-disc release.

stvn1974

Actually if FOX owned the original film would they own everything related to its shooting like deleted scenes? And if Disney did put out a release of the OT would they have to come to an agreement with FOX to show anything from the first film in extras since they own distribution rights until 2020?