Paul_SD

It locks in the item price- but since the price is in £, and you aren't charged until it's ready to ship, the currency conversion rate on the day you order will likely be different than the day- weeks or months from then- when it finally ships.
Ex- final cost after the removal of VAT and with shipping charges added on this day of 12/26 w/ standard delivery, comes to £153.08 or ...

eh, n/m as it's not giving the option of using Amazon's currency conversion for pre-orders more than 14 days in advance anymore.

Spiderbite

What do you mean by out of date? Is it because they 780p instead of 1080p or 4K?

I plan to get the 77k and 83k versions once the 80k version comes out. I have zero interest in watching the official altered versions and don't care for the prequels or the sequel trilogy. I have not bought a copy of the original trilogy since those awful non-anamorphic transfers were put on DVD years ago. Looks like I will be sticking to bootlegs until I die. At least that is an option. I have been really wanting to see the unaltered trilogy for a long time now and was staying away from the Harmy's as much as possible. But with JJ Abrams recently stating that there was no way it was coming out, I gave my money to someone else. It sucks and I don't like supporting bootlegs but if the owners won't release stuff, I have no problems going that way in music and movies.

Any time frame on when the 80k is coming out? I didn't plan to get into the 77k or 83 k until the Empire version is released so I can check them out all at the same time.

rocket1312

​​​​The fan preservation community has just come a long way since the last versions were released. Better sources, better equipment, better color references, etc. Harmy would probably be the first to admit this. They're fine for what they are, and in the case of Empire it's still best thing out there, but I think the 4k releases have eclipsed them. No word on when Empire might be available. It's the one of the three that doesn't have a good print source, so the restoration needed is far more extensive. Presumably UHD based restoration will start showing up at some point as well.

Toddarino

I figure I lived with the shitty dvd versions for this long. Harmy’s “Outdated” ones will last me for quite some time.

kefrank

Until 4K80 sees the light of day, it can be worth tracking down the "Grindhouse Dreamastered V2" version of Empire. It's not remotely close to being a full restoration but it's a 1080p scan of an original 35mm print, with some color correction applied.

mcnabb

I just thought about this today. I was an early adopter to DVD as I bought a player way back in March 1998, as the DIVX vs DVD wars were still going on. One of the biggest reasons I wanted a DVD player was for the Star Wars Trilogy (The Special Editions had just come out the year before so nobody had an idea that Lucas would make them the definite editions). 21 years later, I still can't watch a proper version of the Original Original Trilogy on DVD, BluRay, 4K. lol

Jay G.

How did you miss the Limited Edition DVDs? Granted, it was a Laserdisc master that was way under par in terms of quality for DVD releases in 2006, but there was a DVD release of the Original Unaltered Trilogy.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ori...ltered_trilogy

Jay G.

Aren't those what the 4K77, 4K83, and 4K80 restorations are?

TomOpus

I'm glad I bought these back when they first came out. I figured it was as close to the original OT we'll get.

Mike86

While an option those discs were far less than desirable in my opinion. The fact that they weren’t even anamorphic when DVD was at its height or a little past and Blu-ray’s were starting to be available made those releases weak.

It seemed like another screw you from Lucas. You want the unaltered Original Trilogy? Well here, take them in this crappy format, that way you’ll see how inferior they are.

Jay G.

Oh, I agree. But the fact remains that they did exist, so a DVD option was made available, technically.

Mike86

Yeah. I just remember at the time (and even now) thinking: why would I double dip on the discs I already have to get the unaltered Original Trilogy as “bonus features” that weren’t in the proper format.

Jay G.

Amazon UK has a very bare-bones description up now:
So it sounds like each movie gets a UHD BD & BD of the feature, and a bonus disc BD

It'll be interesting to see what they put on the bonus disc for each movie. The ST will probably just be the existing bonus discs from their single releases, but the PT and OT will finally have their extras split out on individual discs, potentially allowing space for more extras. Could they split 'Empire of Dreams" into three parts, one part for each OT movie? Include "The Beginning: Making Episode I" on TPM bonus disc?

Doing one bonus disc per movie will make it easier for Disney to repackage into individual UHD movie releases later on. The bummer about the currency Blu-ray single movie releases of the OT and PT is the lack of extras.

rocket1312

Those are 4k transfers of theatrical prints. I meant restorations based on the upcoming UHDs,

Jay G.

So another "despecialized," but using the official UHD transfers as the base?

rocket1312

Yes. Probably won't happen for a while, but they'll come eventually.

Jay G.

Actually, I was looking around, and someone is has already released a "D+77" version, based off the Disney+ release. It's not a full restoration or despecialization, but it gets rid of the most egregious changes.

milo bloom

I waited a little while because neither Star Wars nor Star Trek was on DVD at first, and I thought that once the one started, the other would follow. Finally got a player once the Star Trek TOS discs started getting released and then my collection exploded. I have nearly 1600 DVDs and Blus now (and have probably let go of a couple hundred over the years). It's 22 years now and we still don't have proper versions of the OT on disc, just half-assed "here, stop your whining" versions that any respectable filmmaker would be ashamed to have their name attached to.

I truly believe that a big chunk of the toxicity in Star Wars was born of the decision to first make the SEs, then, secondly, to refuse the release the original versions. Some of the fans just kinda let their collecting and whatnot die down (like me) and others just went absolutely feral. Yes, it's their own choice but it's still hard not to think it so easily could have been avoided.

Toddarino

100%
If Lucas would have just released the original theatrical versions on Blu-ray, he could have continued to tinker with his special editions and all the goodwill would still be intact.

Spiderbite

Josh-da-man

When they re-released the Star Wars trilogy on VHS in 1995 it was advertised as the last chance to own the original trilogy, so we were warned.

E Unit

Yep, I left those big “Last Chance” stickers on my laser discs when I bought the trilogy.

milo bloom

Nobody either took that seriously or understood it to mean "all future home video formats". The trilogy had been released on so many formats, and nobody ever really stopped releasing a title (even Disney's vaulting was cyclical) and those in the know were aware of DVD coming just two years later so

And then, we got the half-assed release on DVD with the non-anamorphic versions, so that's another strike against that.

There's nothing holding back the release of the OT except some stubbornness on George's part. Even JJ tried to get Disney to release them but was held back.
But I can't believe we'll never see them. They're just too important to the legacy of the franchise.

DJariya

So this has basically turned into "Why I don't need to own this set" thread. right?

Mike86

Yeah, I remember the ads about owning the originals one last time, and while I was young enough looking back its easy to see why people would have thought it was marketing bullshit just to get people to buy. Same way that Disney puts stuff into the vault or titles go out of print before getting a re-release for an anniversary or whatever. Lucas is just the only one stubborn enough that he doesn’t care what the fans want, and then wonders why people dislike him.

I definitely feel like you’re right that the special editions are what started some of the rift in the fanbase. The way I’ve always looked at it is the special editions were largely done to make elements of the prequels work better. So in turn that gave the purists another reason to hate the prequels.