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I'll let you guys know what happens with my situation. I'm not too thrilled here, but what can ya do. Guess i'll be waiting for another 4 years to buy the dvds again.

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Just a question. If you DVD gets seized, what happens? Do they contact you? Or, is it just a loss of 35.99 or whatever you paid?

Well, That's what I was wondering. I shold be getting a letter from customs this week to let me know what's up. I called the place i got them from and told them what happened and they are going to issue me a credit for what i paid. (hopefully)

Dragonfly do you know what day your order shipped? Mine was shipped on the 29th...and I am praying that it did not get seized...

Please remember, no discussion about Attack of the Clones bootlegs.

i have a registered mail package waiting for me at the post office. should ease a few minds out there...about customs and whatnot.

i'll post my thoughts tomorrow.

going back to delete some of my more "chatty" posts...suggest others do the same.

Mine had shipped on 5/23/02 if that helps anyone.

Mine shipped 5/23 too and I picked it up from the post office this morning.

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sing with me...

STAR WARS, MFin' STAR WARS, MFin' Star Wars, on DVD!

I picked up the 5-star set around 10:00 this morning and spent about 1.5 hours skipping around on all three disks.

I found the video/audio to be fairly uniform throughout the set, so I will review them "in general" rather than individually.

All letter grades are on the "bootleg scale"...I'd be much less forgiving of an official release.

VIDEO

B+ (very close to an A-...if this were an official release, it would be a C-)

it's important to note here that I am viewing this set on a fairly large (61" Sony non-HDTV) monitor. Large sets really bring out even the slightest of irregularities in a transfer, so most of the below will be a non-issue if you have a "normal" sized set.

The previous comments about "grainy" or "soft" pictures look more to me like the slight artifacting that the last generation MPEG encoding on LDs is prone to. It is NOT the sort of thing that I think you'd even notice on a 40" or smaller set. I played with my levels a bit, and as I darkened/sharpened the picture, the artifacting got more noticeable. I think the guys who did the transfer picked a pretty good medium between "soft" and "pixelriffic".

I can't say whether this set compares favorably with the original LD source. I'll just let the 3 of you who still own LD players sort that out. To most people here, I suspect it's a moot point, and I've never seen the LD set on MY home theater anyway. I can happily confirm, though, that the video looks infinitely better than my 1997 widescreen VHS set and compares favorably with studio releases of films from the same era (specifically with Jaws and the Road Warrior).

AUDIO

A- (for good 2.0 and solid LFE...if it were an official release, the lack of discrete surrounds would kill its grade)

I followed prior advice and played SW and RotJ in DD 5.1 and played ESB in 2.0. My setup is "mid-fi" or so, consisting of a Pioneer 509 DD/DTS receiver, Energy eXL-16 mains/surrounds, an eXL center, and two Sony SAWM-40 subs.

The audio is where the 5-star set really shines. I don't think I realized until today just how much LFE the trilogy had. Hearing the mirror in my kitchen rattle as a star destroyer passed over was worth the price of admission alone. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I think hearing this audio on my setup is going to be like "seeing (or hearing as it were) these movies for the first time". It's a whole new experience...seriously, it's very very immersive. I barely talked myself into coming back to work.

I doubt the presence of LFE will be anything special for the LD owners out there, but for those of you who have been watching this on VHS for 20 years and have decent home theaters w/ subwoofers...BE PREPARED.

As to whether the audio is discrete in the rears...I don't think so, but I had to really listen closely to a few very select scenes to decide...plus i had to sit outside of the soundfield to notice. To me, that is indicative of a very good 2.0 mix, and I'm not complaining.

MENUS, PACKAGING & EXTRAS

B+ (a little quirky here and there, but overall )

Menus are functional (meaning they all seem to work) and attractive, but not "studio" by any stretch of the imagination...the main theme plays in the background. I rarely use the chapter select menu, but I must say that these are surprisingly good for a boot.

The trailer is the one from the "Special Edition" re-release in '97. I didn't dig very deep, but I didn't see the original trailers anywhere. I'm told that a documentary follows the trailer on RotJ, but I didn't get a chance to check it out.

The inserts are pretty good overall. They are printed on a decent stock paper with passable English (hey, that's half the battle with boots). The covers of SW and RotJ look very tasteful to my eye. I like ESB a little less as the design doesn't seem consistent with the other 2. For some reason, they decided to port the "catch phrase" from TPM on the top of each cover, so you'll now have 4 DVDs in your collection with the words "Every saga has a beginning" on them. It may just be an oddity with my set, but the gold on the ESB cover looks a bit "washed out" compared to the other 2...nothing the untrained eye would ever notice though. For some reason my set came with "DVD 9" stickers on the covers, but they peeled off with minimal effort.

The print on the actual disks looks very professional...almost official.

GENERAL THOUGHTS



Well done...I honestly can't imagine having an urge to upgrade this set until the official release. What more needs to be said?

After getting $25 for my VHS set on Half.com...I figure I spent about $11 for all 3 DVDs and another buck each for the cases. Had I spent 5 times what I did, I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep tonight as they'd have been worth it.

In a word (or two): BUY THESE!

-chess

Big shout out to "dgc" for the info and the linkie that workie!

Great review Chess! Thank-you! Glad you're enjoying the discs!

Chess,

I too have a 61" Sony 4X3 TV (non-HDTV) and a similar audio set-up. I'm glad to hear what you did. My DVDs were shipped last week and I will post my review when I get them.

I'm glad to hear they are much better than the widescreen VHS. That is all I need to know!

I wonder what Lucas thinks of these 5 star DVD's? For that matter ...do you think he's checking out how long ebays list is with star wars DVD's?

did you crop these at all? the AR on them is ~2.50:1, when it should be closer to 2.35:1...

No cropping was done except to remove the "black bars"

I thought on the VHS SE's the ratio wasn't even 2.35:1. I even thought these shots were lower than 2.35:1

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Does this crap always have to happen?

No problem Chess. Glad to see you got hooked up and are now enjoying them. Just do me one favor.....

Feel free to field all the email requests from now on. I quit!!!!

Seriously though, after answering 70+ email requests for info, I'm done. Email someone else because I wont reply.

chess, thank you for that outstanding review.

Because this thread has hit page 8, I'm closing it because of its length.

However, because:

1. It seems like we've gotten enough review information about these newly released "Five Star" DVDs, and

2. This subject/thread seems to be a magnet for people who do not have enough self-control to follow forum rules and avoid pointless bickering,

there will be no Star Wars DVDs - Reviews - Part 3 thread. This decision may change in the future, but right now I think plenty of information exists in the existing two threads. Please do not start any threads on this topic, because they will be closed. Thanks to all the people who have provided valuable input in this last two threads.