The Star Wars Trilogy

[David Meek]

Personal business first: My copy shipped on the 13th!!!! Woohoo! :banana:

Here's any early review of the set from The Digital Bits

Here's the cover art:
Star Wars


The Empire Strikes Back


Return Of The Jedi


Bonus Material


Okay, all my previous grousing aside, I'm getting excited about getting my set. Yeah, baby!
arty:

[aud19]

Can't wait until Tuesday! I think I'll have to buy not rent this one :lol:

Artwork's nice :T

Jason

[George Bellefontaine]

Enjoy, fellas.

[Gene Simmons]

Wow Vader looks great on the special features disc! I hate to give Lucas another $60 for another trilogy, but I'm gonna do it!

Can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of it!

[DSGCobra]

Being a youngen here I don't have the lazer disk orginals or a lazer disk player for that matter so I will most definetly be buying this. I am getting excited too.

[Gene Simmons]

I actually bought a LD player and the sealed THX LD trilogy off of eBay a few months back. It will be nice to have the DVD's, but when it comes time for some serious Star Wars watchin' it will be on the LD.

[Chris D]

Yup, mine's coming in a few days from Overstock.com. I'll be in bed recovering from surgery, so I'll be spending some time with this one, to be sure!

[Gene Simmons]

Thats a great way to recover! Hope everything goes well Chris.

[Sithlord]

Star Wars Boxset

Well I just took delivery of the boxset today came out 2 days early and will be watching as soon as I get home. Trouble is I don't get home from work until 10pm as I work a permanent night shift so the neigbours are in for a rough night tonight. ;b>

[David Meek]

No sign of mine, yet. :nonod: Maybe tonight. . . .

PS. We need a "pouting" icon. :B

[George Bellefontaine]

Here it is, Tex... P O U T


SAY CHRIS, hope you are okay, ol' buddy. :T

[Daryl Furkalo]

My copy arrived this morning, tonight will be a long night!

[David Meek]

Buwahahahaha!!!! They're here, they're here!!!!
arty: :yeah: :beer2: :nos: :dothewave: :bluezoned: arty: ;b> :amen:

I'll be eating
opcorn:

And doing this tonight!
:tv:

[aud19]

Congrats guys. I'll be picking mine up tomorrow like most of the regular schlubs :lol:

Jason

[Chris D]

Well, either mine is going to be delivered in the mail tomorrow, or the mailman stole my copy today. Either way i've got to wait another day.

[Gene Simmons]

Due to self imposed rule #421: "I cannot buy DVD's until I am done watching what I recently bought." Which happens to be Magnum PI, I will probably have to wait until the end of the month to pick this up.

So I am very anxious to hear you guys' reviews!! Let em rip!

[Brandon B]

Oh, if ever there was a DVD to be an exception to a rule it's this one. C'mon. Plus it's discounted a lot of places for the first day only. Frye's is doing a $36.99 Tuesday only. If you happen to hate Frye's (I do), still can be used for price matching.

BB

[David Meek]

Okay, a two-word synopsis on the DVDs:


they suck

[David Meek]

JUST KIDDING!!!

I only made it through Episode 4 last night. Woohoo - what a ride!

[Shane Martin]

I watched Episode 4 this afternoon.

Overall the video is impressive but not reference. Very very servicable for a film this old
The audio is excellent at times. It was localizable at times but was nice. I didn't get a chance to see it in EX yet.

Empire looked better so I'm going to assume that ROTJ looks even better. I would expect the audio to be better as well.

Overall worth the $39 I paid.

As far as the changes thus far, I STILL don't care for Jabba the hut in the 4th film but other than that, I didn't really take offense to any of what I saw or heard. Some say that the music is a bit off or muddied in a few places but I didn't get distracted enough to care.

I just cranked it up and enjoyed the ride. -3 on the knob meesa went

[Trevor Schell]

Got my copy today,,The Silver Box of course!!:yesnod:

[Brandon B]

Also watched IV. While the clarity and detail n the video is really damn good, I don't know what they did with the color during the Lowry restoration.

There are a whole bunch of elements where it's been punched up or just plain altered that were really weird. First scenes with the gun battle on the ship, pink flashes accompanying blaster shots and strikes that were just not there originally. Escape pod and Artoo glowing blue in the desert, stuff like that. THe whole film is not oversaturated, just certain elements. And what the hell is with Luke's lightsaber going green in the first shot when he is practicing, then less so. This is probably the
most distracting thing. And some explosions, like the final tie fighter when they escape with the princess, the color elements in that have been ramped way the heck up. Weird.

Also still don't think much of the CGI Jabba. The Greedo scene actually bugs me far less in its current incarnation.

The audio. Hmmm. I was expecting a lot better from everyone's early reports. The clarity changed so often it really distracted me from the movie. The LFE stuff was sporadic too.

I saw this movie so many times during its theatrical run that it really distracts me when it deviates from the parallel mental replay I have going when I watch it. I've hardly ever seen it any other way as I only got the LDs last year and don't have my own player, and could never bear VHS much. I'll have to watch this one a bunch of times before I can get past that and really enjoy it I think. The actual "enhancements" don't bother me much at all at this point, but the differences in the presentation that are constant throughout the movie just pull me out. LIke trying to drive a car you've had for years with the seat adjusted for someone else.

Not really a negaative review, since I think they did a stunning job, but I'm bummed I couldn't get "into" the movie like I wanted to.

BB

[Kevin P]

My friend at work picked me up a copy, since he had a CompUSA store near his house and I don't. Saved me a couple bucks over getting it at Bust Buy.

Cool looking silver box, should be a fun ride. Of course I have the THX LDs if I'm ever jonesing for the trilogy I actually grew up on!

[Gordon Moore]

And what the hell is with Luke's lightsaber going green in the first shot when he is practicing, then less so.

Got the box set, and haven't watched it yet, but wasn't Luke's lightsaber blue during the training scene? Maybe I'm confused.

[David Meek]

The lightsaber colors/thicknesses were "played with" during George's latest round of fixes.

[Kevin P]

I thought it was blue (originally his father's that Obi-Wan gave him), and I've seen the original episode many times over the years. He didn't go to a green lightsaber until ROTJ when he constructed a new one.

Maybe I'll have to compare that scene on the DVD with the original un-adulterated THX LD.

[Brandon B]

Actually, it was pretty much white in the first movie. Kenobi's had a blue tinge to it though.

What's really distracting about it though, is that is it full "ROTJ green" in the first shot, and then kind of a wan off-white green in most of the rest of the shots.

The thicknesses of the blades in IV have not been changed though. They always had the sort of "blade" shape to them in this movie, compared to being more round in the others.

The sabers in the first film were rods coated with scotchlight type reflective material and they had a large light fixture right next to the camera to pick this up. They were actually hoping to not have to do much optical enhancement. When it was discovered this didn't pan out so well, they just used plain white sticks in the subsequent films. This ended up being harder for the FX animators as when they swung them, they would blur into near invisibility at 24fps, compared to the glowing ones from live photography in IV. This reflective bit is responsible for the weird shorting out thing Kenobi's saber does in one part of his Vader battle.

Interstingly, and I would love everyone here to honestly say whether they noticed this before, you can seen the white power cord coming out of Ben's light saber and going into his sleeve when he first powers it up to fight Vader. This was because his lightsaber was actually a faceted dowel with the scotchlight coating that was spinning to give the shimmering look. I noticed this about the 3rd time I saw the movie in the theater in 1977, and I am still amazed at the number of people who have never noticed it. ANd I am amazed Lucas has never painted it out digitally. Course you can still see the cables lifting the fullsize Xwing up in the hangar too.

OK, is my inner starwars geek now fully revealed for all to see?

BB

[aud19]

Picked up mine last night at London Drugs price matched to 54.99CA Only got to watch about 10 minutes of episode IV and it looked pretty good if you ask me. Not a just filmed 6 months ago on digital HD camera's good but for what is basically an almost 30 year old "budget" film I thought it looked fantastic! I did notice some of the "playing with" of the lightsaber's etc but what the hell I'm just so excited to have the "good" Star Wars movies on DVD and that the oldest, cheapest version looked as good as it does... Well I'm thrilled!

Jazz, Tasha and I already decided we're going to have a Star Wars Marathon on Saturday and watch all three:T

Jason

[Gordon Moore]

This reflective bit is responsible for the weird shorting out thing Kenobi's saber does in one part of his Vader battle.

I always liked how that went together because it worked with Vader's line of "Your powers are weak, old man..."

[Leef DaLucky]

Ya i noticed the green saber last night too.
Thought it was just me.
I actually caught the stormtrooper hitting his head on the door last night, too.
I figured out, this morning, that it was old news, but i put it back around 5 times while LMAO last night.
Good job on them though.
The Han/Greedo scene looks like it was sped up so they both fire at the same time.
Heh heh. Third times a charm i guess, eh?
Lots of stutter when Han bounces over Jabba's tail in the Space port though. Shoulda been done MUCH better.
Overall i'm really impressed. or maybe it was just the 7 year wait.
Tonight: ESB

[Brandon B]

ESB tonight for me too.

Echo the impressed. I had no idea these would clean up this well.

Another interesting note. This is the very very first time I sat and looked at my 10' diagonal (probably 9' on 2.35:1) screen and said "this totally does not cut it. Need to go bigger now."

My wife felt that way during LOTR stuff, and while I understood, (and loved hearing her say it), this was the first time it really affected my viewing enjoyment.

Constant height scope screen is my next goal (with the costly accompaniments of a scaler, anamorphic lens and new PJ to handle the larger size). Crap. Hopefully in time for the HD 6 film box set in '07.

BB

[David Meek]

Hopefully in time for the HD 6 film box set in '07.

Yessir, these movies in true HD ought to be something! :drool:

Oh, here's a link to a site showing screen caps of some of the various changes.

[Brandon B]

OK, the Empire DVD is pretty much absolutely everything you could hope for. No audio anomolies due to age, abolutely no PQ nitpicks, and for me, all Lucas' little tweaks in this one only make the experience more positive.

One thing that is standing out very very plainly to me on this whole set is the total minimzation of MPEG artifacting. Things like the fog and mist on Dagobah, inside the giant slug, etc. are totally clean, no blocking or other phenomena you often see in that type of scene.

I have read a post somewhere that both the file size on the disk and bitrate on these are quite nearly maxed out, and it shows in the result. What superbit sometimes is and always should be.

BB

[Gordon Moore]

Another interesting note. This is the very very first time I sat and looked at my 10' diagonal (probably 9' on 2.35:1) screen and said "this totally does not cut it. Need to go bigger now."

You probably said that right after the opening crawl and the first startship scene in ANH. That is one scene burned in everyone's memory. Bigger is better for that moment.

I guess I might be able to crack open the box this weekend....darn everyday life getting in the way

Keep up the reviews....this is fun reading, not nearly the bitch session on some other hometheaterforum's

For them, the backwards music in the rears....the lightsabers...A muffled line from Tarkin....a "quieted" force theme and they cry that this is the worst release ever....


bah, Lucas never wanted this to come to DVD (they say he was waiting for a Hi-Def format to come to the forefront) and bended to everyone's complaining, bitching, whinning, petitions etc.... and now all people do is complain some more. The guy can't win for trying and he's trying to bring us the final chapter (good or bad) at the same time.

All I can say is careful for what you wished for.

2007 *should be* a good release (fingers crossed) and in the meantime I'll enjoy what I can get and stay pretty quiet.

I think it's a fans right to have their say.....but some folks over there are a little "fan"atical

[Gene Simmons]

I know Gordon - that damn everyday life gettin' in the way!

BB - that's exactly what I wanted to hear about Empire!! Awesome!!

[Chris D]

Well, I had my "Star Wars marathon" last night and watched all 5 movies. First, I wish that the audio has actually utilized subwoofers. Mine never turned on at all over 10 hours! ( just kidding, I think my twin SVS subs are still smoking, turning on the fire alarm)

Brandon, I noticed the things you mentioned, too, except for the power cord on Ben's light saber. I'll have to look for that. Some odd stuff here and there that made me go... "huh?" One visual defect I noticed is that during the Millenium Falcon's escape from the Death Star, as one Tie Fighter rolls in on a attack, a very light grey box framing the fighter spins around it on the screen. Must be a left-over from the remastering of the film, enhancing the space blacks, but they didn't get in right up to the actual fighter. For audio, I thought it was good. However, I noticed that the levels were constantly changing during dialogue conversations on Ep IV, such as Luke's argument with Uncle Owen in the Tattoine hut. As Luke would start talking, you would hear background noise and a slight hiss. Then just after he stopped talking, it would cut out and you would hear the intended scene noises. Then as Owen would talk, you would hear similar noise and hiss, but at a much different level.

Other stuff:

- Carrie Fisher still looks hot as a desert slave
- I noticed "1138" several times in the movies that I hadn't noticed before. In ANH, it's mentioned as a cellblock # at Leia's prison. In ESB, 11 and 38 are said next to each other at the Hoth rebel base. In Ep I, it's written on the back of a droid during the final battle. I didn't notice it in ROTJ or AOTC. (reference to Lucas' THX 1138 movie, if you didn't know)
- I think Hayden Christensen as Anakin's ghost in ROTJ looks pretty good.
- I like Boba Fett's new voice. Good touch.
- I'm surprised that Lucas didn't clean up Light Saber and blaster CGI more in ANH than he did. Some of it looks pretty hokie in comparison.

So far, so good. I have lots of extras to watch over the next several days, so we'll have to keep this thread running.

And last, hey, I thought Han shot first?

(just kidding, I couldn't resist) How about a couple Star Wars trivia questions to keep everyone going?

- What is the only NON-MAJOR character to appear in all 3 of the original trilogy movies?
- Who are the four characters (not actors/actresses) that appear in all 6 Star Wars films?

[Gene Simmons]

The first one's gotta be Wedge! I used to love that pilot when I was a kid.

I'd say 3P0, R2, and Ben. Don't know the 4th offhand...

[Dean McManis]

I just wanted to chime in here. I watched EP4 a couple days ago, and EP5 yesterday. They are easily the best looking versions of the Star Wars movies that I've seen. Just fantastic. I don't think that the DVDs should have been delayed 7 years, as I would have preferred to have the regular movies on DVD in 1997, and I would have happily repurchased the remastered versions again now.

Oh well, they look great nevertheless.

-Dean.

[George Bellefontaine]

I agree with what you said, Dean, about buying the remastered versions if the originals had been released on dvd in 1997. Oh, well. I am thinking about renting the dvd releases just for fun, but will always go back to the originals, even if I only have them on laserdisc.

BTW, the box set ain't cheap in Canada. The set is ranging everywhere from $69 to $54. The latter is at Walmart.

[Gordon Moore]

MSRP is $82.99 CDN so $54-$56 is pretty good I think....averages to $18/movie if you think of the bonus disc as a freebie. That's not too shabby.

[Brandon B]

One visual defect I noticed is that during the Millenium Falcon's escape from the Death Star, as one Tie Fighter rolls in on a attack, a very light grey box framing the fighter spins around it on the screen. Must be a left-over from the remastering of the film, enhancing the space blacks, but they didn't get in right up to the actual fighter.

Actually, it's a remnant of the original optical FX process. They film the minature against a blue screen, and a negative image of that shot is used as a matte or mask for the background. But there is also what's called a garbage matte which is just a rough general shape to surround the object being composited in which is usually just some polygon (or in this case a rectangle). The optical density of these sometimes causes a little contrast difference on a dark background (space). They cleaned almost all of these up in the DVD releases, but there are a few they missed and this is one of them.

There was an interesting phenomenon when they filmed ESB. The ships flying across white backgrounds (snow) cause really bad haloing (the glow around old filmed superimposed objects where registration wasn't perfect), so they ended up going with a white holdout matte process, but this resulted in all the ships on hoth having a slight translucency to them, so you could faintly see things like rocky mountaintops and such through them. When they remastered them in the '90's, they were able to really recude (edit: recude? geez, reduce) this so it is almost gone. But if you look REALLY closely, you can still see through the ships a tiny bit.

Watched ROTJ last night. ESB definitely takes the prize for PQ, but ROTJ is as nice as I could want too. Didn't love the Anakin head swap, but it didn't really bother me. I think really only the changes to Star Wars itself are the problem for me. But since I have the Definitive LD set and am taking my soon to be purchased dual layer DVD burner over to my friend's house, who is in the film business and has a high end hardware MPEG encoding system, that need will be solved for me soon. I think I'll train my kid on the new versions though, so he doesn't suffer the "trauma" I am.

One other little nit, is I am starting to buy into the online whining that with Ben Burtt (the original creator of all the sound effects) being in charge of the Skywalker Audio group, he has emphasized the sound effects over the music in the remixes. I really do remember the music being a little stronger (louder) in a lot of parts where it now is not.

Come on, anyone else seen the extension cord?

BB

[Chris D]

Okay, B, I checked it out today and yes, I saw the power cord. I guess the time will come for all of us when our light sabers need extra power for a duel!

Wait a tick....

[Chris D]

I finished watching all the extra last night. I was actually significantly disappointed until I got to the 4 disc of extras. The 4th disc is pretty good, with several featurettes and documentaries. The main one is pretty thorough, even talking about the world coming out of the Vietnam war in the 70's and being influenced by ANH. Notably missing from the disc was "Beneath the Drome", a tongue-in-cheek mockumentary about R2-D2's life that I've seen elsewhere and thought would be on this disc.

The only extra on the main discs is a commentary track. While it's nice, I thought that even this could have been better. Come on... the best you can do is just to get one actor to comment, and Carrie Fisher at that? No offense, but she's lost quite a few brain cells and speech ability over the years. I think a set like this has got to have more commentaries and extras. Perhaps alternate versions of the film, like Terminator 2, that show which scenes have been added with commentary specifically addressing each scene? I understand that these films maxed out the DVD's bitrate, so maybe there's not room to put more on each film disc. If that's the case, then I think there needs to be at least one more extras disc, perhaps one for each film. Come on, this is Star Wars, and for an epic like this, I think the set could be much more filled out. Don't get me wrong. I think this release is good, but Star Wars sets the benchmark expectations at an ultra-high level, so I think the set should be better.

[aud19]

I bet they're saving more for the HD-DVD / BluRay releases Chris...

Jason

[Chris D]

That's my guess, Jason, to give just a bit more push for consumers to buy the set yet AGAIN in the next release, whenever and whatever it may be.

Gene, you're right about the trivia. The 4th character to appear in all 6 SW movies is Anakin/Darth, of course.

I should mention, too, that the 4th disc of extras in the SW DVD set also has several glimpses into the upcoming Episode III. Looks exciting, like we're really going to get our money's worth with the Obi Wan/Anakin light saber battle.