Not a chance. If Lucas gets his way (and he usually does) the theatricals will never be released on any format again. He knows there's demand for them, but still refuses and sticks his fingers up at the fans. It's very personal with Lucas. Star Wars is his baby and he only puts out what he wants to see. TBH, I would not be at all surprised if there ain't been a few tweaks again here and there for the blu-ray release.
BTW. The cave scene which will be included in the set as a deleted scene from ROTJ was recently made. Most fans knew of the scene and up until C5 last year where the scene was shown was just a myth. Storyboards existed for it, but no stills or video footage.
Loads of evidence points to the fact that it was made just to purely wet the fans appetites and to sell the blu-ray boxset.
When constantly asked about this scene Mark Hamill knew nothing about it and had no recolection of filming any such scene.
The opening shots of Vader in the scene have been spliced together from other cut scenes from the film. I know, I have the scenes that they were cut from.
100% true lucas knows how to cash in on fans by showing a 2mint deleted scene
A Destiny Revealed: Star Wars Media Day Brings Blu-ray and More to New York City
By Chris Chiarella
As teased last August, announced for pre-order at CES and elaborated upon a few months ago, Star Wars The Complete Saga Blu-ray promises to be the hot disc release of 2011 when it drops this September 16th (along with The Original Trilogy and The Prequel Trilogy configurations, something to suit every fan). All that remained--short of final copies for full, in-depth review of course, hint-hint--was a hands-on demo of these long-awaited discs. How would they look and sound? And would these mysterious new extras really live up to the hype?
Well, at a private event in New York City last week, our friends at Lucasfilm and Fox pulled back the curtain all too briefly for an exciting peek at the Blu-rays as part of the 2011 Star Wars Media Day. Two clips were played (one from a classic film, one from a prequel) to demonstrate the quality of the brand-new 1080p/DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 remasters, on a Panasonic plasma and over a Panasonic HTiB system. It was really just enough to whet our appetites (as if we weren't drooling enough already), but I am now very optimistic: the clips that we saw of films both of the original trilogy flavor and the newer prequels were stunning. Release of the older films in particular on Blu-ray will be a real challenge for Fox, owing to the limits of cinematic technology of the era, but Episodes II and III should have the potential to truly amaze.
The Complete Saga will contain all six chapters, each with beautiful, elaborate menus designed around the theme of locations relevant to that film. There will also be "new" audio commentaries for all, edited together from archival material amassed over the years, these in addition to the current DVD commentaries. This mega-set will also include three exclusive Blu-rays: Disc Seven will focus specifically on the prequels, Disc Eight on the classic trilogy, while Disc Nine collects both new and vintage documentary material.
The highlights will surely be the more than 40 deleted scenes spanning the saga (Tosche Station had better be in there!) and the home video debut of "A Conversation with the Masters" (about 20 minutes, in HD) featuring the last on-camera interview with late Empire Strike Back director Irvin Kershner, created for the 30th anniversary of that film last year. But "The Archive Collection" has us particularly intrigued, now that we've seen up close what it's really about. Imagine if George Lucas was the subject of a very special edition of Hoarders, since he has fastidiously held onto just about everything from every movie. And now we can venture into this rarified domain too, as props and more come alive via 360-degree flyarounds and painstakingly sharp zooms that look terrific on the big high-def screen. If that's not interactive enough, more than 100 HD mini-documentaries (two to five minutes each) are accessible along the way, boasting fascinating new creator interviews combined with behind-the-scenes footage. Apparently, no expense was spared to make these extras rock.
The book-type packaging is absolutely gorgeous too (we can debate its practicality some other time), with bold images that might be familiar to fans of last year's coffee table book Star Wars: Visions. I tried to take some photos of it for the enjoyment of Big Picture Big Sound readers, but no lie, there were armed Clone Troopers roaming Media Day looking for uppity journalists trying to leak material early.
Looks pretty great but i hope it's not the same "envelope things" Avatar used, that packaging kind of sucked.
I'm still wondering whatever it contains the extras from the DVD's. I need to know whatever i can sell the DVD's or not!
Last week, A.D.D. got a preview of the forthcoming Star Wars nine-disc Blu-ray set, which includes all six movies plus three discs of extras. Here are our initial thoughts from what we gleaned from the 15-minute presentation we received.
The Box.
Stars Wars: The Complete Saga (not to mention the two individual trilogy boxes that will also be released simultaneously) comes housed in a handsome package assembled in book form, with every two pages devoted to a painted panel on the left side and a movie or extras disc housed on the right. There is also a nicely painted exterior cover. All the painted works were inspired by iconic Star Wars images from the appropriate movie being represented. The box looks sturdier than a lot of sets where the discs are tightly fitted into awkward sleeves or other bad design configurations. (Remember the annoying Planet Of The Apes Blu-ray box from 2008? Once you removed the discs from the little rubber knobs that held them, you never got them back in because they did not fit right.) We saw no booklet here, but I have been told that a small one will be included. But honestly, when you have more than 40 hours of bonus material, that’s not an important issue.
The Films.
While the newer Star Wars films were ready made for high definition, the older films will obviously suffer a little from the all scrutinizing eye of HD. (The only pre-digital, color sci-fi film that holds up spectacularly well to date is 2001: A Space Odyssey; and to quote Malcolm McDowell out of context, you’re talking about Stanley ****ing Kubrick. No offense, Mr. Lucas.) We only managed to get small glimpses of scenes from a couple of the movies, as well as a montage of scenes from throughout the series, and the older effects hold up well and the colors look great. Makeup is obviously noticeable in some spots, but from what we saw it should not be a glaring distraction as with many other vintage sci-fi movies. (And to be LCD for a moment, fanboys who love seeing Princess Leia in her slave girl outfit from Return Of The Jedi will certainly find her even more alluring in HD.) Lucasfilm publicist Chris Argyropoulos mentioned that during the Sarlacc sandpit scene in Return Of The Jedi, he noticed a wall mural of Jabba the Hutt in Jabba’s sail barge that he had not noticed until this HD incarnation. It makes us wonder what other details we might discover later. Keep in mind that all of these comments come from previewing material on a 62-inch HD screen. Many fans will certainly complain that the original trilogy release (before they were digitized in the late Nineties) does not surface here, and those three unaltered films do deserve some HD love. But at least the revamped original trilogy looks more modern and fits in with the effects and technology used to make the prequel trilogy. I won’t get into the predictable debate comparing the new and old versions here.
The Extras.
In terms of bonus material beyond some previously released material (including DVD audio commentary tracks), the Blu-ray set will feature over 40 deleted, extended and alternate scenes; new cast and crew interviews, including some unused vintage material; new documentaries including A Conversation with the Masters: The Empire Strikes Back 30 Years Later (featuring Empire director Irvin Kershner’s last on camera appearance) and Star Warriors, about the costume enthusiasts in the 501st Legion fan club; a flythrough of the Lucasfilm Archives; prop, maquette and costume turnarounds; and a 91-minute collection of Star Wars Spoofs. (For a comparison of the DVD and BD features, check out this Amazon page.) The few bits we saw, particularly about early designs for characters and props, were pretty interesting. We wish we could have seen clips from the spoofs or some deleted scenes, but those probably will not be revealed until release date.
The Summation.
On top of getting high quality HD transfers — and we know that George Lucas will be quite adamant about QC — there will be a good amount of bonus material included to satiate hardcore fans. We can’t really say too much about it as we only caught glimpses, but it looks like there will be at least 8 to 10 new hours to go through. To be honest, my Star Wars DVDs look pretty damn good upconverted on my BD player and shown on a 40-inch screen, but there are many fans undoubtedly craving everything in HD, and they will get their wish on September 16th. I’m looking forward to checking out the spoofs, the 360 views of maquettes and various props like the original Millennium Falcon (which unintentionally looked like a Space: 1999 Eagle ship), plus the Empire anniversary doc (my fave film of the bunch). What would make Star Wars: The Complete Saga truly complete would be the original trilogy as it was originally released. At least those have surfaced on DVD, but without proper restoration. Regardless of that gripe, the Star Wars Blu-ray sets should please a multitude of fans and make a great gift for younger viewers who have yet to delve into them. And while I will always prefer the original trilogy, Episode III still kicks ass.
I love the look of the complete saga set, are we getting that in the UK too? I hope so, with this and The Big Lebowski, I think the era of UK Blu-ray digibooks has well and truly begun.
I am expecting an Alien Anthology BD repeat with the US getting a book style set and ours being a digi-pack.
Oh no. No no no. I'd hate it if that were so. A slide-the-disc-out-of-the-page book-style set would be lovely - I have The World at War on blu-ray and it's book-style like that, and the production quality is great and a pleasure to hold. (It's also far, far easier to manipulate than turning rigid plastic 'pages' or unfolding a long set of those 'pages' glued to a folded piece of cardboard.)
Is there anywhere we can write to ahead of time, to plead our case for packaging that matches the US style?
Thanks for all the updates everyone. Really looking forward to getting this.
I sold all my dvds in anticipation for this release, my movie shelf doesn't quite look the same without Star Wars on it. Anyone think we will see digital Yoda in The Phantom Menace? You all probably saw the clip on the documentary but in case you didn't here it is.
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