Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[Breather]

Originally Posted by nmycon

First of all, Alien has 4 movies, 2 discs of extras. Star Wars would take more time to compile.

Plus if they included all of the extras on the blu-ray, that would be it for DVD sales. They are giving people a reason to continue buying the DVDs (sure some people will buy them used, but some will pay full price and buy them new)

Not saying I agree with this standpoint, but you can't argue that they will make more money by keeping the DVD extras off the set.

Is anyone here really not buying the set because it doesn't include Empire of Dreams or the other DVD extras? I'm sure the amount of people not purchasing for this reason will be negligible (as in sales money lost) compared to the money it would have cost to port all of the DVD extras over, make new menus, add another disc to every set, etc.

No, I don't think they're going to lose any sales over the exclusion of certain special features. I can't imagine someone refusing to buy a set for that reason. On the other hand, I agree with Cook. The inclusion of a tenth disc, full of material already owned by Lucasfilm, would have added minimal cost to the set. The DVD's will eventually go out of print as well.

With some wiser choices, they could have substituted "Empire of Dreams" and "From Star Wars to Jedi" in place of the three hours wasted on the 501st and Spoofs docs on Disc 9. Then, a BD-50 for a 10th disc could have held all the SD special features from the four bonus DVD's we mentioned, the special features from the three laserdisc sets, and quite possibly, "Star Wars: A Musical Journey" and the Wal-Mart "Story of Star Wars" bonus DVD could have fit as well. A BD-50 can hold 20+ hours of SD material. I think this would have made a lot of fans happy, including me. It would have given us a nice comprehensive set, all under one roof, so to speak. I really expected a Star Wars Blu-ray set to be comprehensive, considering Blu-ray's capacity and the wealth of special features available on these films. While I'm happy with what I've seen of discs 7 and 8 and four of the features on disc 9, the set feels like a letdown, only in terms of the special features that didn't carry over.

On the other hand, I can see where you and others are coming from. The four DVD's of bonus features, Star Wars: A Musical Journey DVD, and the Story of Star Wars DVD were all likely filmed in SD anyway. The fact that they're on DVD still allows them to be used in our BD players. From that perspective, I'm not that disappointed at their exclusion.

I'm more disappointed at the exclusion of extras that were never released on DVD, but relegated to the past, like "From Star Wars to Jedi" and the laserdisc set extras. For example, the "Definitive Collection" bonus features, the 30-minute "Making of the Special Edition" feature from the '97 LD set, and the Lucas/Maltin interview from the '95 "Faces" LD set. We've never seen a release of 'Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed' either, along with plenty of other material I could name.

They should have included "From Star Wars to Jedi" and the three laserdisc set extras, as those have never made it past laserdisc and aren't viewable on a modern format, unless you count our unofficial copies.

In the end, nothing is more important than the A/V quality of the films themselves.

[Breather]

Originally Posted by nmycon

At least by releasing all-new content every release, they are making an effort to bring a lot of new content to the table, rather than tacking a few featurettes on.

I can almost agree with you on this. While I completely agree with Cook, and would have liked an archival, comprehensive set, my biggest beef is with the special features that were left in the past and never even saw a DVD release. For example, "From Star Wars to Jedi"" and the three laserdisc sets that contained extras: The Definitive Collection from 1993, the 1995 Faces set with Lucas/Maltin interview, and the 1997 SE set with the 30-minute "Making of the Special Edition" feature. They've never even released "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed" on DVD, yet we're getting the weaker, in my opinion, "Star Wars Tech".

[beckmen]

Originally Posted by Indyjones

I believe Palpatine using Anakin's lightsaber in the duel with Windu, was intentional, but not story-related. I can't remember where I saw it, but I think it was mentioned that the reason Ian was using Hayden's lightsaber was because he wasn't comfortable using his. A chunk of his fight scenes he was replaced with a stunt double.

Grevious isn't story related either. I think ILM just picked a couple of hilts to put in his arsenal. Another one of his lightsabers is Obi-Wan's from ANH.



Bad! This is one of the changes I want to see go. Not only does it look dated, but it just looks dumb and screams "Little Shop of Horrors".

Agreed. I thought it was cool in '97, but sometime around when the official DVDs came out I realized that it takes away from the whole scene. The Sarlaac is more menacing as a representation of vagina dentata.

Originally Posted by Cook

You act as if they couldn't add another bluray of special features. Look at the Alien Anthology set. It has all the special features released on older releases, and plenty of new features. Compared to the Alien set the special features on this star wars release are weak.

To be fair, the Alien Anthology has a ridiculous amount of features. Something like 5-6 hours of stuff per film, not counting audio commentaries. It raised the bar on bonus content.

[gallandro]

Originally Posted by Duffy12

Not on my 2004 DVDs.

Unless it's more noticeable now.


.

Oh it's FAR more noticeable now. I am fine with it from the standpoint that see-through was the way it was when I saw it back in 1980 at the age of 12, and was the way I grew up with it on home video.

But I thought the goal of the SEs and the 2004 release was to make the visual effects more consistent with the PT.

Wondering now if this may not in fact be a new master struck from the 1997 SE prints....

[Jar Jar Stinks]

Originally Posted by goldenrod

I wonder if there will be a deleted scene from Revenge that might explain why Obi-Wan has Anakin,s lightsaber when filmed from below and his lightsaber when filmed from above. I am referring to the scene when Anakin is choking Obi-Wan on the table.

It's called a continuity error. It will be fixed in the 2017 3D Blu-Ray release.

[DarthMarino]

Originally Posted by gallandro

Hey I'd like to personally thank all the "Give us the OOT" crowd and the "Lowry 2004 DVDs suck!" fanatics. Thanks to you for BRINGING BACK SEE THROUGH SNOWSPEEDER COCKPITS! Yeah thanks a ton.


Yancy

Why don't you actually pop your DVD in? It looks identical to this video. There's plenty of shots you can see through the cockpits on the DVD.

[gregmasciola]

Originally Posted by gallandro

Watch the Ep. V footage. See through cockpits during the Battle of Hoth are back. The issue had been resolved previously.

What exactly are you talking about? Aren't we supposed to be able to "see through" the cockpits?

[gallandro]

Originally Posted by gregmasciola

What exactly are you talking about? Aren't we supposed to be able to "see through" the cockpits?

Not the people, the fighter itself... not talking about the windows (obviously). I'm talking about opacity. The shots were allegedly recomposited for the 2004 release. Here's one example:

[gallandro]

The POV shots looking out from the cockpit windows are especially glaring as you can see through the frame and dashboard of the snowspeeder and see walker legs.

Yancy

[Breather]

The recompositing for the Hoth scenes involving the snowspeeders took place in 1997 for the '97 SE release. It wasn't done for the 2004 DVD's.

Lucas begins talking about it at the 2:05 mark on this 1997 SE featurette:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY1US-9-4PE&feature=related

This site has comparison screenshots showing what year changes were made. Those shots show 1997:

http://picasaweb.google.com/10254276...tionChangesHD#

[frogmort]

It looks like a little Darth Vader is about to chop off Lucas' head!

[Maggot]

Originally Posted by Breather

The recompositing for the Hoth scenes involving the snowspeeders took place in 1997 for the '97 SE release. It wasn't done for the 2004 DVD's.

Lucas begins talking about it at the 2:05 mark on this 1997 SE featurette:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY1US...eature=related


Comparison screenshots showing what year changes were made:

http://picasaweb.google.com/10254276...tionChangesHD#

Personally, with the exception of adding Hayden "I'm one of the worst actors" Christensen to the end in ROTJ and the scene in A New Hope with the lousy CGI Jabba the Hut and Han Solo, I find most of the changes Lucas made to be good. A certain portion was digital clean-up of loose ends and I love what he did with the Cloud City, opening up shots and making it look more alive. Also, the new snow beast scene was well done too. Although, I'm not a fan of the silly-cutsie/robotic stuff at the beginning of the scene when they enter the Mos Eisley Spaceport.

Why does it have to be a month away. A month away.....it still seems so far off, but before we know it, it will be here. This is the final stretch.

[sowecrazy]

Originally Posted by Maggot

Personally, with the exception of adding Hayden "I'm one of the worst actors" Christensen to the end in ROTJ and the scene in A New Hope with the lousy CGI Jabba the Hut and Han Solo, I find most of the changes Lucas made to be good. A certain portion was digital clean-up of loose ends and I love what he did with the Cloud City, opening up shots and making it look more alive. Also, the new snow beast scene was well done too. Although, I'm not a fan of the silly-cutsie/robotic stuff at the beginning of the scene when they enter the Mos Eisley Spaceport.

Why does it have to be a month away. A month away.....it still seems so far off, but before we know it, it will be here. This is the final stretch.

Same here, this month alone will feel like another year haha

[Cook]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

It's called a continuity error. It will be fixed in the 2017 3D Blu-Ray release.

Actuaply the lightsabers switching hands from shot to shot in the conference room on mustafar is a result of bits being cut out. Originally that bit of the duel was longer, but some pieces were cut out. I don't have an exact source for this info as its been so long, but I believe I got the info in the making of revenge of the sith book. I'll see if I can find something on it and post it.

[Breather]

Originally Posted by frogmort

It looks like a little Darth Vader is about to chop off Lucas' head!

Lucas even has his eyes closed, like he's waiting for it.

[phil4853]

Originally Posted by Cook

Lol your kidding right? Thats the poorest excuse I've heard. So because it might take longer we are to accept less extras. That would imply Lucasfilm took the easy route. I don't care of the set took a whole nother year. If that's how long it took to get a true archival set with all the special features available I would wait. I mean this set doesn't even have isolated scores.

Not trying to butch, just stating that this set is far from being the best collection of special features on the market. Its pretty weak in terms of what is possibly available.

Absolutely agree 100% However a 10th disc with all of the existing DVD special features in SD would have made this an amazing set. It wouldn't have taken Lucasfilm too long to do it either!

I can't imagine that Lucasfilm would still want people to buy the PT DVD's to get the additional special features as it is now out of print and financially they have already made their money from these.

Empire of dreams was one of the best docs on the making of the the OT at 2.5 hours it was pretty exhaustive as were the docs from the PT DVD's...to leave them off is severly short changing this allegedly complete set!

[Merlinpants]

[/QUOTE]I go back to my original post many moons ago, have we actually seen any BD footage yet? All of this marketing material could have been culled from any number of sources,the OOT negative, the HD transfer in 2004, documentary footage, 1997 SE. All of these flaws should not exist on the BD, but the marketing material we keep getting alludes to it being there. But the issues we are seeing are all from different sources are they not? The see through cockpits were eliminated back in '97, but the pink lightsabre emerges on '04. It looks like we are not getting a true picture of what the BD will look like until someone gets it and shoves it in their drive. [/QUOTE]

Only then, at the end will we understand!

Ahem, I thank you again

From Bill Hunts report in case you missed it:

Once again, George has apparently added a few new "surprises" into these films.

[adywan]

Originally Posted by Merlinpants

The see through cockpits were eliminated back in '97, but the pink lightsabre emerges on '04.

It's a bit of a myth that all the transparent cockpits were eliminated in 1997. They were not. It always made me laugh during the making of the special edition doc, which was posted earlier, that they are talking about removing the transparency from the cockpits and show the example of the speeder flying between the At-AT's legs and point out where you can see the AT-AT through the sides of the canopy. But then they play the so called "fixed" version and it's still clearly visible. All they had done was darken the image.

[Jutty]

Originally Posted by adywan

But then they play the so called "fixed" version and it's still clearly visible. All they had done was darken the image.

Sneaky lil buggers...

[Merlinpants]

Originally Posted by adywan

It's a bit of a myth that all the transparent cockpits were eliminated in 1997. They were not. It always made me laugh during the making of the special edition doc, which was posted earlier, that they are talking about removing the transparency from the cockpits and show the example of the speeder flying between the At-AT's legs and point out where you can see the AT-AT through the sides of the canopy. But then they play the so called "fixed" version and it's still clearly visible. All they had done was darken the image.

True, what are your thoughts on all this Ady, do you think we have seen any true BD footage yet, or just parts culled from other sources as a quick marketing fix?

P.s. Don't let the minority on here speak on behalf of the majority who appreciate your input and insights and the effort you have put in. If these flaws were never pointed out by someone like you, we would all end up getting an inferior product. If the crossed lightsabre issue has finally been fixed as seems the case, it is down to people like yourself making the studio sit up and take notice, and for that you should be applauded.