Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 4K UHD (1977-2019)

[HDTV1080P]

Its very rare for a modern movie in the 21st Century to be shot on film. Most modern movies use digital cameras and digital storage media. The Star Wars movies including the latest 2019 Star Wars 9 Rise of the Skywalker movie was so popular that it and most other Star Wars movies was shot using 35mm film by Kodak. That is a wise decision since maybe one day in the far future a 8K version of Star Wars movies could be released.

There have been many Star Wars videogames released over the decades. The very first and only Star Wars game that I have played so far is the one called Star Wars the Arcade Game that was in the arcade and also released for the ColecoVision/ADAM system in 1984. I use to play the Star Wars Arcade Game on the ColecoVision/ADAM, and it was the best version of Star Wars available back in 1984.

[rachaeldeckard]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

That Phantom Menace negative is all filmout material, even the non-VFX shots, but it would still be a prime element to use for transfer. It'd be great if it happened someday.


Most of it was just pan and scanned but I distinctly remember seeing something about how a select few shots were actually recomposed for 4:3 (it being digital meant it could be redone much easier), like the shot of Anakin talking to the Jawas during the montage where he's looking for his mother on Tatooine. I'll be goddamned if I can find anything about it now, I may have imagined it

I very distinctly remember that shot being expanded for IMAX too so you're not imagining it.



Are we saying that the pan and scan DVD has these expanded shots? Now I've gotta find that...

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Its very rare for a modern movie in the 21st Century to be shot on film. Most modern movies use digital cameras and digital storage media. The Star Wars movies including the latest 2019 Star Wars 9 Rise of the Skywalker movie was so popular that it and most other Star Wars movies was shot using 35mm film by Kodak. That is a wise decision since maybe one day in the far future a 8K version of Star Wars movies could be released.

That's not how any of this works.

[Martoto]

Something that's always bugged me about Empire since 1997 is the shot when Chewie, with 3PO, run into R2 when they are escaping Cloud City.

In all "special" editions R2's much further away, already around a corner and virtually out of sight, before they spot each other and R2 turns to follow them.

So instead of just putting scenery in the background of the original shot, they cut up and re-composited the shot itself. Then added a fake wall that obscures him changes R2's stage direction in a way that makes little sense, in order to have more space left of frame to put more scenery (mainly empty red sky) in.


Not as big a deal as the "Bring my shuttle" change travesty. But still a scunner. Is George just jealous of R2 and keeps trying to block obscure his line of sight to the camera all the time? He's such a diva.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Martoto

Something that's always bugged me about Empire since 1997 is the shot when Chewie, with 3PO, run into R2 when they are escaping Cloud City.

In all "special" editions R2's much further away, already around a corner and virtually out of sight, before they spot each other and R2 turns to follow them.

So instead of just putting scenery in the background of the original shot, they cut up and re-composited the shot itself. Then added a fake wall that obscures him changes R2's stage direction in a way that makes little sense, in order to have more space left of frame to put more scenery (mainly empty red sky) in.


Not as big a deal as the "Bring my shuttle" change travesty. But still a scunner. Is George just jealous of R2 and keeps trying to block obscure his line of sight to the camera all the time? He's such a diva.

[Show spoiler]

This has always bothered me, but not near as much as the altered musical cue after Yoda's, "You will be. You will be." I also can't stand dropping "Bring my shuttle!" My other minor quibble is changing Luke's line to "You were lucky to get out of there." from "You're lucky you don't taste very good."

[Martoto]

I just can't for the life of me understand why Lucas suddenly decided that R2 needed to be barely visible in that shot.

And yeah the original line and the music cue are imprinted on my soul so it's jarring when they don't match up.

[CompleteCount]

Originally Posted by Martoto

I just can't for the life of me understand why Lucas suddenly decided that R2 needed to be barely visible in that shot.

Just be glad he didn't stick him behind a bloody-great rock again.

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by CompleteCount

Just be glad he didn't stick him behind a bloody-great rock again.

Bad as that is I consider this change to be worse.

[bobbyh64]

Originally Posted by Martoto

I just can't for the life of me understand why Lucas suddenly decided that R2 needed to be barely visible in that shot.

And yeah the original line and the music cue are imprinted on my soul so it's jarring when they don't match up.

I was hoping for updated versions of the OT where R2 has a small retractable wall attached to him. It would be a pretty useful device since it provides instantaneous cover. It would also have the potential for some nice comedic moments where it malfunctions and randomly expands and retracts on its own.

[BossTweed]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

All 11 Star Wars movies were released on the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format with lossless 13.1 Dolby Atmos surround sound (Due to limitations in my equipment all 11 movies were downscaled to 1080P/24 and triple flashed at 72Hz with lossless 7.1 Dolby TrueHD core). The audio quality was outstanding for all 11 movies in the series. On March 31st 2020 the Best Buy exclusive Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga that included the first 9 movies was released. Then on March 31st 2020 Rogue One on the 4K Blu-ray format was also released. Solo: A Star Wars Story was released on the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format on September 25th 2018. It should be mentioned that for 3D fans, in the United States the Rogue One Story and The Force Awakens were both released on the Blu-ray 3D format (I ended up keeping those versions to watch in 3D in the future).

Growing up in the 20th Century some people made negative comments about Star Wars movies. Some people did not like the religion of the Jedi and the concept of the force. Also, some people did not like the violence. However, the majority of people in the world consider the Star Wars movies to be a family friendly Science fiction fantasy that contains many family values. Also, the violence in the Star Wars movies is very mild and that is why all 11 movies have either a PG or PG-13 rating. There is no bad language and no nudity in any of the Star Wars movies like some PG-13 movies have. The PG and PG-13 rating are for some mild science fiction fantasy violence that lacks the level of violence detail that is found in some R rated movies. In the secular world all 11 Star Wars movies are family friendly with very little for one to complain about. There are some moral family values with the concept of good verse evil in the Star Wars movies. The fictional Darth Vader character was originally a good person that helped defend the republic and democracy. However, people change in life and Darth Vader switched sides and became an evil dictator for the Empire (later called the New Order). The Empire and New Order goal was to destroy the Republic and democracy and to take over the galaxy and Universe.

George Luas sees the Star Wars movies as a fictional fantasy world that does not follow the known laws of physics (that is what I understand from watching the extra features). Maybe one day with advances in technology Science fantasy could become Science fact for some of the concepts in the fictional Star Wars movies. George Lucas is a very talented director, producer, writer, and businessman. However even though I love George Lucas movies, I do not agree with some of his political views that some websites claim he has. One can be a fan and supporter of people’s movies even if they do not agree with their politics.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are friends and have a professional business relationship with each other. In the fictional 1982 E.T. movie, Spielberg during the Halloween night scene has E.T. going mildly wild and saying “home” a few times to a person dressed up as Yoda for Halloween. Then in the 1999 Star Wars 1: The Phantom of the Menace movie, there is a very brief scene where one gets to see E.T. and E.T.’s family off to the side of the screen. Watch and listen to the audio commentary and the commentary track will tell you exactly where E.T. and E.T.’s family appear in the first Star Wars movie. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are also seen together in some of the bonus features.

The first Star Wars movie that I saw was back in an indoor movie theater in 1977. I saw the first Star Wars movie a few days after it had just been released. I was with some family members and a relative, and we arrived at the movie theater later then we should have, and we were able to get the last tickets before the show sold out. However, by the time we made it into the movie theater we had missed the beginning of the movie and the scene with the two robots in the desert was already occurring. We had a very hard time finding an empty seat since the theater had just been sold out and almost every seat was taken. It was amazing watching Star Wars for the first time with a live audience in 1977. People in the movie theater cheered during certain scenes in the movie. A week later I and one of my family members went to see the Star Wars movie again back in 1977 so that we could see the movie from the beginning since the first time we saw it we missed several minutes at the beginning. In 1980 I then saw The Empire Strikes back in a movie theater and then in 1983 I saw Return of the Jedi in a movie theater. In the late 1990’s I saw the original 3 Star Wars movies again in a commercial THX certified movie theater after George Lucas and his team made improvements to the movies. George Lucas and the studios that own the Star Wars movies has the authority to make any changes they want to their creation. I know over the years that George Lucas has made many changes to the original 3 Star Wars movies, however all of those changes I and most Star Wars fans really like since they make small little improvements to the movies over all experience. It is awesome that a movie series like Star Wars is so popular that George Lucas and his team has the resources to make improvements to the original Star Wars movies. In 1999 I saw Star Wars 1: The Phantom of the Menace in a movie theater, and many other Star Wars movies in a commercial movie theater before they were released on home video. Star Wars 4-6 was released before Star Wars 1-3 was released in the movie theaters. Now all 11 Star Wars movies exist on the 4K Blu-ray format (Star Wars 1-9 ,Star Wars Rogue One, and Star Wars: The Solo story).

The Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format has more extra features when compared to the original individual Star Wars releases (that is true for the Last Jedi movie only). I like how the Skywalker Saga boxset has the Star Wars movies in numerical order instead of the order of the release date. If it was not for the boxset, I would have watched the Star Wars movies in the order of release date, however since I had the boxset, for the very first time I watched the movies in numerical order which was an awesome experience. All 9 original Star Wars movies plus the 2 additional ones flows together when watching Star Wars 1: The Phantom of the Menace first and then Star Wars 9: The Rise of Skywalker last (Then watching Rogue One and Solo after watching the original 9 in the boxset makes the entire 11 Star Wars movies come to life and have new meaning to this fictional fantasy world).

I like the professional look of the Skywalker Saga boxset (except the case that holds the Blu-ray discs I did not like the layouts since it is easier to get fingerprints and possibly scratches when pulling out a disc or inserting a disc). It takes over a week and many days and hours to see all 11 movies including all the extra features. The Skywalker Saga boxset contains 27 Blu-ray discs (9 BD-66 discs, 13 BD-50 discs, and 5 BD-25 discs). Rogue One contains 3 Blu-ray discs (1 BD-66, 1 BD-50, and 1 BD-25 disc). Solo contains 3 Blu-ray discs (1 BD-66, 1 BD-50, and 1 BD-25). I decided not to post the exact amount of GB’s used on each optical disc since that is a time consuming process for the amount of discs in this series. I watched all 11 movies with extra features and there was absolutely no problems or glitches at all when playing back the movies on my 2016 OPPO UDP-203 Blu-ray player (even reverse scanning and pausing several times was perfect on the 4K OPPO Blu-ray player). I was disappointed that all 11 Star Wars movies use a standard BD-66 (66GB) discs instead of a BD-100 (100GB disc). This boxset would have been much smaller if 100% 100GB Blu-ray discs were used. Also, this boxset would be a lot smaller if this release was not a combo pack. I did not like that all 11 movies (9 movies in the boxset and 2 movies individually purchased separately ) contained both a 4K (2160P) Blu-ray and a standard 2K (1080P) Blu-ray. In the future in the ideal world if the Star Wars Saga was to be released again, it should be on triple layer 100GB discs and with all the movies in Dolby Vision HDR instead of the standard HDR10 format (also no combo packs for those consumers that have upgraded all their Blu-ray players to 4K Blu-ray player models).

The first 6 Star Wars movies has 2 separate full length audio commentary tracks, however Star Wars 7 and 8 only has one audio commentary track. Star Wars 9, Rogue one, and Solo are the only 3 Star Wars movies without an audio commentary track (None were every created for those 3 movies). Exclusive to this boxset is a new movie only musical score for Star Wars movie number 8 (lossy 5.1 Dolby Digital that was enjoyable to listen too, however I wish all musical scores were lossless instead of lossy). Also exclusive to this boxset is Meet the Porgs extra feature which I really enjoyed. I really like the Chewbacca character and the Porgs characters in the movie. It is disappointing that there are absolutely no extra features on any of the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs for any of the 11 Star Wars movies, one has to insert the standard Blu-ray discs for extra features. There was plenty of space on the 66GB discs for the audio commentary tracks, however for some reason the studio made the decision to only place the audio commentary tracks on the standard Blu-ray discs. Therefore, one is forced to watch the movies on the standard 1080P Blu-ray discs in order to listen to the full-length commentary tracks. In the ideal world 100% of the time all studios should always place the audio commentary tracks on the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. All the extra features use the MPEG-4/AVC codec at resolutions of 1080P, 1080i and 480i depending on which extra features that are being watched.

The 11 Star Wars movies were a financial success with none of them losing any money (Some were more successful when compared to others). For example, the original 1977 Star Wars 4 movie had a budget of $11 million dollars and box office sells was $775.8 million dollars. The 1999 Star Wars 1 movie had a budget of $115 million dollars and box office sells was $1.027 billion dollars. The 2015 Star Wars 7 movie had a budget of $306 million dollars and box office sells was $2.068 billion dollars. Some people that were involved with all or some of the Star Wars movies over the last 30 to 45+ years have become billionaires and millionaires. If one is talented, gets a college degree from a film school, and works on a successful film series, they have the potential to earn a lot of money over their lifetime (However many people make movies and TV series for the fun of creating something unique that will last for many generations, and getting a high or low salary is the last thing on their list). Making movies is a lot of work that sometimes involves many people spending 60-80+ hours a week for over a decade of their life when it comes to creating quality movie series. Also keep in mind that movie studios are just like major corporations with several thousands of employees and contractors. There is both entry level, middle level positions, and executive positions when working for a movie studio. Some people for some movies volunteer their time and make no money at all or make less then $20,000 a year working on some hit movies. One has to work their way up in a movie studio by having degrees from a film school, drama degrees, job experience, and also some people need special artistic talent, along with doing hard work for many months and years to come. Over the years according to many audio commentary testimonies from non-Star Wars related actors. Many actors never have the time to even see the entire movie or TV series that they appeared in since they are too busy working on the next movie or TV series. Also keep in mind that some actors in some lower budget movies and TV series get paid a lot less when compared to hit movies with a budget of around $300 million dollars. Also, actors have a higher cost of living expenses to maintain their privacy and to hire a security team when they become a popular celebrity. Some famous actors end up going bankrupt later on in life since when they get older they have medical expenses, cost of living increases with inflation, and sometimes they did not save enough money for retirement. Also keep in mind there can be a bubble in entertainment world for movies and videogames with more people involved during the years when there is a decrease in demand for such entertainment. Not everyone in the world can or should join a film crew or become an actor. Some people would enjoy their life more if they became a police officer, doctor, lawyer, etc.

Some of my favorite actors in the Star Wars movies is Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. Star Wars fans were sad to hear that Carrie Fisher passed away on December 27th 2016. 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs can last literally over a 1,000 years if stored and treated correctly, therefore Carrie Fishers memory will be alive and well for possible over a 1,000 years with the many Star Wars fans around the world for several generations to come. Carrie Fisher has some excellent comments with the audio commentary tracks and bonus features on these Blu-ray discs. In Star Wars 9 using original recordings, computer technology, and facial technology, Carrie Fisher appears in the Star Wars 9 movie. I really enjoyed seeing the talented actor Daisy Ridley in Star Wars 7-9 (spoiler: In Star Wars 9 her character becomes one of the most powerful Jedi's every with the power to heal and resurrect people from the dead.:End of spoiler.)The talented actor Emilia Clark is one of the main characters in the Solo Star Wars story and also in the famous Game of Thrones series. Perhaps more Star Wars movies might be made and maybe the Star Wars series might never be canceled, just like the James Bond movie series continues on. If there are quality scripts and production, then as long as the Star Wars movies remain profitable there might always be new and coming Star Wars movies for the next generation to watch.

This was a Tour de Force of a Star Wars Review!

[Martoto]

An extremely niche joke via @daftlimmy on twitter.

[rachaeldeckard]

Originally Posted by rachaeldeckard

I very distinctly remember that shot being expanded for IMAX too so you're not imagining it.



Are we saying that the pan and scan DVD has these expanded shots? Now I've gotta find that...

Being the obsessive person that I am I had to answer this question. I just got a full screen DVD from ebay aaaaannd..... The shot is not expanded.


I'll check the rest of the movie but I don't think it will be any different. I guess the Imax version is forever lost to history.

[dcowboy7]

Whats better:
4k bluray or disney streaming version since its dolby vision ??

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by dcowboy7

Whats better:
4k bluray or disney streaming version since its dolby vision ??

Depends on how your TV tone maps HDR 10 content. For my LG C9, HDR 10 content, specifically Disney films, seem to be dimmer than the Dolby Vision counterparts on Disney +. However, when turning Dynamic Tone Mapping "On," it seems to solve the issue. The downside is, Dynamic Tone Mapping is not perfect and can be inaccurate at times (brighter in some scenes or darker in some scenes).

But as an LG owner, we have to choose. Either have a more accurate picture but dimmer overall or have mostly brighter picture but maybe inaccurate at times when turning on Dynamic Tone Mapping. A good video to watch is this one below. Vincent does a great job explaining this. Personally for me, I prefer the HDR 10 disc due to better audio bitrate and having it physically in my hand vs. a stream that I "rent" from Disney and have poorer quality of audio:

https://youtu.be/XbN00Sm0Bsg

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by dcowboy7

Whats better:
4k bluray or disney streaming version since its dolby vision ??

I don't have Dolby Vision, but I can tell you that the HDR 10 UHDs are better than the the Disney+ HDR 10 streaming versions. Compression is also butchered on the Disney+ or VUDU versions.

[Nori]

Originally Posted by dcowboy7

Whats better:
4k bluray or disney streaming version since its dolby vision ??

I would definitely pick the 4K UHD. I watch tons of streaming and I'm much more bothered by the lower quality sound and video from compression than the difference between HDR10 and DV.

[sa5150]

are we any closer to a simple 4k box set of all 9 movies ?

[LmaoBR]

Originally Posted by sa5150

are we any closer to a simple 4k box set of all 9 movies ?

I Frankensteined the UK blu-ray set.

[tyrok]

Originally Posted by sa5150

are we any closer to a simple 4k box set of all 9 movies ?

I'm willing to bet this is the only Star Wars 4K set that ever gets released.

[TheBrightKnight]

Originally Posted by sa5150

are we any closer to a simple 4k box set of all 6 movies ?

Nope. Best Buy is probably it. And considering how many copies are still unsold at my local one, that might be the nail in the coffin. Wish they'd have Dolby Vision and a better remaster but that's all we're getting.