Blue Harvest Magazine

February, 2004

Blue Harvest magazine has been out of print for a few years now, but I still like to ramble about Star Wars from time to time...

So:

The big news in the Star Wars fan community this month is that Lucasfilm have finally announced release dates for the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD: September 21, 2004.

I am somewhat surprised at myself to find that I am greeting this big news with a resounding “so what”.
As a lifelong Star Wars fan (at least a fan of the original trilogy... and that’s what we’re speaking of here), and a major collector of movies in general, I should be stoked.
Nope.
Before we go into the “whys” of that conundrum, let’s talk about fan reaction as a whole.
There are two major points to consider here.

The first issue is the fact that these DVDs will include only the 1997 Special Editions (or SpEds) of the three films. This should come as no surprise, since Lucasfilm has been saying - clearly and with great repetition for the past seven years - that since the 1997 release of the SpEds, the original versions of the original trilogy no longer exist and will never be released again in any format.

The delay in bringing these films to DVD since the format’s inception (coincidentally also in 1997) has been excruciating for many fans, and during this whole time, they have begged and pleaded for the eventual release to include the original 1977-1980-1983 versions of the films. And Lucasfilm has said again and again that when the films came to DVD, it would only be the SpEds.
I am not sure why so many fans held hope that the original versions would be on DVD at some point when Lucas has said 1000 times that they will never again see the light of day. I never expected the originals to be on DVD... and I would have been extremely surprised if they had been announced along with the SpEds.

Nevertheless there are petitions on line, there are cries of despair, there is general grumbling, and there are complaints of Lucasfilm being up to some sort of old tricks...
But I can’t figure out what all of the whining is about: what were are being dished out this fall is exactly what we’ve been promised all along.
So close yer pie-hole, fanboy.
That said, the SpEds had their good points and their bad points.
The lowest moment was the miserable “Greedo Shoots First” debacle, but high points included the new Wampa, cleaned up spaceship effects, a more grandiose Bespin, a creepier Sarlaac, and shots of Coruscant. Falling somewhere in the center of the scale is George’s wanking off all over Mos Eisley as a warm up for the overbearing digital effects in Episodes I and II (1999/2002).

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the SpEds are all we have, and they’re all we’re ever going to have (maybe. See below).

Okay, the second point is the format of the four disc set. Discs one through three will include the three films, with commentaries from George Lucas. A two-hour documentary (newly filmed for this set) will fill up the fourth disc.

Now, Lucas has been saying all along that he wasn’t going to release these discs at all until 2005 (at least) so that he could release both trilogies together as a sprawling six-part epic. He also said that he wanted these discs to be something truly special, that would show off the full capabilities of the DVD medium, blah blah blah.
It seems abundantly clear to me that Star Wars fandom is currently hemorrhaging enthusiasm like a gutted tauntaun. I see this early release of the DVDs (early that is, as opposed to the previously stated 2005-or-later) as an effort to get people interested enough in Star Wars again to make sure Episode III (due in theaters in May of 2005) isn’t a complete flop.
That this eagerly anticipated DVD set is arriving just before the Christmas season, and just eight months prior to the Episode III release (and around the same time as the first Episode III trailer) is a clear indicator that it’s real function is to hype Episode III and stoke up the embers of the dying flames of Star Wars fandom’s enthusiasm.
Why do I think this?
Well, although the films themselves are being presented as the versions we have been promised all along (the SpEds) the set as a whole that we are being sold come September is nothing remotely resembling that spectacular comprehensive set that we were promised, the one that was going to be worth waiting for and that would have exploited the full potential of the DVD medium.
In fact, the contents of this set are pretty disappointing, and pretty lame.

Commentaries from George? More of his revisionist propaganda? More of the same sort of blatantly contradictory statements he’s made in the past, all dished out with the Orewllian expectations that we’ll swallow this Newthink like a Twi’lek whore? No thanks. And a single disc of extras, featuring a new documentary? Ho-hum. Yawn. The documentary on the new Indiana Jones DVDs is pretty shallow, not much of true interest there, and I suspect the Star Wars one will be more of the same.

There are at least five vintage "making of" documentaries released during the original trilogy years that they could include, each 45 minutes to an hour long. I would much rather see that rare archival material than a generic new documentary. Also, there were SW laserdiscs ("The definitive collection") in the early 1990s that had a bunch of extra features on them (I am surprised this edition - with it's widescreen digital presentation of the original non-SpEd versions of the films and it’s proto-DVD-style extras - is not discussed more in fandom). I'd like to see a DVD archive of the LD material, sort of like how there is an archive of the Aliens LD as part of the new 9-DVD Aliens boxed set.
And that’s just for starters. I mean, that’s basic stuff. Bare minimum.
Trailers of course, maybe some rare early TV coverage... archival stuff. Real stuff. Not these slick fluff pieces that pass for DVD extras so often these days.

OF COURSE, in 2006 or 2007 we will see a new boxed set DVD of all six films, and I think they're holding out on all of really great extras until then so that we will buy it all again only 2 or 3 years from now...

And how many times, really are we expected to buy these movies?
I got the original pan-and-scan VHS boxed set in 1992-ish, then the laserdiscs with the same movies but in widescreen and in digital quality. Then the widescreen VHS of the SpEds. And now DVD. The first three purchases were each significant upgrades. But this? Surely DVD is better than VHS, but I can do without George’s talking about how “a special effect without a story is a pretty dull thing” once again, especially after delivering just that (in Episodes I and II, that is), and I can do without an empty self-congratulatory documentary offering nothing new. And if that’s all that this set is offering in the way of extras, I’ll wait for the 2006 or 2007 release, thanks. I also think that the 2006 or 2007 edition will contain the whispered-about new, new fixes to the SpEds ("Final Editions"), such as the rumored appearance of Amidala in Return of the Jedi and Ian McDiarmid replacing Clive Revill as Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back. Perhaps, in those final, final versions, Han will shoot first again too?
Here's a new idea, a compromise that everyone will like: in the 2006 or 2007 DVDs, maybe we'll get the "Final Editions" of the films, and the "original" 1977-1983 editions, but the current 1997 SpEds will be left out, since they are/will be available in the 2004 DVDs. That will make it worth buying the 2004 DVDs AND the 2006 or 2007 set. Which is what Lucasfilm wants us to do. Just make it worth our while, George, that’s all we’re asking.
But, my understanding is that there is no good, complete negative of the originals versions of the original trilogy in existance anymore; the SpEd restoration saw to that. So I am not holding my breath for those. But seeing the archival Making Of specials, and the "Final Editions" (perhaps with tweaks to Episodes I and II as well) would make me somewhat ready to shell out for Star Wars DVDs twice.

But not three times. Ever.

A year later...

The sound and image quality of these discs is spectacular.

These films look amazing.

And, some of the rumored additional tweaks that I mentioned in the editorial do exist in this version of the films.

The documentary is better than expected, and the commentaries are somewhat more interesting than expected.

But, still, you KNOW there will be a 2007 six-film, 30th anniversary set.

Buy it THEN.

-JT, Feb. 2005