back to article Star Wars fans offered Blu-ray deals and previews

The force was strong at London’s O2 Arena this morning, with the first public preview of Star Wars in high definition on Blu-ray. The eagerly awaited discs, collected together as Star Wars: The Complete Saga, will go on sale September 12th, but visitors to this weekend’s Empire Big Screen film festival have a chance to see(3PO) …

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  1. Thomas 4
    FAIL

    Bah, humbug!

    "Movie makers have always been vocal supporters of Blu-ray," he says “but when you have a guy like George Lucas saying you haven’t seen Star Wars until you’ve seen it on Blu-ray, you can’t ignore the message.”

    Funny, George Lucas seems to be pretty good about ignoring messages, leastways those saying "Stop screwing around with the originals and give us a damn theatrical release."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Maybe one day....

      I think we will see one day the ultra maxed out edition of Star Wars with every version included, but that won't happen until 5 years after George is dead, and no I don't want him to drop over dead tomorrow.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Flame

        Lucas!

        How about

        "You haven’t seen Star Wars until you haven't seen it on Blu-ray."?

  2. DiscoStu

    Sneaky peak?

    Is that like a Stealthy Mountain?

  3. Haku
    Thumb Down

    HD Star Wars?

    That's nice, now how about a non-bastardized version of the original theatrical trilogy in high-def? Something in a bit higher resolution than the crap-def leterboxed DVD release.

    You know, the unaltered films that a generation grew up watching, not the digitally ruined versions that Lucas now wants us to all love.

  4. Mike Brown
    Alert

    so confused

    i really want the original trilogy on blu ray, but i dont want the special edition tinkering, but i really want the original trilogy on blu ray......... and so on.........

    damn this situation.

  5. Christian Berger

    I'm not an expert...

    But haven't there been 7 movies by now?

    I mean as far as I know, they are, in order of production:

    A New Hope

    Holiday Special

    The Empire Strikes Back

    Return of the Jedi

    The Phantom Menace

    Attack of the Clones

    Revenge of the Sith

    1. Tom Maddox Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      True

      But only the first four are canonical.

  6. stucs201

    Yes but

    Have they cleaned up that nasty scratch on the film that made it look like Greedo shot first?

  7. M7S
    WTF?

    Exactly what is the message?

    "but when you have a guy like George Lucas saying you haven’t seen Star Wars until you’ve seen it on Blu-ray, you can’t ignore the message"

    What, that I wasted my pocket money seeing in in 70mm all those years ago?

    Because if that is the message then I won't be getting these, I'll wait for the "Rimmer-Vision" solid hologram that's bound to be out in a few years or so.

    Or the format beyond that.

    I wouldn't want to be mocked in a few years for being so "early 21st century".

  8. David Barr
    Happy

    Original Films?

    Or re-remastered so the new CGI doesn't look tacked on? Han shoots first...

    Still buying it, not that bothered really, but I'd have prefered a remaster and clean up etc, rather than the extra stuff that added little, and the slight changes.

  9. Sooty

    But...

    Given the flexibility of the blue ray format. Do we get treated to a choice of watching a cleaned up version of the originals without all of the additional guff?

    1. DrXym

      Down the memory hole

      Your mind is playing tricks. There was no original version, they've always been like this. Greedo always shot first.

      1. Annihilator
        Happy

        @DrXym

        Can I go about my business now?

  10. bitmap animal
    WTF?

    No one went to the cinema then?

    "......shot on film and have never been seen at this resolution before. We're seeing new things within the movies now that we've never seen before....."

    Surely the cinema has higher resolution than BluRay, this smells like total marketing twaddle to me.

    1. Christian Berger

      @No one went to the cinema then

      "Surely the cinema has higher resolution than BluRay, this smells like total marketing twaddle to me."

      Well actually this is only part of the truth. While film can provide resolutions higher than BluRay, there's much more generation loss. Essentially the modulation transfer function of film goes down very shallowly. So there's a large area of space frequency where details just loose their contrast. Since there is no easy way to boost those high frequency regions, there's much loss.

      Anyhow, the second film was shot on NTSC video anyhow, so there shouldn't be much advantage for BluRay.

    2. Disco-Legend-Zeke
      Pint

      When HD Was Being...

      ...specified, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) determined that 35mm theatrical projection was the "Gold Standard" that audiences would expect.

      Therefore, they applied (then) modern TV measuring methodologies across the entire bog standard Hollywood workflow.

      The results measured the theatrical experience as 800 TV lines horizontal resolution. TV lines, in this context, are actually line PAIRS, so that translates into about 1600 horizontal pixels.

      That was the optimal. In the real world, additional artifacts due to dusty projection booth glass, worn projector gears and film paths, damaged screens, platter scratches, etc. reduced the resolution and clarity of the movie experience.

      If you saw a 70 MM print in a well maintained theater, your experience would approximate 1920 X 1080 on a well designed home system.

      Your screen will definitely be <em>showing</em> "new things within the movies now that we've never seen before..." Whether you see them or not depends on how much your eyes have deteriorated in the intervening years.

    3. DrXym

      Digitally remastered

      It's a wonder how anyone can claim the original movies are film-like any more. They were scanned, digitally remastered (i.e. fixing blemishes, scratches, colour issues), AND suffered the indignity of shoddy CGI and reshot scenes, and then pushed back out to 35mm. I wouldn't be surprised that for the reshot stuff the "grain" was digitally inserted.

      It's certainly not the case they're at their highest resolution ever. I assume the special editions were presented theatrically in at least 2k or 4k resolution on 35mm which means they had 4-16x the resolution of Blu Ray. Blu Ray would also suffer from some amount of compression and chroma subsampling artifacts on top of that.

      I'm sure it looks wonderful, the best it ever has in a home cinema but I despise marketspeak.

  11. Guido Esperanto

    /fixed

    .....George Lucas saying you haven’t given me enough money for Star Wars until you’ve bought it on Blu-ray,....."

    There fixed it for you.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is the holiday special included

    Originals would look better as they were shot on film. The three rubbish ones were shot on the cheap with whatever passed as a good digital camera over 10 years ago .

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Spaceballs

    I think I'll just wait for the bluray release of Spaceballs.

    While I don't like all the pranks in that movie at least they're honest about one thing: "Spaceballs II: The search for more money!". "Merchandise, merchandise, merchandise. Spaceballs the FLAME THROWER... (kids love this)".

    May the schwartz be with you :-)

  14. KroSha
    Thumb Down

    Not buying it.

    I love the original films. The CGI versions weren't as good. There is no way I'm forking out for another format unless the theatricals are included.

  15. John70

    Why not...

    ...remake IV, V and VI. It's pretty close to a remake with all the added CGI, etc.

    After all Hollywood are remaking films that are not as old as Star Wars.

    1. KroSha
      Devil

      Why?

      Lucas owns the lot and there's no need for a remake when he can still keep charging for the originals, or at least the CGI'd bastardisations of them. It's a VERY long tail, that keeps making him money, lots and lots of money, for only a little investment.

  16. Tom 13

    But will the original episodes be released as shown in theaters,

    or will it only be the remastered crap where Han steps on the tail and shoots second?

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