Press Release
The most anticipated Blu-ray release ever — the Star Wars Saga — emerges from light speed this September 2011. For the first time, all six of George Lucas’ epic films (Episodes I-VI) are united in one complete set. Fans worldwide are able to pre-order now with online retailers.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Star Wars in three distinct sets to meet the needs of every Star Wars fan:
- Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray (9-disc Set includes all six films)
- Star Wars: Prequel Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes I-III)
- Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes IV-VI)
Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray will feature all six live-action Star Wars feature films utilizing the highest possible picture and audio presentation, along with three additional discs and more than 30 hours of extensive special features including never-before-seen deleted and alternate scenes, an exploration of the exclusive Star Wars archives, and much more.
Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray will be available for $139.99 US/$179.99 CAN and the Star Wars: Trilogy Sets for $69.99 US/89.99 CAN. Pricing for each set will vary by international territory.
Flanked by a legion of his finest Imperial stormtroopers, Darth Vader himself joined Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment President Mike Dunn at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to announce the release, vowing “The forces of the Empire will be at your disposal to assure the success of this endeavor.”
“The Star Wars Saga is the most anticipated Blu-ray collection since the launch of the high-def format,” Dunn said. “The epic franchise pioneered sound and visual presentation in theaters and is perfectly suited to do it again in the home, with a viewing experience only possible with Blu-ray.”
“With all six episodes available for the first time in one collection, this is a great way for families and home audiences to experience the complete Saga from start to finish,” said Doug Yates, Vice President of Marketing, Online, Distribution, Lucasfilm Ltd. “And with the quality of high-definition, Blu-ray provides the most immersive home experience possible.”
“The Star Wars franchise has been the most anticipated Blu-ray release by Amazon’s customers,” said Bill Carr, Vice President of Music and Video at Amazon.com. “We think that Star Wars will be incredibly popular with our customers, and we expect pre-orders to be very strong.”
Pre-order Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray and the Star Wars: Trilogy Sets at Amazon.com today!
15 Comments
Why do they still charge so much more canadian than american when right now the dollar is at par and for the last few years it’s only been a few cents off. Maybe 5 bucks more not 40.
Unless you can get the only the orginal 3 without any cgi “upgrades” I’m not buying any Star Wars movies.
Amen, brother!
Same thing for me!
Right now you can pre-order the complete set for $90 on amazon with free shipping.
cool, i can’t wait to torrent.
I don’t have a blu-ray player of any kind (not even consoles) so I’m curious, what is so special about getting this on blu-ray? Am I missing something (not including special features) that I don’t already have with the DVD sets?
If you believe the hype, blu-ray is to dvd what dvd is to vhs. My boss swears the quality improvement is VERY noticeable, but you need a good tv to achieve that.
Pass! Til the no CGI version comes out!
Do. Not. Want.
Stephen, maybe you could enliten us on the quality difference between 35mm film (original) and DVD or Blue Ray. In other words, is going from film to DVD an increase in quality or decrease? Decreasing quality will show, but increasing quality won’t show unless there is some technology implemented which increases the original quality of the picture/sound/etc.
So would there be a noticable difference between watching a 1970s film on Blue Ray vs watching it on DVD?
I’m tired of Lucas’ continual tweeking of the same product for 40 years and selling it over again.
I could create an hour long lecture on the differences between the formats, and why blu-ray is a better quality… but I don’t have that much time, and I’m sure many of you would zone out about 10 minutes in.
From the Technical Standpoint:
Film – 4K resolutions (4000×4000 pixels) – that’s a crap ton of data to make the resolution the best it can be. Aspect ratio of 2.25:1 (anamorphic) to 16:9 (widescreen). Movies prior to the 1950s generally have a 4:3 aspect ratio.
SD – 720×480 pixels – not as much space for image clarity, and depending on the conversion, colors can look washed out, blacks and whites can clip, etc. The native format for SD is 4:3, so if you want to watch Star Wars in the original (slightly larger than) widescreen format, you’ll need to get the collection in a Letterbox format which maintains the 720×480 pixel space, but because you are preserving the film aspect ratio, you’re probably looking at 720×360 (or lower) active resolution. This is also an interlaced format.
HD – 1920x1080p – this is the preferred format for HD delivery, though several networks broadcast at 720p and still call it HD. Most of the rest of the networks broadcast at 1080i (interlaced) which is fine, but isn’t the same clarity or “feel” that you will get from 1080p.
I won’t go into the differences between Progressive scanning and Interlaced scanning, that’s what the Internet is for if you want more information and don’t want to pay to take one of my video courses :D
So which is better. If we are talking about a broadcast, HD is far superior than Standard Definition (SD). If you don’t believe me, go to the television store and watch a game where you can flip between an SD and HD broadcast of the game. Resolution and clarity is so much better, that if you haven’t experienced HD before, it is breathtaking.
Blu-ray is an HD format. DVD is an SD format. That should tell you something right there. You’re going to have a bigger image area on Blu-Ray than DVD, thus more resolution and clarity, which should give you the ability to see all the scuff marks on Darth Vader’s helmet, or any pockmarks on Carrie Fisher’s ass in Return of the Jedi. Though you should keep in mind, the version LucasFilm is releasing are going to be the digitally enhanced editions, so I doubt you’ll see a flaw in anyone’s skin. When given the choice between an HD version of a movie and a SD version of a movie, I’ll always choose HD just based on technical specs.
That being said, most of today’s Blu-ray players do an excellent job of upconverting or upressing SD DVDs to a format that looks good on an HD TV (or projector if you have a home theater – though if you have a home theater there’s probably no question in your mind which version of this film will look better). The Average Joe, probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a SD DVD that has been upconverted and is displayed on a 36-inch HDTV and a HD DVD. However, keep in mind that widescreen SD is still letterboxed so even upressed, your HDTV will have the black bars top and bottom, unless you use the “zoom” function of your set, which is essentially the same thing as a digital zoom on a videocamera – and that is where you will start to see some resolution loss.
I have been a convert of HD for going on four years now. About two years ago, HBO ran the Star Wars movies in HD, and I recorded them on my HD TiVo, and they looked fantastic -episodes IV and V especially.
So there is a very broad overview of why people might want to check out and buy the Blu-Ray edition of the films from a generic technical perspective. The issue I think most people will have against buying the movies on Blu-ray is that pesky “we’re buying the movies AGAIN!?” argument, that is perfectly valid. I purchased Star Wars on VHS when it first came out, then again on VHS in the collected IV-VI widescreen box set. I can’t remember if I have those eps on DVD, but I know I have Eps I-III on DVD, and now LucasFilm wants me to buy it again? Yeah, I’m a schmuck and probably will, just because of Episode IV. And yes, I agree, I still want a non-20th anniversary version on HD.
I do love Blu-Ray, and I’ve been buying more of them recently, but I have my own method especially for re-buying movies I already own on DVD. If I think that the Blu-Ray will really add to some awesome action sequences or the movie has some amazing special effects that can only benefit from Blu-Ray, then I’ll buy the Blu-Ray, but if it’s a movie that doesn’t really need to be seen in HD AND the disparity in price is like $5.00 for DVD and $30-40 on Blu-Ray, then I won’t buy Blu-Ray in that instance. I got Iron Man 2, Scott Pilgrim, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and a few others on Blu-Ray recently, oh and Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, and I lucked out there, the Sony Style store is closing and I was able to buy HP: OotP and Life of Brian for $5.00 each on Blu-Ray.
I wonder why it takes so long to put it all together into a Blu-ray format.
I hope the CGI extras are an optional setting, like subtitles.
Still, I feel justified in buying this new set (when available) because I have the same, beat up old set that was released in like 1990. I don’t even have a VHS player anymore.
Propane:
Lucas has always “played games” with releasing Star Wars to the public. It was years after the original releases before he released them on VHS. Then a few years back when “everything” was being released on DVD, Lucas released Star Wars yet again on VHS with better sound, or a couple extra minutes, or the last time this century (in 1999). Then a few years after that they went to DVD.
Lucas had high requirements for allowing a movie theater to show Episode 1. But he has always been at the end of the line for releasing the best quality to his fans on home media.