Here's my take on this travesty.

i bought the DVD's yesterday and i'm less than thrilled at the state of the lightsabers in all 3 movies. Lukes is all over the place in ANH in terms of colour. first it's bluey white in Bens hut, then on the falcon while he's training it's green (!) then blue and finally white.

Vaders saber in 'Empire' and 'Jedi' goes from red to pink constantly and sometimes the inner white cores of the sabers disappear at certain times, also the part in jedi when Luke takes a swing at the Emperor and Vader blocks it looks like shit. the two sabers meld together. Other things that bug me are there are still Matte boxes around the TIE fighters in places, the score disappears when the X-wings peel off and head down to attack the Death Star for the first time and when the music does kick back in it's very quiet for a fair length of time. It's a really fucked up mess, somebody needs a good thrashing for this.

such a shame really cause other things do look a lot better. The majority of 'A New Hope' looks great, the Rancor scene in particular in Jedi looks great for the first time ever.

It's not just me, i've been to various SW sites and read a lot of negative comments on this. Somebody dropped a bollock.

no no, it's just vader creeping out of the closet.
[Edited 9/21/04 11:55am]

ArdeoTheMerciful said:

Talking of which... yesterday I dressed up as Darth Vader at work

I have 2 admit, it didnt take much coaxing... I think I made the campest Darth Vader EVER tho.

Marrk - one thing Im dying 2 know is have they corrected that fucking travesty of an editing screw-up in Empire yet?!?!?! (The Carbonite Freezing Chamber scene - watch Han's waistcoat disappear - then miraculously reapear!) If they havent, then yeah.... all that vocal insistance from Georgey boy about updating them and keeping them fresh and looking their best is BS!
[Edited 9/21/04 12:00pm]

bananacologne said:

Yes they have fixed it.

Most of the mistakes remain though. my personal fave is when Luke battles Vader off the edge of the carbon freezing chamber. look for the part when Luke jumps down after Vader on the left side of your screen. It's pretty obvious Hamill was jumping onto a trampoline as his head pops back up into frame!


[Edited 9/21/04 12:05pm]

I bought it this afternoon, but I haven't made it home to watch any of it (stuck at work).

I pretty much expect screw-ups like this to occur, although it sounds like there are a whole bunch of them for this set.

Mine won't be delivered for another week yet from Amazon.

Yes there are some bits that could still do with tidying up on this set (as has been mentioned).
There's also a huge amount of improvements too. The only problem is that all the good things
they've done with this set only serves to highlight all the bits that they've missed.

Just saw this over at http://www.dvdreview.com for those interested:

"Bad News for Star Wars
September 21, 2004


DVD's most anticipated day since the September 1997 national rollout has arrived, but many reviews have posted audio glitches in Star Wars Episode IV ranging from odd audio cues to garbled dialog. Lucasfilm has issued the following statement claiming the audio issues to be deliberate.
"We are always impressed with how closely fans listen to the many different sound mixes we have made for the Star Wars movies over the years. It is flattering to know that, indeed, the audience is listening. Consequently, each mix comes out differently and any changes that you hear on the all-new Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX tracks on the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set are deliberate creative decisions. We can confirm that there are no technical glitches as reported.".
Deliberate or not, fans should be aware of the audio differences."

So any typing mistakes I've made in any of my posts on the Org have been deliberate creative decisions, and not in fact mistakes.

Just wanted to clarify.

subhuman09 said:

hmmm

just a new way to cover their butts. the creativity comes, not in the movie's dialog, but in the new excuses!

i agree with subhuman! any mistakes i made were deliberate too! creative decision!

fantasyislander said:

you're absolutely right. i noticed increased treble in places and then really dull sound in others during A New Hope....I found no such problems with Empire and have yet to see Jedi....but yeah, I was less than pleased with the partly dodgy audio on the first one and it's just bullshit shit to cover it as a "creative decision"....i can't for the life of me see why they left parts of the dialogue so muddy sounding....i mean, didn't they have enough time? did they miss a few spots? or are they just lazy?

.
[Edited 9/21/04 22:38pm]

mrdespues said:

Very true you two, I can't see why they could've have just waited and released it in November as long as the problems were fixed.

That way it ties in perfectly with the Xmas rush and they don't end up pissing off consumers.

But hey, what do I know-I just grew up on the original versions.

Nah, Truth is George Lucas is Darth Vader himself. He knows full well that everyone has been waiting for this box set. He also knows that it's gonna roll in a truckload of money as well.

But releasing the set this way ensures that years down the track (and most likely 2007, 30th anniversary of "New Hope"), he can release this set again, and correct the fuck ups and add more extras, and the money cycle kicks in again. George has got it all worked out.

I mean c'mon George, no DTS? Of course not, that'll be added later. Then they'll probably do another box set with episodes 1 - 6, High Def DVD when that comes full blown on the market, etc, etc.

As Prince says:

"It Ain't Over"

Dnaplaya is spot on.

Georgey boy knows how to fleece the fans.

bkw said:

Bought the se tlast night but haven't watched yet....I am still salty that the ORIGINALS were not released...I grew up on that shit! I remember being in the freakin' movie theatre with my parents seeing EMprie Strikes Back...urgh....sorry...just needed to vent.

dnaplaya said:

In all likelihood, the whole point of releasing this set now was to hurry up and capitalise on DVD before the new format hits. Right now, there are two formats battling for market supremacy, much like the days when Beta and VHS duked it out. (Both formats will be able to play traditional DVDs, so thats at least good news).

Lucas started to realise that if he didn't act now, then he would make no money on the original trilogy in the DVD format. Is that cool? Depends on your viewpoint. Some feel that its Lucas grubbing for cash, while others feel like he's a business man as well as a filmmaker. I think both are fairly true. Is this just another way to get money out of fans? Absolutely. Is it something fans want? Absolutely. We bought the original VHS, some bought the re-mastered VHS or laser-discs (which, in all fairness, Lucas did warn would be the last time the SW Trilogy would be available to purchase in its original form) and we bought the Special Edition VHS releases. Why should Lucas not believe that we would buy them on DVD, only to pick them up later on Blue-Ray (or whatever one wins the format war)?? I'm not justifying here. Its just that I really can't blame him!

Some here are quick at criticising.

the sound of ANH has glitches simply because the movie is the one thet suffered the most through time. the creative decisions they talked about were the inverted channels about SFX sounds and score. not the addtion of trebbles. they wouldn't have lt those details come out like this if something could have been done.

As for the saber, I noticed the mess with Luke saber, this is strange why they did not tweak it, maybe the task is more difficult than we think.

but in all honesty the cleaning job done is amazing!!!!! And seventies movies never looked better. (THX 1138 had the same wonderful treatment).

And stop saying Lucas makes money out of them, of course he does but at least he ddn't release various special collector editions months after an initial relase like P Jackson did or the Wachowsky did..... Everyone is so quick to criticize Lucas.

There won't be DTS track for SW because Lucas is the initator if the surround EX in collab with Dolby so he wwwould push this audio system and not DTS.

All the whinings about the soundtrack is futile: just listen to the laserdisc version of the special edition and the problem remains (even if the EX sound here is much better because it is uncompressed). Some parts were more difficult to clean. the same audion track has been used actually.
[Edited 9/22/04 9:27am]

purplegypsy said:

well luckily for you (and most of the rest of us), Empire is the one that is least fucked with. in fact, i think the very few additions made to this film are the only case in the whole retouched series where the so called enhancements benefit.



.
[Edited 9/22/04 13:04pm]