Star Wars 1 - 6 ON BLU- RAY?!

So as some of you might know, I am a Star Wars fan. I love all sci fi, but this one always has held a big place in my heart. From my dad showing me the original 3 (still the best ones by far), to seeing them re-released in theaters with my best friend Matt, to than seeing the new 3 with said friend and my dad (he saw 2 out of the 3 with Matt and I in theaters), these movies have been something that have been held dear to me. Not because they are great movies, which most of them still are, and not because I love science fiction films, which I do, but because I can look back on these and they remind me of something when I was younger depending on the movie you pick. So now these movies are out on blu ray thanks to Lucas Films. I have read the reviews, seen snipits of them in Best Buy and Wal-Mart, and I have to say I am actually pretty happy about these movies.

This won't be a real review of these discs, since I have yet to see all of any of them at home or anywhere else. I don't want anyone to think it is a real review and take anything I say as more than conjecture or assumption based on what I have seen or read. So to start with Lucas did some more tinkering, the bastard. He changed a couple of things, and even added one or two. They are his movies, and he has done this before, so it isn't a huge surprise. From what I have read there are only one or two things that are really stupid and should have been left alone. I won't go into detail on them, because all the changes, including those, are minor. If you can deal with the re-releases that came out in 2004, than you won't really mind these ones. He changed nothing in the new 3 however from everything I read about these releases. The extras though are amazing. We now have deleted scenes for every movie, mostly new, commentaries, and interviews on each movie. There are 5 documentaries on the movies, 2 of which are new to video, and were only shown on the discovery channel, which means they are new to about 90% of the population entirely (lets face it, most people don't watch the discovery channel for anything but Mythbusters and now Penn and Tellers new show). The others are from when the original movies were released, and have appeared on previous DVD or VHS releases, including one that is all about the creatures and how they compare next to the previous movie creatures and monsters from 1983 and back. Each one is a little gem on its own, well worth the purchase alone. We also get some great interviews with some of the people involved in these movies other than George Lucas, which are sure to be far more interesting than listening to him talk about how amazing he is.

The real stars of these releases are the wonderful video and audio. Lucas Films out did themselves for this release. The video has no artifacts, dust particles from original prints, or any signs of age. Even the original 3 prints were flawlessly, and from what I have read and seen myself, transferred and made to look BETTER than the new 3. This part of the transfers was obviously a labor of love. The new 3 movies look great as well, but they can't hold a candle to the original trilogy. The sound is phenomenal and was transferred in flawless audio DTS 6.1 sound. To those of you who aren't audiophiles this means that even with just your standard 2 speaker setup you are going to have to try not to hear every single piece of dialogue, and every single pin drop. If a bantha pees, you'll hear the water hitting the sands on Tatooine (if you don't get this joke there is a chance you aren't a big enough Star Wars fan, so go watch them again... I'll wait). So what you are essentially getting is the exact experience you would get if you watched these 6 movies in the movie theater, but better. By better I don't just mean no sticky floors, no stale popcorn smell, no overpriced sodas, I mean that the sound and video should be such that they are better transfers than what you have ever or could have ever seen in the movie theater before now. Well that isn't entirely true, the sound actually may be equal to that, sound is one of those things that you lose something going from the theater to your home on anything except blu ray even if you are talking about the sound you heard back when these movies first came out in the mid to late 1970s.

So all in all, what I am saying is the Force is with this release. Don't be put off by the tinkering of Lucas. Yes, he is a megalomaniac who needs to leave well enough alone, and should have his hands removed so he can't ever mess with any of our wonderful childhood/early adulthood movies again. However, in this release we are finally getting what we all had hoped we could get when VHS came out, or even when those 2004 DVD releases came out, the real theater experience in our homes. This release will make you remember all the great things about Star Wars that you have forgotten, and all the things about the movies that you didn't even know you had the first time you saw them. So in the words of the great Alec Guiness "May the force be with you.. always."