Product Description

Includes:
* Episode IV, A New Hope
Commentary by George Lucas, Ben Burtt, Dennis Muren, and Carrie Fisher
* Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back
Commentary by George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Ben Burtt, Dennis Muren, and Carrie Fisher
* Episode VI, Return of the Jedi
Commentary by George Lucas, Ben Burtt, Dennis Muren, and Carrie Fisher

* "Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy," the most comprehensive feature-length documentary ever produced on the Star Wars saga, and never-before-seen footage from the making of all three films
* Featurettes: The Legendary Creatures of Star Wars, The Birth of the Lightsaber, The Legacy of Star Wars
* Teasers, trailers, TV spots, still galleries
* Playable Xbox demo of the new Lucasarts game Star Wars Battlefront
* The making of the Episode III videogame
* Exclusive preview of Star Wars: Episode III

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3561 in DVD
• Brand: STAR WARS TRILOGY
• Released on: 2004-09-21
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Box set, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, THX, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 388 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Was George Lucas's Star Wars Trilogy, the most anticipated DVD release ever, worth the wait? You bet. It's a must-have for any home theater, looking great, sounding great, and supplemented by generous bonus features.

The Movies
The Star Wars Trilogy had the rare distinction of becoming a cultural phenomenon, a defining event for its generation. On its surface, George Lucas's story is a rollicking and humorous space fantasy that owes debts to more influences than one can count on two hands, but filmgoers became entranced by its basic struggle of good vs. evil "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," its dazzling special effects, and a mythology of Jedi knights, the Force, and droids. Over the course of three films--A New Hope (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983)--Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), and the roguish Han Solo (Harrison Ford) join the Rebel alliance in a galactic war against the Empire, the menacing Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones), and eventually the all-powerful Emperor (Ian McDiarmid). Empire is generally considered the best of the films and Jedi the most uneven, but all three are vastly superior to the more technologically impressive prequels that followed, Episode I, The Phantom Menace (1999) and Episode II, Attack of the Clones (2002).

How Are the Picture and Sound?

Thanks to a new digital transfer, you've never seen C-3PO glow so golden, and Darth Vader's helmet is as black as the Dark Side.

In a word, spectacular. Thanks to a new digital transfer, you've never seen C-3PO glow so golden, and Darth Vader's helmet is as black as the Dark Side. And at the climactic scene of A New Hope, see if the Dolby 5.1 EX sound doesn't knock you back in your chair. Other audio options are Dolby 2.0 Surround in English, Spanish, and French. (Sorry, DTS fans, but previous Star Wars DVDs didn't have DTS either.) There have been a few quibbles with the audio on A New Hope, however. A few seconds of Peter Cushing's dialogue ("Then name the system!") are distorted, and the music (but not the sound effects) is reversed in the rear channels. For example, in the final scene, the brass is in the front right channel but the back left channel (from the viewer's perspective), and the strings are in the left front and back right. The result feels like the instruments are crossing through the viewer.

What's Been Changed?
The rumors are true: Lucas made more changes to the films for their DVD debut. Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) has been added to a scene in Jedi, Ian McDiarmid (the Emperor) replaces Clive Revill with slightly revised lines in Empire, Temuera Morrison has rerecorded Boba Fett's minimal dialogue, and some other small details have been altered. Yes, these changes mean that the Star Wars films are no longer the ones you saw 20 years ago, but these brief changes hardly affect the films, and they do make sense in the overall continuity of the two trilogies. It's not like a digitized Ewan McGregor has replaced Alec Guiness's scenes, and the infamous changes made for the 1997 special-edition versions were much more intrusive (of course, those are in the DVD versions as well).

How Are the Bonus Features?
Toplining is Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, a 150-minute documentary incorporating not only the usual making-of nuts and bolts but also the political workings of the movie studios and the difficulties Lucas had getting his vision to the screen (for example, after resigning from the Directors' Guild, he lost his first choice for director of Jedi: Steven Spielberg). It's a little adulatory, but it has plenty to interest any fan. The three substantial featurettes are "The Characters of Star Wars" (19 min.), which discusses the development of the characters we all know and love, "The Birth of the Lightsaber" (15 min.), about the creation and evolution of a Jedi's ultimate weapon, and "The Force Is with Them: The Legacy of Star Wars" (15 min.), in which filmmakers such as Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott, and James Cameron talk about how they and the industry were affected by the films and Lucas's technological developments in visual effects, sound, and computer animation.

The bonus features are excellent and along the same lines as those created for The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Each film has a commentary track, recorded by Lucas, Ben Burtt (sound design), Dennis Muren (visual effects), and Carrie Fisher, with Irvin Kershner joining in on the film he directed, The Empire Strikes Back. Recorded separately and skillfully edited together (with supertitles to identify who is speaking), the tracks lack the energy of group commentaries, but they're enjoyable and informative, with a nice mix of overall vision (Lucas), technical details (Burtt, Muren, Kershner), and actor's perspective (Fisher). Interestingly, they discuss some of the 1997 changes (Mos Eisley creatures, the new Jabba the Hutt scene) but not those made for the DVDs.

There's also a sampler of the Xbox game Star Wars: Battlefront, which lets the player reenact classic film scenarios (blast Ewoks in the battle of Endor!); trailers and TV spots from the films' many releases; and a nine-minute preview of the last film in the series, Episode III, Revenge of the Sith (here identified by an earlier working title, The Return of Darth Vader). Small extra touches include anamorphic widescreen motion menus with dialogue, original poster artwork on the discs, and a whopping 50 chapter stops for each film.

"The Force Is Strong with This One"
The Star Wars Trilogy is an outstanding DVD set that lives up to the anticipation. There will always be resentment that the original versions of the films are not available as well, but George Lucas maintains that these are the versions he always wanted to make. If fans are able to put this debate aside, they can enjoy the adventures of Luke, Leia, and Han for years to come. --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

Star Wars Legacy
I am a huge fan of Star Wars. YEs, I am an 'Original Fan". And why is being an 'Original' fan percieved so negatively? If you are an original Beatles fan, the newer fans ask you with reverence what it was like seeing them in concert, etc. etc. (No, I am not fortunate enough to be an 'original' Beatles fan. I wasn't even born in 1964.) Original Star Wars fans are called oldtimers and accused of not letting go of the past and not appreciating that times change.

Mr. Rehnquist wrote in his review "I ask, who would want to see old, outdated movies in this age of advanced technology? " Well, I hope the answer is "Many People". My love of movies is not based on the level of special effects. Should we no longer watch the great old black and white films of the past because they are 'old and outdated'? No more Bogie and Bacall? No more Hepburn and Tracy? What about Gene Kelly? Jimmy Stewart?

The thing Mr. Lucas is forgetting is that more is not always better- in an interview when the movies first came out, he was quoted as saying that the problem with the Sci-Fi genre in general was that so many moviemakers forgot about the story. The movies ended up being built around the special effects.

Unfortunately, Mr. Lucas is adding all of these scenes and filming the newer movies (Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones) with nothing but the possibilities of these special effects in mind. He has lost the story; it had become secondary to the special effects.

I had no problem with the celebratory scenes added at the end of "Return of the Jedi" but I do have a problem with some of the other scenes. Han shot Greedo. Greedo did not shoot first. It is ridiculous to change this. Han's change of heart and redemption are more powerful when you know he was a mercenary! He was always looking out for himself. That's how he survived! He was in it for the money, and found himself inexplicably drawn to the people of the Rebellion. That's good story-telling.

The problem is that Mr. Lucas has taken the liberty of CHANGING much of the story with these scenes.

Mos Eisley was supposed to be a dusty, deserted town. Tatooine is on the outer rim of the galazy. It's an unimportant, dusty, underpopulated planet. What I saw in the "Special Editions" was a thriving, well-populated town.

I would happily buy the special edition versions if I knew Lucas intended on eventually releasing the original versions on DVD as well. I'd buy both.

We're not trying to erase the movies you love. If you like the "Special Editions" Great! I am glad. I would never tell any of you to shut up or that your opinions were stupid and your views outdated as we have been told by Mr. Rehnquist.

We original fans aren't telling you new fans that the version we grew up with should be the only one out there. Please have the courtesy of relizing we are only asking for the opportunity to buy these movies the way we fell in love with them.

A Helpful Guide to the Changes
The rumors are true about this DVD set being a "Special Special Edition". More changes have been made to the original Star Wars trilogy since 1997. Recently, many images, sounds, and even a full-length copy of Return of the Jedi have been floating around on the internet, all of which confirm the changes.

Like it or not, here are some of the major alterations:

A New Hope
1. Greedo still shoots first, but it is slightly improved.
2. Jabba the Hutt is still in the film, but has been completely redone.
3. The lightsabers have been enhanced; they are no longer white rods in certain scenes.

The Empire Strikes Back
1. Actor Ian McDiarmid now appears as The Emperor via hologram, with new dialogue and different music.
2. Actor Temuera Morrison now provides the voice of Boba Fett.

Return of the Jedi
1. Naboo has been added to the end celebration montage.
2. Actor Hayden Christensen appears as the ghost of Anakin Skywalker at the end of the film.

Audio Problem!
The respected DVD review site, www.thedigitalbits.com, who LucasFilm allowed to review the discs early is reporting the following.....

"In all the hype over the DVD release of Star Wars, I'm afraid to say there's a bit of bad news about the discs (or at least one of them) from a quality standpoint. We've discovered what we believe are serious audio defects on Episode IV - A New Hope. We've updated our DVD review of the set accordingly with the details as follows:

[Editor's Note: since we initially wrote this review, we've detected a number of audio/mixing errors on the DVD version of A New Hope. They are as follows:

1) The familiar Force theme trumpet fanfare that used to play right after Red Leader says: "This is it!" and just as the X-wings start diving towards the Death Star's surface has been dialed back in volume so that it's almost inaudible - it's almost completely buried in the surround mix.

2) The audio quality varies wildly as Tarkin says the line: "You would prefer another target, a military target? Then name the system." - almost as if the master sound element was damaged. It's very distracting.

3) Possibly most critically, John Williams' entire score for the film has been flipped in the rear channels, so that what should be the left rear channel is playing from the right rear channel (and vise versa). What this means is that the rear channels don't match the front channels - instruments heard from the front right channel come from the left rear instead of the right rear. Again, this is very distracting once you notice it.

These problems are certainly severe enough in our opinion to merit a repressing/exchange of the disc. We're waiting to hear back from Lucasfilm on this issue and we'll update this review with the details as soon as we do.]"