Let's just hope Georgie-boy doesn't make any further tweaks to the movies before they go hi-def.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=4996

George Lucas Announces Star Wars Blu-ray for 2011
Posted August 14, 2010 02:54 PM by Juan Calonge


Confirming earlier reports (see blu-ray.com, April 17), George Lucas himself announced today that the Star Wars films will be released on Blu-ray in 2011, in a six-movie box set. Speaking at the Celebration V convention in Orlando, Lucas said: "I wish I could say it was coming out this year, but it will come out next year." New, extensive special features will be featured, including documentaries, vintage behind-the-scenes moments, interviews, retrospectives and never-before-seen footage from the Lucasfilm archives.

One of those special features, a deleted scene from Return of the Jedi, premiered at the convention. In it, Luke Skywalker is seen asembling his new lightsaber before going to the palace of Jabba the Hutt.

"Blu-ray is the absolute best way to experience Star Wars at home – in pristine high definition," said George Lucas. "The films have never looked or sounded better."

In an interview with the New York Times, Lucas said that the saga hadn't been announced before because he was waiting for mass adoption of the Blu-ray format. "We've been wanting to do it as soon as we possibly could, but we just wanted to do it when enough people would be able to buy it and see it," said the filmmaker.

Lucas also clarified that the original trilogy movies will be included as they were shown theatrically in 1997 and released on DVD in 2004 - i.e., the original versions will not be included. "You have to go through and do a whole restoration on it, and you have to do that digitally," he said. "It's a very, very expensive process to do it. So when we did the transfer to digital, we only transferred really the upgraded version."

I can't believe I may buy these things once again.

George Lucas has faith in you, John.

Maybe Chewbacca will shoot first this time.

I will not. I see no point in it. My PS3 plays DVDs just fine.

Great. So we can look forward to a year's worth of SW geeks whining about the original trilogy not being included on the upcoming Blu-Ray. Let the good times roll.

Yes. It's a shame that people complain that only the bowdlerized version of the films are getting released in hi-def.

At this point I think I've seen them enough times to last me a lifetime. He can change it as much as he wants to now as far as I'm concerned. Tweak away.

Starting with me.

1990s crappy CGI never did belong in my Star Wars movie. Just remaster it, remove the bluescreen artifacts from the original, and be done with it.

With the storage capacity of a Blu-Ray, they could easily fit the original and special editions on them. Make 'em both available so we fans can choose.

And I don't buy for a minute that the original cuts were never restored. Or aren't capable of being restored.

I really only want the first 3. Don't care about the prequels even in HD.

Ever since Star Wars on Blu-Ray was announced, I've been getting peer pressure to go Blu-ray. Maybe hi-def will make Episodes 1-3 better...?

Meesa no think so.

Buy Blu ray you will.

As if Lucas and Lucasfilm don't have the money . . .

Well, I did get the player, but will not be buying the Blu ray Star Wars set coming out this fall.

I just watched the Special Edition of The Empire Strikes Back on DVD and it looks fine. Blu ray will not significantly upgrade the quality to warrant another rebuy of the saga.

And it got me to thinking that all Lucas would have to have done to get a holdout like me to buy this again would be to include restored original cuts of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi alongside the special edition versions.

On the other hand, I won't have to rebuy these again, so I'll just have to make do with what I have and save a few bucks.

It's all good.

This decision was reached almost one year to the day. Historians take note!

To be merged carefully into the release thread (when I have the time to do it carefully):

http://www.imwan.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=70085