Cannot Deal with Blu-rays

Just wanted to get some stuff off my chest. In 2011 I canceled my Blu-ray order after I found out about the changes, most notable Darth Vader’s “nooooo”. For years I kept my 1997 Special Edition VHS tapes as I actually enjoyed them quite a bit. Unlike most OT die hards, I feel like the picture/color restoration throughout those films really make it more enjoyable than watching the original unaltered films to be honest. Sure some of the changes (Han shooting first) irk me, but nothing made me give up completely until Vader’s “noooo” inserted into the most iconic scene of the OT. At first I thought it was a joke, but when I saw it was for real, I was disgusted. Lastly, regarding the 97 special editions, I was a big fan of the newer song at the end of Jedi over nub hub.

Moving on, my VCR finally made its way in the trash as I literally had no use for it anymore aside from those three videos. I went ahead and took the blu-rays out from my local library and watched them for the first time hoping that I could somehow deal with them and eventually drop the cash and just add them to my collection. But, it would not be…

From the off looking color at certain points that they definitely didn’t get 100% right, to the magenta/pink gun fire, to of course, to Greedo missing at point blank range, to of course, Vaders noooo, its just not going to happen for me. Perhaps the worst scene of all though IMO is Jabba in Episode IV. Never liked the addition to this scene. Not just bc of the ‘mystery’ factor of Jabba not appearing until ROTJ, but my lord does that CGI Jabba look awful and out of place. When Han steps over his tail I literally had to stop myself from turning the film off right there. Han also repeats “Do you think I had a choice?” line again just like he did to Greedo 3 minutes earlier. It’s bad.

Anyway, my main question is does anyone know anything about the rare “Star Wars Five Star Collection” DVD’s that were released in Japan in 2001? Apparently these were the special edition films on DVD. Rarely, they come up on ebay. If anyone has any info about the picture quality and anything else, it would be greatly appreciated.

Those are bootlegs that are just captures of the special edition laserdisc. Save your money. Look into finding the TB 97 trilogy. They are captures of PAL broadcast tapes (I believe) that were used to show the fipms on TV in Europe. The quality is not the best, but it’s the best available for the 97 trilogy at the moment. Team Blu also did a great upscale of ANH using this capture, and it looks significantly better.

Alternatively, you can try to find the Malaysian video CD release, which should work in most DVD players, though I’m not sure about blu ray players. The quality is also considered to be somewhere between worse than VHS and about as good as laserdisc, so they’re a bit of a gamble.

Thanks. What do you and most people on here have? Original VHS?

I watch the 97 trilogy on laserdisc and watch the unaltered trilogy using various fan preservations and upscales.

If you don’t own the blu ray to justify Harmy’s work, I’d say TeamBlu’s work is your best bet.