logo Sign In

Star Wars Trilogy THX Widescreen Edition — two versions?

Author
Date
Author
Time
Post link

Looking on eBay, I noticed that there seem to be two variants of the Star Wars Trilogy (1995 “Faces”) THX Widescreen Edition collector’s box.

One has a slight margin around Darth Vader’s mask and an inner tray that slides out to the right, and the other lacks any margin around Vader, with the top that lifts off like a lid to reveal the base holding the three VHS cassettes.

Does anyone have any information or insights or knowledge about this? Is it a difference of date of production, or perhaps United States versus Canadian release (or some other region), or authentic versus knockoff?

Slide-Out Type (with finger notch visible)

Slide-Out Type (with inner tray visible)

“Lid” Type (top view)

“Lid” Type (underside)

“Lid” Type (uncovered inner base)

Author
Time
 (Edited)
Post link

I don’t know much about them other than they both looked very cool at the time, and that the contents inside were identical.
 

This OT ‘VHS box set’ thread may have some information on it?:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Original-Trilogy-box-set-releases-on-home-video-tape-1988-to-2000/id/85082
 

Of if you go onto the Nathan Butler YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@ChronoRadio, and search for ‘THX 1995’ or something like that, there’s a very good chance he’ll have covered the variants for that release.
 

Edit: one video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVyiZTlhNwI (although there may be more on there?)

“Don’t tell anyone… but when ‘Star Wars’ first came out, I didn’t know where it was going either. The trick is to pretend you’ve planned the whole thing out in advance. Throw in some father issues and references to other stories - let’s call them homages - and you’ve got a series.” - George Lucas

Author
Time
Post link

I have the lid release and just found out about the sliding release from a youtube video. Crazy that there were variant packaging of the same letterbox tapes.