I'm Ashamed To Admit It...But The New Box Set (2004 OT DVD SE release)

Is kind of impressive. At least what I’ve seen so far. Now you have to keep in mind that I don’t have a ‘home theatre system.’ That means no wide screen TV, and no surround sound. I have a 36" stereo JVC TV and a Sony DVD player (it was the top of the line model about 4 years ago). So, I’m not going to notice things like the messed up surround sound when I watch these. However, I did notice the Tarkin lines were a bit muffled and the music at the start of the Death Star battle is almost lost in the sound effects. And that isn’t the only place that the score seems drowned out.

All of that aside, I was rather impressed by what I’ve seen so far. The first thing that I did was to put in the bonus disc and watch the gag reel. This wasn’t as good as I had hoped for, but there are a few really funny moments. The one thing that I thought they would use a lot of were scenes of R2 running into walls. There wasn’t a single one. There were a couple of shots of Stormtroopers falling down. The big disappointment with the gag reel for me was that there wasn’t a whole lot of what I would consider to be genuine bloopers. Instead of laugh out loud moments there were more chuckle moments.

After the gag reel, I watched all of the trailers and TV spots. The restoration work that went into the trailers was fabulous. The trailers still don’t look pristine, but at least they look better than I have ever seen them. And, they didn’t re-use every single trailer that was released on the LD sets. With the exception of two or three, these were all trailers that I haven’t seen before. The teaser trailer for Jedi (When it was called Revenge of the Jedi) has a real quick clip of the sandstorm scene. That was WAY cool to see. All of the TV spots for Star Wars look rather bad, but then again I didn’t expect 25-year-old TV commercials to look all that great anyway. The one thing about the Star Wars TV spots that I was bugged about was that each of the commercials were commercials from AFTER the movie was a huge hit. Where were the teaser TV spots? I did remember seeing them in 77. There was the infamous ‘It’s the story of a boy and a girl’ TV spot that I was SO looking forward to seeing again. Alas it wasn’t there. Oh, well. What we got was really neat to see. I didn’t remember ever seeing any of the Empire or Jedi TV spots before so these were a real treat.

Then it was onto the first movie. First I have to comment on the menus. These are really great menus. My favorite is the Death Star menu. Especially the scene selection menu. The way that the camera zooms over the surface of the Death Star is really fun. This is what GOOD CGI is and what it can really do when used properly. In fact all of the menus are cool. I can’t wait to see the ones for Empire and Jedi. Well, now the first movie. What can I say about this that hasn’t already been said before? The picture was just out of this world. I was able to see things that I hadn’t seen before. Everything was SO clear. You could even see through Princess Leia’s sleeves on her dress. I don’t remember seeing that before. I could also hear things that I hadn’t heard before. Lines of dialogue that I hadn’t heard before. Especially from 3PO. Also his line about the tractor beam sounds the smoothest that I’ve ever heard it. In fact, a lot of the dialogue sounded smoothed out. It was far less easy to tell looped in lines or pick up lines. That was a plus for me. Vader, well there was something about his voice that didn’t sound like it used to. At least to me. He sounded less threatening or menacing. They did fix his eyes, thank God. It was far less easy to see David Prowse inside the mask this time around. I didn’t notice if they fixed the scene where you can see Kenney Baker inside R2 or not. I really didn’t notice. The things that I did notice were that all of the continuity errors were still there. That was a big plus to me. While it does make the movie look rather cheap and rushed, that was always part of the film’s charm to me. In Docking Bay 94, the radar dish is still missing. R2 still walks or rocks down the steps. All in all the film was a real joy to watch. Yes even with the changes.

However, the two big things were still not at all right. Jabba still doesn’t look right. He looks too dark and there is just something not right about his texture. It doesn’t look as smooth as it did in Jedi or even TPM. They still didn’t get it right in my opinion. It’s kind of a bummer since I do like the scene. Ok, the Han and Greedo scene. It still sucks. It looks ‘better’ but that doesn’t mean much. Yeah instead of Han just shifting his head, now his whole body moves out of the way. It’s just pointless. It will always be pointless. Just put back the original scene. I can live with the new version but I think it would look better if the original scene was there. So, they’ve tried twice to get both Jabba and the Greedo scene right and so far both times they have missed the mark. Strike two! One more and they’re out.

The Death Star battle looks almost like it did in 97, but I think that they may have tweaked some of that stuff as well. Certain shots seem to look better and be for fluid than they did in 97. It just may be me. I don’t know the 97 versions as well as the originals. Don’t get me wrong. There are still certain shots that just don’t look right while others look frame for frame exactly like the original versions. This could still use some work if Lucas is going to continue to work on these films. Let’s face it. From my standpoint, he still hasn’t achieved what I would consider to be his ‘definitive’ version of the film. It’s still a work in progress. And like in 97, it shows.

To give credit where credit is due, in my life there is nothing that evokes as many fond memories as Star Wars does. As I was watching the movie last night, several things came flooding back to me. The night that I saw it for the first time was quite vivid to me. I remembered seeing the Making of show and the Holiday Special. So much of my childhood is tied up with this movie that it’s really hard for me not to get caught up in it all again. Even if this isn’t the version that I saw in 77. I still want the original on DVD and I will continue to do what I can to support this effort. I still believe that they should be on DVD along side of these new versions. I’m not sorry that I have this set but it would be a perfect set if it had the originals as well.

Then I switched to Empire of Dreams. The A&E version of this documentary really only scratched the surface of what is on the DVD. I found the documentary to be very informative and entertaining as well. Carrie Fisher is a riot. She had me in stitches last night. Actually Hamil, Ford and Fisher were all very enjoyable to see and hear from. I wish that there had been more on the merchandising of Star Wars but we did get some stuff. Just not enough for me. All in all this was a great documentary.

Well, that’s it. My opinions of the set so far. Tonight I will see how Empire looks and maybe watch part of Jedi. As I said at the beginning, I’m ashamed to admit it but this set is pretty cool. If it had the original versions of the films it would almost be perfect.

So did I loose all integrity on this board?