opinions on film restoration/preservation and how it applies to Star Wars - what do you think should/should not be allowed? — Page 10

Yes, you could potentally do a branching version, but it would depend on how much visual effects you are cleaning up, and this would be more complicated depending on whether you gave it the Lowry treatment in the enhanced version. But it's possible--Blade Runner put the theatrical cut, the international cut and the DC all on one disc with branching. Probably the total disc running time would be about 2 hours and 15 minutes with all of these extra shots, so it's doable. That would be an interesting scenario to imagine. I can't imagine anyone being upset with that, as the bitrate shouldn't really be affected by an extra 15 minutes or so.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind also has three distinct versions of the film on one disc. I think three versions is probably as complex as you'd probably want to go though.

The Star Wars blu ray release is a terrible missed opportunity for this kind of package. But then I think Lucas has always been a proponent of a streaming/download/non-physical media future for entertainment (shudders) which is why the Star Wars films always arrive on a new physical digital format *years* after it is introduced. I personally think they intended to try bypass blu ray alltogether but eventually it made too much business sense to put it off any longer. But like on the 2004 DVD I think this set is being done with the bare minimum of effort and expense and once again includes a token set of bonus materials that at first glance might appear rich but on closer inspection are actually just filler.

Lucas used Star Wars to get away from a studio system he felt was exploitative, technologically backward and artistically compromised. But who has a better track record of quality, richly featured and timely home video releases? The studio system.