SilverWook said:
I'm about half way through Disc 8.
The "fly through" of the Lucasfilm archives is a neat introduction. Unfortunately, now every potential master criminal in the world knows what George keeps in his nondescript barn on the ranch. :P
The rotating views of props models and costumes are pretty neat. At this resolution, the models are really showing their age. Vader's TIE appears to have been dropped at some point since it was shown on the old DC Laserdisc set. A bit of the front cockpit window is missing, and one of the wings is askew!
Seeing the prototype models is also really cool. The prequel ships could have looked more like them. ;)
Tons of pre-production art here. Some of it will be very familiar if you own "The Art Of" books for each film.
You can literally see the seams and stitches in some of the costumes.
It's interesting the matte paintings are about the shape and size of our modern video displays. The comparison wipes between them and movie footage leads to one goof though. The original Cloud City apartment painting wipes to it's CGI replacement. Whoops.
I would have personally liked to see even more props and costumes from each film than are shown here. An old fashioned Laserdisc style still gallery would not have taken up much space. Nor would the inclusion of the old Laserdisc extras.
The interview segments are really short, but informative. I never knew what was the first FX shot ILM actually completed for Star Wars. A piece in the Dagobah section with Lucas discussing the Force sidetracks into prequel footage long enough to make you wonder if somebody goofed up.
It's irksome to see some vintage behind the scenes footage presented here in better video quality than the old documentaries got.
Can't say much about the deleted scenes that hasn't been said already elsewhere. Been waiting more than half my life to see some of these, and having them in HD warts and all is probably one saving grace of the whole hullabaloo. If you can get this disc by itself on Ebay, do it!
The "play all" feature is nice if you hate button mashing the remote through sub menus all day. (Or just want to watch the deleted scenes.) Being able to start at the beginning of the Empire or Jedi sections without skipping a hundred chapters to get to them would have been nice.
Will slog through the Jedi section tomorrow.
i finished it and am on disc 9 now. I found all the art work, interviews and overviews interesting. it was worth the watch.
