I'm watching the special features on the Blu-ray discs and i have to say that, overall, they are pretty disappointing. Not the actual content, but the quality. The old "making of.." docs are terrible quality. They are plagued with horrendous mpeg1/2 compression and other digital artefacts and then the interlacing issues turn the picture into a line-fest when there is the slightest motion. It looks like watching an old VCD but with slightly sharper picture.
Deleted scenes:
The prequel deleted scenes, well i feel sorry for the prequel fans who wanted to see these, because they are a waste of time. The quality looks like they were ripped from youtube when it first started. There are a couple that the quality improves at times, but the majority look like crap. Instead of using the footage from the filming of these scenes they mostly use the low quality quick composite jobs done for tests to visualise the final scene before the effects are added. And with 2 of these films being shot using HD cameras you would expect some of the scenes to be in HD, but they are not. And why use anamatics, that contain NO live action footage, as deleted scenes? I really feel sorry for fans of the prequels here because they are getting truly screwed here. If they had put the original DVD deleted scenes on here at least that would have been some consolation, but alas they are not present. But one interesting thing that i spotted on the Utapau animatic sequence is General grievous. Now was it originally intended to be Darth Maul because you can clearly see that it is him behind the mask?
But now onto the original trilogy ones. Now these are indeed good. Even the worse quality ones are heads above the quality of the prequel ones. ANH ones are pretty bad quality for the most part, which is understandable due to the age of the movie. The best quality one of the Beru "blue milk" scene. this looks like it has had a high quality modern scan and it really sharp and in great condition.
ESB scenes are also mixed quality, but none as good as the beru scene. The capture of Lobot is pretty interesting and you can see exactly where it was supposed to have gone in the movie, just as get to the first landing platform door that is locked. Luke's training footage is a mixture of what would be the same shot, filmed multiple times and from different camera angles. The wampa footage really shows why the whole thing was dropped as that suit just didn't work. One section shows how the conversation between han and leia when he rushed out of the command centre would really have started, with the camera panning to focus on a small but of the wall crumbling to reveal the Wampas hand scratching at the ice while the original conversation continues in the background.
ROTJ has some good deleted scenes. The sandstorm is in pretty bad condition but the majority are pretty good quality with some excellent. The extra Jerjerrod scenes are pretty good. And seeing the whole deleted subplot of the Emperor ordering him to fire upon the planet if the shield generator is destroyed and Jerjerrod's turmoil because of the troops still on the planet, is a great moment, and would have worked great in the final version of the film. The lost pilots is great also. Although the first 2 women are in black and white only, the whole segment is unedited with them repeating the lines that are spoken to them off camera. there is also some funny moments with the lines spoken by the mon calamari pilot puppet. General Madine scenes are pretty good but all of his part here was replaced by Admiral Ackbar in the finished version. It's a shame they didn't add the other scenes especially his death scene. Then you have the rebels inside the falcon during the battle. Now there is no sound here but the quality is very good. Most of the first part is just generic shots of them running around the falcon but then you get to see a long sequence of two of them in the gun turrets. The bunker scenes start off showing the same action in one continuous sequence then, when it ends, it starts again from a different viewpoint, so fan editors are going to love to play around with this.
All in all the OT fans get the best treatment here.
I'm going through the other special features on discs 7 & 8 so i will go through those later.
If you are a fan of the OT and love deleted scenes and special features then this set is for you. If you are a prequel fan and love the same things well i would forget about the deleted scenes and stick to the rest of the extras, unless you are watching them on a 19 inch or less screen.
