The force is finally on DVD

All right Star Wars is one of the movies I wanted to see on DVD for a long time. While I didn’t see the movies when they first hit the screens (wasn’t born till 5 years after the first one was made) but I do like the Star Wars trilogy the movies. And of course when I finally was tired of waiting for them to come out on DVD's I broke down and bought the VHS copy, only to come home and learning they would be released on DVD in 6 months. The damn I yelled shook a few windows. Oh well it's finally out on DVD and it's a great DVD set.

I won’t tell you much on the movies in this review mainly because I am pretty much sure everybody has seen these movies at least once. If you haven’t seen them yet I want to see the size of this rock you have been under right now. I might review each movie individually later in the future.

The DVD's are the Star Wars special edition versions, or has George Lucas is concern this is the only Star Wars. Lucas doesn’t care about giving us the original, it makes a few old farts understandably mad, but the changes made in the special edition are necessary ones and the overall films where made better because of the changes. For all those who nitpick though about the whole Han shoots first, my thoughts is change your diapers, stop your bawling, and get a life. But being a geek I’ll tell you why Lucas changed the scene, mainly because this is supposed to be good and bad there isn’t supposed to be much gray area. And while Han is supposed to be a troubled good guy, he’s not supposed to have done anything that was unforgivable.

That said there is one thing that I think was stupidly changed when it comes to this DVD. And that’s putting the new Antakin Skywalker at the end of the Return of the JedI. Now I can understand Lucas attempt to tie all the movies together but this was a bad choice. 2 reasons number 1 is it’s showing an older generation putting the responsibility for the survival of there traditions in the hands of the next generation Luke Skywalker. That and the continuity error, Darth Vader was supposed to be an old fart underneath that black mask. And since Obi Wan’s ghost didn’t become younger when he died then neither should Anikins. Anyways that enough of the complaining by me, it was Lucas who suffered the anxiety attack making these films and not me.

The thing that have made Star Wars a classic trilogy is 3 things, and a few of the things are what make the newer trilogy being made not has memorable. The first thing is that it's simple on the sides, there's the evil empire and then the good side of the rebellion. It's obvious that the rebels are the ones that you have to root for and the empire is the bad guy. If you need more proof then the big guy in the black helmet and breathing through a scuba mask should be able to convince you.

2nd are the characters and the fact is the original characters in the original trilogy are all remunerable. Will remember Luke Skywalker more then we will Anikin has the hero, we will remember the troops on the bad guys side are troops in white helmets, and not idiot yellow druids. The truth is that we like the characters and there all likeable, even Darth Vader in a bad creepy way.

And finally the 3rd is the underdog story, all good epics either have the good guys either A in an equal but never less bad position, or the underdog. The new ones don’t have the good guys in the underdog situation, they rule the roost and they know it. There’s a JedI console, hundreds of people who know how to use light sabers, against a small group of people who use idiotic druids. In the old ones we just have Luke Skywalker has the main good JedI character. The rebels who help him are a rag tag group of pilots who are obviously over there heads in there fight, and Luke’s main transport is the “fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy”.

The DVD.
First I should say the video for these DVD’s are beautiful, some of the best footage on the DVD’s. The video has been clean up and darken a bit to make it look even more cinematic. It’s beautiful footage to say the least and that is enough to run out and get the DVD’s set nothing will.

But to throw in some sweet extras each DVD has a commentary track in it, I haven’t listen to these yet but they are there. Then there is a 4th DVD which has more then you want to know about Star Wars. There is a 2 and a half hour documentary on it called an empire of dreams, several futurities, trailers, tv spots, just to name a few things. There’s also some footage of the training the new actors for the big fight between Anakin and Obi Wan in the next movie, has well has an upcoming video game that will be coming out next year in time for episode 3.

Final Recommendation
This is one of the best DVD’s I have ever seen and if you have been a fan of the original trilogy then you should go out and get this right now.