Kevin's Watch

On September 16th the entire Star Wars "saga" will be available on blueray for the first time.
The question is: Is there any reason to buy this stuff all over again?

For me the answer is simple: yes.

My dvd collection of SW films holds up pretty well however now that I've finally bought into the whole blueray experience I can't imagine passing up the chance to throw away more of my hard earned money.

I've read up on what the new set will include and as we've all come to expect from Mr. Lucas he's monkeyed around with the effects once again and you know I can't get enough of that.
And of course there will be more making of stuff, more deleted scenes and more stuff only a SW fan could possibly give a crap about.

I impatiently await the big day.

Don't forget that you'll also get Lucas's "improvements" to the dialog.

Goddammit, George... NO!

Does Lucas know how to improve dialogue?!

Creator wrote:Does Lucas know how to improve dialogue?!

You know THAT I would pay good money for.
Replace all the stiff, painful dialog throughout the entire prequel series.
AND edit out every scene with Jar Jar and his "antics" and replace it all with genuinely entertaining and appropriate humor.
Trouble is I don't think the combined forces of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs could write software powerful enough to fix everything that's wrong.
But it would be nice.

I bought the bluray for LOTR and wasn't impressed at all. I bought the blueray for Band of Brothers and most of the extras would not work on my bluray player. I'm done with bluray, complete waste of money. Just let me know what Lucas does different this time around.

dlbpharmd wrote:I bought the bluray for LOTR and wasn't impressed at all.

I hope you give some details on that, here, or somewhere, as I haven't gotten mine yet, but I intend to.

But DVD is dodo-ing, it's bluray or nothing now. I just bought a player even though I still have SDTV.

dlbpharmd wrote:Just let me know what Lucas does different this time around.

I wanna know too.

--A

dlbpharmd wrote:I bought the bluray for LOTR and wasn't impressed at all. I bought the blueray for Band of Brothers and most of the extras would not work on my bluray player. I'm done with bluray, complete waste of money. Just let me know what Lucas does different this time around.

Wow, I thought LOTR Blu-ray was incredible. Breathtaking. Which version did you buy? The theatrical release was a very poor HD transfer. It did not look much better than DVD. In the home theater forums, it got horrible reviews. However, the Extended Edition was a vast improvement.

It also sounds like your player needs a firmware upgrade. It should be relatively easy to do. I just hook mine up to my router with an ethernet cable and it guides you through the process onscreen.

Blu-ray has more resolution, color depth, and hi-rez audio than many people actually utilize. If your TV isn't calibrated, or is too small, or you're watching under less than ideal conditions, or you don't have a receiver with HDMI inputs, etc. you're not getting the full experience and I can see how someone would think it's a waste of money because without the appropriate system, there won't be a vast improvement over DVD. However, with a proper system, Blu-ray is a huge leap forward.

Movies look weird on LCD, in my opinion. They're good for games, but for movies plasma is best. A Panasonic is about the best plasma you can buy these days, now that Pioneer has quit making them.

Also, Blu-ray's audio is lossless high resolution 7.1 surround. This means no compression. If your receiver is 5 years or older, it may not have HDMI inputs, and you have to hook it up with 6 or 7 analog cables ... if your Blu-ray player has the analog outputs. Most do not, and you have to pay extra for them, but it's better than spending $500 on a new receiver. A lot of people are watching Blu-ray on a Playstation, which does not have the analog outputs. So if your reciever isn't new-ish, and your speakers aren't at least mid-level quality, and they're not calibrated or set up properly, you'll be missing all the audio glory Blu-ray has to offer.

So you can see that Blu-ray isn't exactly user friendly like DVD was. DVD was more forgiving of modest system and user errors because it didn't take so much effort to get the most out of DVD .... because DVD didn't have as much to offer to begin with.

[*Edit* Looking through the 2008 thread on Blu-ray players, I refreshed myself on your system. Looks like you've got a kick-ass TV, and a newer receiver, and home-theater-in-a-box speakers. So perhaps calibration/set-up could explain your disappointment in Blu-ray, or the ambient light issue you mentioned. A 3-yr-old Blu-ray player almost certainly needs a firmware upgrade if you have never done that. I've only had to do it once, and haven't had a problem since. But that only affects the playability (extras, etc.), not picture quality. Other than those issues, I'm really perplexed why you don't see the huge leap forward in Blu-ray. How's your HD cable experience? Do you think that's a waste, too?]

**********

Now ... Star Wars on BD.

It looks great. The changes are relatively minor, compared to previous releases. Ewoks blink. R2 hides behind more rocks than before. Vader shouts, "Nooo" when he tosses the Emperor. Unfortunately, with higher resolution, the CGI tends to stand out more against the older effects shots. I wish Lucas would either take out all the CGI, or try to blend it better with new CGI.

I can't comment on the Prequel Trilogy, which I did not buy.

The kid and I watched Return of the Jedi the other day on DVD, and it was the Special Edition version. I noticed that the CGI looked really bad when they were in the sail barge going out to the Sarlacc pit. Z, was this tweaked at all, or is the old CGI still in? It looked like a sandy level of some videogame. It sucked. Just curious.

I think it's still the original effect there, but stand to be corrected...

--A

I think almost all of the CGI for the Original Trilogy is from the 1997 Special Editions. So it definitely shows its age. But this Blu-ray release is still the best Star Wars has ever looked or sounded for any home release. It's a shame that the film elements and "real" effects look so much better than the CGI. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of the "improvements." And of course, there is always the slim possibility that Lucas will finally cave to fan pressure and just release the original versions on Blu-ray without the CGI. That would be awesome.

I hear the last two of the Prequel Trilogy--which were actually shot digitally (unlike PM)--look even better on Blu-ray. And of course the CGI is 4-6 years more advanced over the Special Editions, which makes a difference. Plus, the CGI is almost the entire movie, so there's not as much problem with blending with non-CGI elements. Oh, and the crappy Yoda puppet from TPM has been replaced with CGI, like the versions in AotC and RotS.

357 million dollars for the first 3 days.. Amazing.. Absolute record, so... If you want to make the sum bigger, so you should buy the SW in Blu Ray and one more to your friend)