Classics Star Wars: Ewok and Droids Cartoon Series

You know its been quite a while since anyone posted anything on this. Has anyone heard of any future releases of the complete Star Wars: Droids and Ewoks cartoon series? I mean we are getting the new Clone War stuff , but what about these classics? Any news?

 

Unfortunately, there is no news (that I'm aware of) regarding any future releases of the entire Ewoks/Droids cartoon series. This is unfortunate, since I think these shows were great and deserve a DVD release of both series in their entirety.
Outside of the atrocious Holiday special (which I don't think will ever be released on DVD), these are the only TV-related SW shows that haven't been released on DVD.

I didn't even buy the available DVD releases of the shows since they were edited to a great extent, and were far from complete.

It would be fairly simple to release the full series of both shows, since "Droids" ran for only one season, and "Ewoks" only ran for two (and each show was less than half-an-hour when the commercials are edited out).

I especially liked "Droids" - not only was the show very innovative and well-done, but, as a major SW fan, it was cool to see the cameos of characters from the films, including "Boba Fett" and the "Sy Snootles band".

Here's hoping for a full DVD release of both of these series in the near future, with all sorts of extra special features.

 

I just hope they come out seperately since I'm only interested in the Droids series. I can't believe Lucas hasn't released these yet. I've seen a ton of other 80's cartoon series in boxed dvds and wondered for years why this one hasn't been released. It would be cool if they added as a bonus feature the Boba Fett cartoon from the holiday special since it was produced by the same animation company.

 

^^^ QFT.

That'd make an excellent extra, and maybe some commantaries from Ben Burrt and Anthony Daniels. And a short piece featuring Steve Sansweet with some of the Droids collectibles. And maybe a featurette pointing out some of the ideas used in the Droids series that carried over into the movies, like the Boonta race and the four-armed diner owner.

Don't want a lot, do I?

 

Not to mention a Droids boxset would have to include The Great Heep TV special.

It just wouldn't be complete without it.

 

I'm counting that, too. It's part of the series, and should not be excluded from the box set. I just hope they don't edit them, and just leave them as the original broadcast versions. Lucas has a bad habit of removing and adding to his work, especially when it doesn't call for it.

 

I'd love to see series sets of both the Droids and Ewoks released. I hope they include that tv special too on a Droids release. I'm surprised Lucas isn't trying to milk some more money out of these shows.

 

Glad to see there is still some interest in seeing the "Droids" and "Ewoks" released on DVD. I think these shows have been unfairly overshadowed by all of the "Clone Wars" cartoons (i.e. the cartoon from the early 2000's and the forthcoming one).

 

I hope complete series DVD's will be released soon! If not, how about LFL making them available for download on something like itunes? Didn't they do that with Clone Wars?

In the meantime, does anyone know if there are any high quality recordings of the Thall Joben storyline out there? I have seen them online, but they are really poor quality. Were all four Thall Joben episodes available on VHS?

 

Theres a really nice bootleg of the complete Droids series out there, complete with the Great Heep TV special; shame that it has to come to bootlegs and not official release. LFL is really bad with this stuff, the same thing happened with Star Wars and Indy because they took so long coming to disk that people just started doing their own DVDs. There certainly is a market for it--not a huge one, but definitely a strong market.

Ewoks I never cared for, but it was aimed at eight years olds and even younger for its later seasons, like kindergarten age. Droids was terrific though, it was a really decent 80's sci-fi cartoon, reminded me of Transformers and Heavy Metal in some ways. I was glad to see that it wasn't just nostalgia in my mind, because I watched the entire series recently and I was very surprised how well most of it held up; it was its own sort of universe in a lot of ways, but in a lot of other ways it felt like real classic Star Wars stories. And how awesome was that theme song?

 

I was the perfect age when both those cartoons ran on Saturday morning. It was a nice fix after the films seemed to be completely over. A few years back, the Droids and Ewok cartoons were released on DVD. Is this what you're talking about?

 

Those were pretty lousy single-disk DVD's that just edited three or four episodes together, marketed to coincide with the CW micro-series--I believe these were actually made for the VHS re-release in 1997, so these are just ports from the master tape made back then. Better than nothing I guess, but it always struck me as particularly shoddy. Hence in the absense of a proper release, there's been some fan-made bootlegs of the complete series.

 

That makes sense. I didn't know that. That would explain why it does look like an inferior product compare to everything else with the Star Wars label.

 

As opposed to those awful 2004 SE transfers with all the color and sound screw ups, the 1993 non-anamorphic DVNR-riddle Laserdisc port of the OOT, or the barebones Laserdisc ports of the two Ewok movies? Yeah Star Wars is a model example of modern home video excellence.

 

Yousa point isa well sayin.

Laserdiscs! Wow, I haven't even thought of those things in ages.

It's been a long time since I saw those old Ewok TV movies. I need to revisit them.

 

*watches our posts float away with the rest of the garbage

 

MODERN home video excellence. In 1993 Star Wars was the leader in home video excellence.

 

I would at least like to see a high quality version of 'A Race to the Finish', the episode featuring Boba Fett. I've seen the episode, but it was really grainy.

 

The Star Wars movies were the first ever I bought for my personal use. Back then, they were of course VHS tapes. And the cover art wasn't all the standard one's you see on all 6 now. I played the heck out of those films.

 

In retrospect, both series were far better than they had to be. And 'Droids' had an action-edge missing from most saturday morning fare at the time. Highly enjoyable, watchable shows. Hope they get a teal DVD release one day.

 

With attention on Star Wars animation at an all time high, you would think that this would be the best time to release some of LFL's older animated features. When the DVD of the Clone Wars movie come out, they could be selling Droids, Ewoks and the original Clone Wars DVD's all on the same display stand in the center asile of your local store. If LFL is worried that Droids and Ewoks may not sell that well on their own, selling them along side a new movie sure couldn't hurt. It probably won't happen, but it would be nice.
Another idea could be to sell the older animated series in a box set. Complete seasons of Droids, Ewoks, Cartoon Network's Clone Wars and a special features disc that includes behind the scenes stuff as well as the Boba Fett segment from the Holiday Special. They could get it all out of the way in one shot and make a lot of fans happy as well!

 

That's a great idea, glad I'm not the only person who'd like to see these.

It would just be nice to have the lot on quality DVDs. It's a completist/nostalgia kind of thing I guess.

I've notice a few other 70's/80's cartoons getting great treatment on DVD. They released the old 'Flash Gordon' Cartoons, the 'Space Sentinels', and 'Ulysses 31, all in an 'every episode' format.

It does seem strange that Droids and Ewoks hasn't had the same treatment. (Well not yet anyway).