ST TFA DVD/Blu-ray Discussion

Pleased there's more extras but I am frustrated at the same time. What's even worse is that they are probably going to release an Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2017 or 2018, which would cause some people to triple dip for one film within just a few years.

 

Hoping for the Hosnian Prime scene that should have been in the film.

 

I'll be picking this up, though moving forward I really hope that Disney releases the 3D versions with similar packaging and all the extras possible from the get go. No April/November release schedule for eps 8 and 9. I am hesitant to pick up Episode 8 on blu-ray if it means the Collector's Edition is going to hit 6-7 months later.

With Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Peter Jackson was very up front with the schedule and features. There was a gap, but people knew what they were waiting for. With Star Wars, the 3D release just sounded like the movie in 3D and the old bonus disc, but here we are getting a more complete release 6-7 months later with no prior notification.

 

When they released the BR saga set, ALL of the extras were completely different from the extras on the 2004 DVD set. It's nice. I don't feel like I doubled dipped because I like having my favs on both formats and having completely different extras on both sets. It feels more complete for sure.

It's a bit more difficult to do that with TFA though. With the saga, we were talking about a 7 year difference (not including the second DVD set) and the emergence of a whole new rising format, BR. With this one we're talking about this new collection being released on a format that is just plain DYING on the home market (no way to argue that). Great in the theater but that's it. So the format itself REALLY needs to be secondary in this situation because it hits a MUCH smaller target consumer market. So I hope that is a reason for them to release some really great juicy stuff to make this package stand out. Otherwise they run the risk of ONLY having 3D tv owners buy it.

Of course, a nice extended cut of the film would just be icing on the cake!

 

The main thing we all should be aware is that until the ST saga in complete, the extras will be limited.

I don't know how this voice commentary track of TFA will work, given that JJ will have to refrain to say a lot of things that would be spoilers for the next movies.

 

I will watch TFA even if it was just Mark Hamill and Andy Serkis using their Joker and Gollum voices for everyone.

 

At least in my limited bluray collection, extras are always in 2D... so I would not worry.

That said, a well crafted 3D experience is way better than 2D. At least in IMAX 3D, TFA was stunning. Of course TV 3D is far from IMAX 3D...

I have a TV with active glasses, which is nice because they present to each eye the same HD resolution as a full 2D frame.

 

While the TFA commentary will be interesting, a far better commentary would be one recorded after episode 9 so JJ can talk about the trilogy and saga as a whole. I recall the episode 1 and 2 commentaries were nowhere near as good as the episode 3 commentary because Lucas and the cast and crew could talk about everything rather than withholding information or guessing.

Then again, George was such a chill guy that he would occasionally casually drop big pieces of info in the episode 1 and 2 commentaries. JJ wouldn't do that.

 

Sure, but of course we all knew where the story would end up (Anakin -> Vader), while for the ST we have no idea.

 

I guess I got something to ask for X-Mas (since I already bought the blurey but, hey, presents!)

 

I'm hoping against hope that they'll restore the theatrical end credits music for this new cut. The blu-ray cut turns a beautiful and fluid piece of music into a mishmash of cues bunched together (including an awkwardly sped-up "Scherzo for X-Wings").

I'm also hoping the deleted scenes are more substantial than the original blu-ray release.

 

Does the credits music that was put up on Disney's website (the "For Your Consideration" version) match the theatrical version?

 

Yeah.

 

So I guess a fan edit might be able to restore the theatrical credits. Unless the credits themselves are different other than the music.

 

Well I think that the BD is at least a couple of minutes longer.

I was checking it against I-VI's end credits and VII is far longer than any of them which seemed odd to me until I found out about the extension for the BD.

 

It may be longer than the credits for I-VI, but the real question is: are the TFA Bluray credits longer than the TFA theatrical credits? If the answer to this question is yes (and that's what I'm leaning towards) then that does provide a reason for why the music is altered. Williams probably composed the credits suite (is that the correct terminology?) for the shorter theatrical version. But they might have later realized that they left out some credits which they had to put back into the Bluray. But doing this made it so that the music was no longer in sync with Williams' composition, thus leading to the altered music. But that's just my theory. I don't know if any of the cam-rips from the theater recorded all the way until the end of the credits so we may not know the answer to this for a while (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).

Anyway, if that is the case, it might be possible to re-sync the credits to the original music by speeding up the credits. That may not make for a pure "credits experience" from a visual perspective, but at least it restores the original music. I dunno. That might be the best we can do until a theatrical version is leaked.

 

Agreed. I've only seen TFA twice since it left theaters. A large reason for that is because I much prefer the experience in 3D. I don't really care how it was shot, I just know how it looks the best and that's in 3D. Don't get me wrong, if you saw it in regular 3D, it was probably a lousy experience. At least, it was for me. I saw it about 3 times I think, can't really remember, in standard 3D formats (one was a 4D experience that uses 3D glasses just like normal 3D), and I thought it looked pretty bad every time. WAY too dark. I could barely make out the images. Jakku -- a planet full of SUN -- was dark even in the middle of the day. That's why people hate 3D, because it usually looks terrible. I avoid 3D now for all movies because of this reason...

UNLESS it is IMAX 3D, which is amazing. That never had any brightness issues and I saw it in IMAX 3D in 3 different theaters, one being the Chinese in Los Angeles, and mostly at Lloyd Center up here in Portland.

Home 3D in my experience is usually pretty awesome. Because most of the best glasses are active 3D versus passive 3D, the glass quality is far better. You're not wearing 10 cent Chinese made glasses, you're wearing $20 Chinese made glasses (LOL) that just look far better. There are no brightness issues and even if there were, you could probably deal with it by just adjusting your TV's brightness. Of course, that may mess with things a bit, but I personally have never had that issue with my TV. I use a 75" Sony 4K 3D TV and I've watched about 7-8 3D movies on it now because I have a small but solid 3D Blu-ray collection.

I have been looking forward to TFA in 3D for quite some time because when I watched it at home, the same experience just wasn't there. Too spoiled by IMAX. I have recreated the sound as best I can, though, I have full 7.1 surround in my home with enormous wattage, cost me about $7,000 in audio equipment but it's worth it for me. When I watched TFA last weekend again on the new system, I was extremely impressed by the sound mix they did to the Blu-ray. I have watched a ton of movies on my system and I don't think any of them sounded even close to as good as TFA. I'm not really sure why that is, but it could have been because it is actually a true 7.1 sound mix so it took advantage of all of my speakers. It wasn't combining everything in front of the TV into 2 channels, but spitting them out into the side speakers and back speakers so I felt immersed in the environment. As AVS Forum gave the movie a 97 out of 100 for visual / audio performance, I guess this shouldn't be surprising. Lucasfilm has always excelled with the technical quality of their releases.

I would say for people who find a good deal on a TV that happens to have 3D, give it a try. The pair of glasses I got for my TV cost me $20 each versus when they used to run like $100/pair (ridiculous) and the quality is way better than most cinemas. They are just doing what they have to do because you have 200 people watching a movie, you have to hand out cheap, lousy glasses and use passive 3D, which is provably worse in every respect. Almost no 3D TVs use that technology. Granted, a 3D movie is only as good as the actual, well, 3D work the filmmakers put into it, but TFA was a great 3D job. Another recent one that I think made the movie was The Walk. I didn't think it was a very good movie, frankly, but it would have been a really mundane movie without 3D. As it was, I actually enjoyed watching it because my palms were sweating just seeing these crazy heights and the amazing use of 3D. There are examples like that where it's no gimmick, it's simply necessary to tell the story in the best possible fashion. A movie about heights simply isn't as immersive if you aren't feeling and really seeing the heights.

 

The Phantom Menace DVD had an awesome Documentary, The Beginning, so I don't know how true this is?

 

The thing with the PT extras is that they could be as detailed as they wanted since they weren't really spoiling anything. We all knew what the endgames for most of the characters were. As for the specifics, Lucas only knew the broad strokes for Episodes II and III (which he did share) and so he couldn't really spoil specific plot details either. They could basically be as candid and open as they wanted. With these new movies, it's obvious that there's a secret backstory here that needs to be kept under wraps. I'm guessing that the JJ commentary will basically be things that we either know already or things that very specifically only pertain to TFA and nothing else (like he might go on about what inspired "his version" of the Cantina, or maybe about the technical details of a scene, etc.).

 

True, you bring up some really good points!

 

Lots of good points about features and home video compared to past releases and who can say what. We're about to get many years of new Star Wars movies and other content. It's going to be different actors, different directors, different writes telling stories in different time periods of this imaginary universe. Until now we had George Lucas as the author of Star Wars who could represent Star Wars and talk on a DVD or go on TV to promote it. Is a new "voice or face" of Star Wars or Lucasfilm going to come forward? Does Marvel have anything like this?

 

GL role is now basically taken by the Lucasfilm Story Group, mainly Pablo Hidalgo.
The actors could do the PR: Hamill, Fisher, Boyega, Ridley and BB-8 are loved by everyone.

 

Yes, BB-8 would do great PR.

Reporter: So, Mr. 8, would you say that Episode 8 is darker thematically than The Force Awakens?
BB-8: Beep.
Reporter: OK... well, does your character interact more with the other droids like R2-D2 and C-3PO in the new movie?
BB-8: Beep. Boop.
Reporter: I... um... OK, could you tell us about a day on the set of the new movie?
BB-8: Beep beep.
Reporter: ...