Saga The Official Star Wars Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

How did this thread go an hour without a post on the eve of the release?

 

I will be purchasing mine at Wal Mart in an hour and a half.

 

10 more hours for me.

 

Got mine yesterday (Sydney, Australia) and I have to say I'm impressed.

The features are exhaustive. So far I've only had time to see the deleted scenes from the OT and it's definitely a treat to finally have these bundled with the actual films.

I did pop in a couple of the films to have a look at some of the scenes that have been changed and I have to say it, the "NOOO" isn't really *that* bad. I mean it's still shocking and nowhere near as good as the iconic scene we've all come to love, but it's not as bad as that youtube clip. Still, one wonders why it was done at all...

Of course, I HAD to watch the opening of A New Hope. Um, wow. never have I seen that Star Destroyer in so much detail and while I've heard it up loud before, I've never heard it up so loud in such great quality. really a top notch transfer. The Stormtroopers look a lot cleaner to. You used to be able to tell they used the same suits in the Tatooine scenes in previous releases, here, they're white and utterly pristine. That's an example of a change I wholeheartedly aprove of.

 

Too bad they couldn't tweak Naboo to look less like the Windows XP desktop.

 

That was kinda the charm of Naboo for me...it was almost too picturesque.

 

You won't be able to calibrate your monitor so that the colours look "right" because they simply aren't, although using automatic settings on your TV probably does make the garishness of the transfer more severe than it is. The prequel DVDs (i think) have a THX Optimizer that can help you control the contrast, brightness and tint so that they are set right.

The opening shot is nice and sharp, as it was on the DVD and the HD television broadcasts, but it still has the blue tint, crushed blacks, erased starfields, colourless lazers, colourless engine glows, a desaturated moon and oversatured Tattoine, and that weird blue haze as the destroyer engine flares the lens. It's a shame such an iconic shot has had the image ruined so much. I have to watch the 2006 DVD bonus disc to remind myself of the vibrancy that shot once had. They actually tweaked the framing a little bit too, the first part of it is closer and then over a flash of the lazers they pull back to the wider, original framing. I don't know what that is about.

I guess there is only so much they can "correct" in terms of the colour, since it is intentionally as Lucas wants it. These sorts of little things like engines and lazers being totally drained of colour and erased starfields and crushed blacks, they're all over the place and to some degree inherant in the choices Lucas made for the transfer. Unfortunately, since they are basically just masking over the 2004 transfer and not doing a new one they will probably never be remedied in whole. Maybe in the 2020 version for Empire's 40th anniversary they will probably get rid of all those pink Vader lightsabers I am still looking at.

 

To unlock the animated Boba fett holiday special you go to -

epiV > Bespin > the collection > concept boba fett armour > click on first look

stumbled across last night, funny to watch.

 

I just got back from Walmart with my copy. You guys are going to be surprised at this, but there werent many people there at all, and I only spotted one other guy with a copy. And there were only about 9 Saga box copies on the shelf and about 9 each of each trilogy. What I was pleased to see is that all boxes were encased in a protective metal canister that has to be removed at the cashier. Obviously Walmart does this so that poeple wont steal them, but I like it because it also keeps the boxes in good shape and keeps them from getting scratched and beaten up, which unfortunately happens too much at Walmart.

I have to say the box is beautiful. Its definately the most sturdy box of any SW release. I feel bad that I criticised it when I first saw it on May 4. I always understood and appreciated the concept of the saga box cover, but didnt always agree with it. Now I think the art is great. But I warmed up to the Saga box cover long before I warmed up to the trilogy box covers. I feel sorry for Britain, because I think the US box is way better. I also like the fact that the disc art is simple. I also think its cool that the Roman numerals are completely consistent with each episode. Episode 3 now has the same size Roman numerals as the other movies do. The only thing I disagree with is the collage of SW characters at the end of the book. I think it makes the saga seem too cartoonish. It should have been something more simple and with the same style of art as the rest of the book. I also dont like the blooper pic for Bonus Disc 3. Also, I think there should have been a page to denote each trilogy so that each trilogy is seperated. I know we all like viewing this as one big 12 hour stiory, but the fact of the matter is that each trilogy has very real differences in look and tone and style, and therefore should be categorized as such. But overall this is the best SW box of any release.

 

Lol, aren't you glad you didn't show up there in a Star Wars costume! You probably would have been really embarrassed!

 

On my (Australian) copy, it's V > Pursued by the Imperial Fleet > The Collection > Boba Fett prototype costume

 

Some more questions (hopefully someone can answer them):

1. How well does Amazon ship their products? Is it likely the Saga set would arrive in Australia without any dints or damages to the box?
2. What symbols do the US and UK versions of the set have on the box (i.e. classifications, etc); because the Australian one has the typically blue 'M' on the spine, however I have not seen symbols on the international boxes.


Another possible change:

I am not sure if it is the superior sound quality however the cheers when Palpatine declares the Empire are much more pronounced when Padme talks about how democracy falls.

 

Yeah that would suck.

Guys..... these mkv kile scans that we have been seeing dont even come close to doing justice to the PQ when viewing this on a blue ray player with a hdmi connection. I just skimmed through TPM and it looks amazing. The DNR is virtuously unnoticable. You really have to look very hard to see it, and even then you will probably only be able to pick it out in a few shots. If I had not known about it, I am certain I wouldnt have noticed it. I would really like to know what program they used for that because I need that for some of my mpeg files. From the opening crawl it feels like you are watching a different movie. Im still annoyed by these changes, but I cant believe I even considered letting that ruin this experience for me.

 

Almost cried when I saw the Tosche Station deleted segment in HD - would love to see it in the context of the film. Awesome!

The OT deleted scenes are great. Anyone who claims to be Star Wars fan needs to see these.

 

People have complained about AOTC. Its not so much that AOTC looks bad. It looks good. Its just that it isnt any where near as improved from its dvd medium as TPM. In fact, it looks only marginally better than TPM if at all. But that is more of a testament to TPM transfer than a commentary on the AOTC transfer. I am happy to report that I did not notice a cyan tint on this blue ray, even during the Kamino sequence.

 

I would agree that ROTS is the best looking of the prequel blue rays, but people are over exagerating how great it looks. It really doesnt look THAT much better than the previous two episodes.

 

Yup

The spoofs aren't as bad as some reports would suggest although the funniest bits are all the robot chicken scenes.

 

The low amount of grain on ANH is pretty amazing.

 

DVDActive TPM Review.

 

I enjoyed the Mustafar duel animatic. It made me wish even more that they had not interupted it with the Yoda duel. It was different in a lot of places, including the way Anakin loses.

 

The BBFC couldn't confirm it because the packaging apparently hasn't been submitted on time, but then someone on Flickr answered this for me:

The Age-certificate stickers on the outer package are not removable, unfortunately.

Guess I will purchase the U.S. version when it reaches roughly the same price as the U.K.'s. The nicer package concept and the stickers not interfering with the art work are my main two reasons.

 

Do we have any confirmation that all the crawls were redone? I know that the color of the letters in the crawls for episode 1 and 2 were lightened up to make them more consistent with the crawls of the other episodes.

 

Serious question - is there commentary on the deleted scenes, OT or PT?

I'm not that big on commentaries, but really enjoyed the ones on the deleted scenes of the PT DVDs, plus the intros.

 

There are short text-based explanations for each deleted scene.

 

Just bought my set @ Walmart on my way into work this morning. Funny thing was, they didn't even have it out yet. I had to go to electronics and ask them to go get me a copy. After the guy came from the back I ask him how many times this morning he has had to go back there for starwars and he said I was the 4th or 5th person to ask.

Which kind of begs the question, why weren't they out after midnight? This Walmart is open 24hrs.