Saga Why weren’t TPM and the OT released on DVD in 2000?

TPM was released on VHS and Laserdisc and the OT re-released on the same formats in 2000, so why not on DVD at the time?

 

Considering how extensive the bonus content for TPM was, my guess is they were waiting for that to be finished. The same might be true for the others, plus the fact that GL wanted to make new alterations to further connect the two trilogies.

 

DVD wasn't really all that much of a thing at that point in time anyway. It wasn't until late 2001 that the number of DVD-players sold moved past the number of VCRs sold. In 1999/2000 it was still much more of a niche market.

Star Wars was a bit late when it came to DVDs, but the market not really having exploded yet when TPM came out might have played a role in waiting a bit when dealing with that format.

 

I wonder what a 2001 OT DVD would have been like.

 

I recall when I got the DVD for TPM (as a gift-my first ever DVD!) in 2000, I saw a featurette on there where GL spent a lot of time talking about how great the "new" format DVD was, and how it finally enabled them to include lots of BTS and deleted material. I also think the reason the OT wasn't released on DVD at that time, is cos LFL wanted to see what would happen with the format before investing in it. They also did a massive amount of work for the 2004 DVD release, not only with actual changes/enhancements to the film, but also a meticulous frame by frame cleaning and digital transfer. That undoubtedly would've been quite time consuming.

 

Lucas wanted the format to mature and for it to be more widespread before taking advantage of it (same thing happened with Blu-ray). That's why he waited until 2001 for TPM DVD release. And he even wanted to release the OT on DVD after ROTS, but piracy forced him to release it earlier.

 

From what I remember, Lucasfilm had a set number of DVD players sold before they would release anything on DVD. I can't remember what that number was, but they wanted to maximize the release of any SW movie and around 2001 is when DVD really hit the masses (the release of PS2 helped).