New Star Wars DVDs
Unless you’ve been stuck inside a bomb shelter, you’ve probably already heard about the new Star Wars Trilogy DVD’s. I’m amazed, however, at how many people haven’t heard about any of the changes made to this release. Yes, this is the “Special Edition,” even if it’s not labeled as such — the “Special Edition” was released in 1997, and included Jabba in Star Wars, as well as Greedo shooting first, among other additions that varied from welcome and well-done to useless and awful-looking.
This round, some of the changes are welcome. The lightsabers were fixed in Star Wars, during the duel with Vader and Obi-Wan. The Emperor was replaced in The Empire Strikes Back, so no more monkey-eyes talking to Vader. This time it’s Ian McDiarmid – they guy who played the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, and who is playing Palpatine (as well as Sidious, though he’s uncredited for that) in the prequels. There are also some new lines that offer more insight to Vader’s surprise of Luke’s existence.
But the thing that has everyone talking, is this scene right here:
Yeah, that’s Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker. So for some reason Anakin is young in ghost form, while Yoda and Obi-Wan are not. What makes it hard for me to swallow, is that when you’re watching the scene, Hayden has a smirk on his face (after all, he was typecast as an angst-ridden teenager), instead of the natural, thankful, proud smile that you’d expect from a guy who had just been saved through the efforts of his son.
What’s also funny is that they sped up the scene of Lando clapping during the Return of the Jedi celebration to try to get it in time with the music.
Overall, the DVD set is great, with a completely new sound mix for them, and the picture quality is incredible. There’s also some great new documentaries on the bonus disc. Though there is one further complaint that’s popped up — in Star Wars the music in the surround channels are swapped, so that the music that normally comes out of the left front, and should be reverberating in the left rear, is reverberating in the right rear (more info). It’s not something you’d normally notice, but Lucasfilm denies that it’s a mistake. Yeah, right.
Not to worry, though. Lucasfilm will undoubtedly fix it when they release the next version of the “Original” Star Wars Trilogy, probably as a huge box set with the prequels in a few years, with more changes. I just hope they replace that awful-looking Yoda puppet in Episode I with the digital one from Episode II.