Stars Wars Trilogy on DVD
September 21st, at long last, will be the day of the big release. The announcement isn’t official, that is, a full press release has yet to be issued, but reports are out and all are saying that it is going to happen. As of now, the films will be sold as a set, you will not be able to buy them individually. It will be packaged in a 4 disc set, the fourth disc to contain all the extras.
Today’s announcement came early and without finalized specs due in part to the intense anticipation amongst consumers for the titles. “We are currently in the process of restoring and remastering all three titles for the DVD release, so we’re still working on details of the marketing strategy,” revealed Ward, not before adding with knowing understatement, “but I believe that it is safe to say that it will receive tremendous exposure across all media.”
According to Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn, both the studio and Lucasfilm arrived at the September 21st date to gain maximum exposure during the holiday season: “We sold about 17 million VHS ‘Star Wars’ units during two fall release periods in ‘95 and ‘97,” he explained. “With that in mind, we designed our release strategy to pick the best release date that had the most gentle sales curve decline on home video.”
While the full details on what extras will be included in the set are still pending, Ward promises that Lucasfilm “are creating added-value material that gets inside the creation of the ‘Star Wars’ films in a fresh and fun way. We want watching this DVD collection to be as memorable as seeing the movies for the first time.” He also confirmed that rumors that Lucas would not contribute new audio commentaries to the set are false, although there are as of yet no exact details on which films will receive commentary tracks, and who will be among the participants.
Of course, the big question mark amongst fans has always been whether Lucas would allow the original, unaltered original editions of the trilogy to also be released on DVD. Not possible, said Ward, who confirmed that the upcoming set will feature only the 1997 Special Edition versions of each film. “What George did in 1997,” Ward explains, “was [to] make the movie he originally wanted to make.”