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Techtite's DVD Reviews! |
"Which brings us to The Most Welcome Change of All. Remember how the Emperor of everything evil looked like a cross between an old woman and a monkey? Gone. As Han put it in the first movie's final battle, 'Woo-hoo!' " --from the review ------------- See also the individual reviews of all three films!: ------------- Sidebar :: -------------
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Star Wars: The Original Trilogy(Including: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi)
Click picture to order either 4-disc DVD set.
A Techtite ReviewAs Always, a review of The Film and The DVD (extras)! The Trilogy: It seems almost a white-collar crime of sorts to review this trilogy set's films, as a whole. As such, allow me to link to the reviews for the films: Star Wars (A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The short end of it: I loved every one of them! The trilogy as a whole was a major staple of my childhood that, regardless of minor FX tweaks through the years, still hold their timeless stature to this very day. We'll be getting to the "tweaks" next, but suffice to say that the first film was a deep impact, as was the second, with the third just one Ewok hair from the same grade. That's my reviews in a nutshell. Reviewing the films separately elsewhere leaves the door open here, for reviewing this set as a whole; that is, the films as they are offered, not as they were originally. Simply put: these are not the films as they appeared in theaters, nor even as they appeared in 1997, as "Special Editions." Minor tweaks have been made to all films, to better coincide with the newer films: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and next year's Revenge of the Sith. In all fairness, this makes sense, if just to smoothen out any loose fringe in the story. However, I can see some diehard fan's points, that the films were great as-is. It's all a matter of each fan's tastes. Let's begin with the changes to the original Star Wars, aka, Star Wars Episode IV; A New Hope. For one thing the deleted scene they added in 1997 between Jabba and Han Solo looks far better, with a CGI Jabba that look far more "real", if you will, and much more integrated into the scene. Second: they made the cell block hallways longer, which look a lot better than the matte painting affects to make it look slightly-longer in the original film. Third: text on The Death Star has been changed from the unlikely Roman Alphabet of the original film, and into the "alien" text shown in later movies. These are minor changes, really; no need for complaints at all. Last...and sadly least; Greedo still shoots first. This was meant to appease the very (and I do mean it: very) limited number of pacifistic logicians who whine that Han Solo could not be a "good guy" if he coolly shoots Greedo first. Yadda yadda yadda, the Special Edition had it look like Greedo shot first, yet he "missed." In this DVD version; he still shoots first, and (duh!) still misses, but Han appears to duck to the side, to make the miss more plausible. What. EVER. Personally, I never cared a tinker's darn about Han shooting first, and no matter what they do, this scene looks..."odd," if you catch my meaning. Then we get to The Empire Strikes Back. Lots of the visual eye candy from the Special Edition is still here, especially at Cloud City. Some tweaks of interest, however, until we get to what is in this critics opinion The Most Welcome Change Of All. First things first: unless my TV's speaker system deceives me, Luke's added "scream" down the Cloud City wind tunnel has been removed. In a similar audio change: Boba Fett has been made, for continuity purposes, to sound like Jango Fett from Attack of the Clones, which makes sense if you saw the movie. I'm no purist when it comes to voice over audio bytes of masked "bit players," and what's more; Boba only had two lines (excluding one "Aaaargh!") in the entire trilogy. So again; no big changes.
Which brings us to The Most Welcome Change of All. Remember how the Emperor of everything evil originally looked like a human-female ...monkey? Gone. As Han put it in the first movie's final battle, "Woo-hoo!" This is an alteration that should've happened as far back as 1983, when they first cast Ian McDiarmid in the role (who, BTW, played the character in all later films, including Jedi!). McDiarmid portrays a believable arch villain, both in the later films, as well as the re-edited footage here. Before this change --and even in the Special Edition of 1997-- Empire's early-concept emperor was a visual trick made by adding monkey eyes to an old woman (I kid you not!). The result, even to this 12 year old at the time, was almost unintentionally funny. As I said: that's gone, and as I said, that's great! Purists will whine that the dialog has been altered, as if to imply that Darth Vader had no idea he had a son, until told by the emperor here. It makes sense, though. I mean; if he had known, wouldn't he have hunted for his own son far earlier than this? Now we come to Return of the Jedi. Sadly, not a single Ewok has been digitally erased. In fact; the only erasure are Darth Vader's eyebrows when unmasked, which someone actually complained about because as a burn victim, he should not have eyebrows. Again: What. EVER!!! The final celebration scene is enhanced to include Naboo, which many people felt we never saw because it was destroyed early on, though hey; it was the birth home of the Emperor, so it makes sense that he had it spared. In addition, Coruscant now includes a shot of the abandoned Jedi Temple in the distance, which Palpatine probably left up as a mockery. All these little additions I liked, including, controversy notwithstanding, this little piece of debate heard 'round the net: The final change of all --the last 15 seconds, really-- is of the ghostly visages of Jedi long past: Kenobi, Yoda, and Anakin. To wit: Anakin Skywalker is shown as he was in the first films, aka Hayden Christensen. The audio commentary explains in so many words that this is because a jedi that becomes one with The Force gets to choose what they will look like. Anakin would ergo want to look like the way he looked when he was a Jedi, which for him was when he was quite young. It makes sense, really, when you think about it. Let the purists whine; I'm still in the "Whatever; at least I have Star Wars on DVD" camp. I mean, come on; unless you can tell me the whole name of the old actor who plays Anakin for all of a total 2 minutes in the third movie, does it really matter what Anakin looks like in the final shot? No...? My point exactly. Regardless of the changes, there is little anyone can do to keep these films from the impressive storytelling elsewhere. From dozens of classic lines to an engrossing story and a truly screaming-with-joy finale to it all; this was science fiction at its highest, even when released 27 years later. See my individual reviews of the first, second, and third films if you want the grittier details, but to me; this is the finest trilogy to ever offer on DVD, even above the Indiana Jones trilogy (sorry, but Temple of Doom was disappointing). Altered or not; this is the DVD set of the year.
The DVD: I know what you're asking: is this "widescreen," or "el cheapo widescreen"...? Fans of my reviews know where I'm going with this. To get an idea of what I mean, look at my reviews of Spider-Man, or Pixar's Finding Nemo, and compare the images there to, say, Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Special Edition. Most so-called widescreen on DVD is actually a cropped image, of the already-cropped pan-and-scan image. This means that these "widescreen" DVDs are in fact a video image that has been cropped twice. This isn't what widescreen DVD buyers want, to be sure, which is to view the film the way it actually was in theaters.
That said: it is my pleasure to report that the widescreen set of these Star Wars films is indeed a widescreen image (or at least; as good as it will ever get). Note the identical frame shot above, from the two versions of the disc. In a true widescreen image, we should see more to the left and right of our two droid heroes than in full screen. We do. In fact, we get to see a far greater expanse of the entire rebel ship hallway! This is true widescreen. That said; on the our regularly scheduled review... Not to jump hither and thither in my review of extras, but I got the biggest thrill out of those early actor screen tests! I mean, come on; how cool is it to see "Shirley Feeney" from Laverne and Shirley (Cindy Williams) test for the role of Leia? Likewise for William Katt as Luke Skywalker, who is better known as the title character of Greatest American Hero. Curly hair and all; his performance of Luke is a sign of how even the nicest of actors elsewhere just wasn't right for the part. Then there's Kurt Russell's test for Han Solo. Maybe post-Escape from New York he'd have had the edge to be Han, but in the 1970's he was too young to have the "action movie" edge he'd find in himself later on. It certainly would've changed the character of Indiana Jones, I'll tell you that, since as Han Solo, he would've been the one approached. Talk about a domino effect in casting. I love these screen tests! This is really cool stuff. Okay, enough screen test babbling; onto the actual extras. Well, let's begin with the audio commentary tracks, which is a good place to start. First of all; why didn't Harrison Ford and Mark Hammill get into the act here? Instead: the only cast member present for audio commentary in-films is Carrie Fisher. Now, it deserves saying that if you had to choose one cast member out of three to include in an audio comment track, Carrie is the one. She's an experienced writer with a quick wit, and hey; what boy doesn't want to hear her anecdotes about that "slave girl" costume that was just-barely-there...? Don't get me wrong: there is also commentary by the lead producers, directors, and team members who made the film, and their anecdotes are not to be missed as well: George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan, Ben Burtt, Dennis Muren, and of course, the director of Empire Strikes Back, Irvin Kershner. I really would've liked more commentary from the cast, though. It's a shame it wasn't to be. As for disc four; this is what an "extra disc" is all about. Many times you hear of special edition sets with "an added disc of extras," which turns out to be meaningless cutting-floor garbage. That is so not the case here, the comment has been blasted to a galaxy far, far away! This fourth disc is well made, it's stylish, and most importantly, is without a single piece of wasted space. This goes double for the two and a half hour "Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy." Yeah; this feature is on A&E this month...though only in edited, 90-minute form. This is the version fans want to see. Trust me on that one. The anecdotes given in this feature are truly astounding, though in addition is a whole lot of behind the scenes footage I'd never seen. This is coming from a fan who has been so thorough in his quest for everything Star Wars, I actually saw the Star Wars Christmas Special back when it was first released on TV. Yeah; the one so bad they never aired it again. The one with the "Star Wars Disco Dancers." I've seen it all when it comes to Star Wars, with perhaps the sole exception of the Ewok TV movie (not to induce nightmares for those who don't know, but yeah; they actually made an Ewok TV movie!!!). I'm just saying; this is one great behind the scenes feature. It's the best I've seen. Other featurettes add to the fun. Separately, the history of each phenomenon spawned by Star Wars is covered, from "The Legendary Creatures" to "The Birth of the Light Sabre." Another featurette covers the "legacy" of Star Wars, as its been kept alive in books and comics and video games. This is a lot of ground to cover; one of the first times a fourth disc of extras was actually needed, when you think about it. Here's where the extras spike the ball, for X-Box owners. Put the disc in any X-Box. There's a demo game in there! Star Wars Battlefront, the upcoming LucasArts title, is playable in all its glory. Mind you; if they included a demo of Knights of the Old Republic 2 I would've really flipped out about this inclusion, but the game demo they include is more appropriate, I suppose, given the original trilogy. Then there's the exclusive preview of Star Wars: Episode 3. Mind you; no major preview is possible for a movie that is not to reach theaters until eight months from now, almost to the very day. However, even a little sneak peek is better than none at all. It's not even like they had to include such a sneak peek in itself. To add to the fun of this addition; they include a sneak peek at the Episode 3 video game. That's a nice addition in itself. Topping it all off are the obligatory trailers --including the original trailer for Star Wars in 1977; a real treat!-- as well as the TV spots and promos. The bottom line; regardless of the minor tweaks, this is a great DVD set. Even for the purist who whines that they don't want to see anything but the movies as they were as-is; come on. Is seeing an emperor with a female body and monkey eyes truly that important? I didn't think so. This is the definitive DVD movie set of the year. What fan wouldn't think so?
Click picture to order either 4-disc DVD set.
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