Star Wars Blu-ray Release Announced, New Deleted Scene Revealed

Posted by on August 17th, 2010   Filed under: DVD and Blu-ray, Sci-fi
Source: StarWars.com

Over the weekend, George Lucas made a large group of Star Wars fans very happy by confirming that the Star Wars saga will hit Blu-ray sometime next year. At Celebration V in Orlando, where he was interviewed on stage by Jon Stewart, he revealed that all six Star Wars movies will be available in a combined box set in fall of 2011 — an announcement that was backed up by a subsequent press release issued by Lucasfilm. In addition to providing the “highest possible picture and audio presentation”, the release will also include plenty of never-before-seen bonus material. As proof of this, the audience was treated to a brand new deleted scene from Return of the Jedi showing Luke as he puts together his new lightsaber prior to entering Jabba’s palace.

Although some people were wondering if they might wait for the rumoured 3-D re-release of Star Wars in theatres before they put the movies out on Blu-ray, it only makes sense that we will probably get yet another version of the Star Wars movies on 3-D Blu-ray a couple of years from now. Still, I think high-definition transfers of the movies will be more than enough to convince most fans to buy them all over again. New bonus material is always nice as well, although it’s hard to believe that there is still stuff left in the archives for them to dig up.

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about this release is that it doesn’t appear that you will be able to purchase the original trilogy separate from the prequels. Will you be buying Star Wars on Blu-ray next year? Check out a bootleg video of the new deleted scene embedded below (at least until Lucas’ lawyers find it).



  • “in a combined box set”

    Fuck that.

  • Stormy

    Nope. I’ll rent the OT, but I’m done giving Lucas more money every couple of years, especially since he seems bound and determined to alienate the fans who made him what he is.

  • Mason

    Great news! I’ve been waiting years for the hexology in high-density. I can wait one more.

  • El Ultimo Hombre

    If he released the non-special editions of the original trilogy I would happily buy them along with a blu-ray player, which I don’t own. As it is, I have to watch my crappy DVD laserdisc copies. But it’s always worth it to hear the original ewok song and not have to see that stupid Jabba scene in Episode IV.

  • Jonny Ashley

    “highest possible picture and audio presentation”

    Coming from Lucas, I’m sure he’s going to replace the REST of the original trilogy with cg too. Pessimism aside, I really hope this means they’re restoring the original trilogy to its formerly undigital self. But I highly doubt it.

  • Steini

    @Jonny Lucas already said that there will be only the Special Editions of the original three movies in the box because it would be “too expensive” to remaster the original prints in order to get a good picture quality. So that’s for that.

  • Nic Lipelli

    Good slashdot comment and long as hell blog post about the past treatment and currently available prints and masters of Episodes 4-6.

    http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1754592&cid=33256074

    http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html

  • Brendan

    @Nic Lipelli: Nice article about the restoration (I didn’t read it all yet, it is pretty lengthy).
    There was a website I ran across several years ago where a guy was doing his own Star Wars remastering of the theatrical version of the film. He was working off of the laserdisc version, which was apparently remastered, unlike the original versions Lucas made available on DVD in 2006. The guy was also color correcting the laserdisc version scene by scene, and showed how the Special Editions had pretty inconsistent color and poorly matched effects.
    I used to have his site bookmarked to see how his progress was going, but I deleted it a while ago, since he didn’t update very often. I’m not sure if he ever finished it, but it would be interesting to know if he, or anyone else managed to create a high quality version of the theatrical cut.

  • Nic Lipelli

    In time, it will probably go the way of The Star Wars Christmas Special. Maybe spread from person to person in back alley (or subnet) transactions, only without the Nth generation VHS copy artifacts.

  • Jason

    “@Jonny Lucas already said that there will be only the Special Editions of the original three movies in the box because it would be “too expensive” to remaster the original prints in order to get a good picture quality. So that’s for that.”

    Too expensive?? Lucas is one of the richest men in the world. How dare he say ANYthing is too expensive. I’m glad I’m not a fan of his or his movies. I can live peacefully knowing I’ve never, nor ever will, contributed to his wealth.

  • I saw the original three films, the middle of the trilogy (seems 7, 8, and 9 are never coming), in seventy-millimeter film with six-track sound. Blu-ray? Who CAREs?

  • James

    Brenden, you may be thinking of Star Wars Revisted which color corrects the 2004 versions back to their proper timing. And actually improves a lot of the effects as well as removing the really bad alterations.

    Petition for the original versions restored properly:
    http://originaltrilogy.com/petition/

    And LFL will say highest quality possible but that’s what they said about 2004 and totally F***ed up the video and audio. How can you possibly meddle with the contrast, give it a blue tint and call that a restoration?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH4OO8lofy4