All six Star Wars films go digital, headed to iTunes on April 10
Walt Disney on Monday announced a completely digital re-release of the venerable Star Wars series, which will launch as a collection of all six episodes on April 10 through Apple's iTunes and other outlets.
From Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace to Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, each installment comes with bonus content and will be made available for download on Apple's mobile devices.
"We're thrilled that fans will be able to enjoy the Star Wars saga on their digital devices wherever they go," Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said in a statement. "These films broke new ground in technology, design, sound, and visual effects, and we've created some very special bonus material which delves into the saga's rich history, including new and never-before-released conversations between legendary Star Wars artists -- the masters who helped George bring his iconic universe to life."
Along with an announcement on the official Star Wars website, Disney touted the upcoming release in an ad aired during the NCAA national basketball championship game on Monday night. While not mentioned in the commercial, each film sold under the Digital HD banner has been edited from its original theatrical version, much like "complete" Blu-Ray editions released after Episode III.
Fans can preorder individual episodes through iTunes for $19.99 each, though collection pricing has not yet been made available. Bonus iTunes Extras content includes new footage and deleted scenes. According to The New York Times, rentals will not be offered.
From Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace to Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, each installment comes with bonus content and will be made available for download on Apple's mobile devices.
"We're thrilled that fans will be able to enjoy the Star Wars saga on their digital devices wherever they go," Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said in a statement. "These films broke new ground in technology, design, sound, and visual effects, and we've created some very special bonus material which delves into the saga's rich history, including new and never-before-released conversations between legendary Star Wars artists -- the masters who helped George bring his iconic universe to life."
Along with an announcement on the official Star Wars website, Disney touted the upcoming release in an ad aired during the NCAA national basketball championship game on Monday night. While not mentioned in the commercial, each film sold under the Digital HD banner has been edited from its original theatrical version, much like "complete" Blu-Ray editions released after Episode III.
Fans can preorder individual episodes through iTunes for $19.99 each, though collection pricing has not yet been made available. Bonus iTunes Extras content includes new footage and deleted scenes. According to The New York Times, rentals will not be offered.
Comments
THIS IS STAR WARS FINALLY DELIVERED ON ITUNES!
yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
I pre-ordered episodes 4-6...It's interesting that episode 7 is going to be released this year and yet they still haven't made episodes 1-3
you heard me right, they still haven't made them yet...what we saw before wasn't canon, it was expanded universe stuff
Well, I have hunch that Disney will clean up and release the unaltered OT to hype the release of The Force Awakens. I've held off buying the blu-rays.
The good news is that I already have the OT special editions on iTunes!!
the altered versions blow...but...
THIS IS STAR WARS FINALLY DELIVERED ON ITUNES!
yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
I pre-ordered episodes 4-6...It's interesting that episode 7 is going to be released this year and yet they still haven't made episodes 1-3
you heard me right, they still haven't made them yet...what we saw before wasn't canon, it was expanded universe stuff
What are you talking about Episodes 1-3 are canon. The 3 prequels, the Clone Wars cartoon show, and the Rebels cartoon show are all canon.
"Digital"? The Blu-rays are already digital. The DVDs are already digital too. Nobody in the marketing department knows enough about technology to realize that the buzzword they've co-opted doesn't really distinguish the product from its two most recent formats? "Digital" is not the word you're looking for, Disney.
Those who are interested in the original theatrical release versions, do a search for Harmy's 'DeSpecialized' edititions..
These are decent 720p/mkv versions with all the special edition nonsense removed...
It's still great news that the series is being released on iTunes..
This!!!!!
They might not be ready yet:
http://io9.com/is-disney-really-releasing-the-unaltered-star-wars-tril-1622812966
"According to our sources, Disney has plans to release the original cut of the Star Wars trilogy on Blu-ray. Our sources indicate that the project has been under way for quite some time, but it's been challenging because of some damage to the original negatives they are utilizing. The goal is to release A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of Jedi in their complete, unaltered, original form without the redone special edition SFX."
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/04/american-silent-films-lost-forever
http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/05/star-wars/
""There are also Interpositives and master prints. Interpositives (and Internegatives) are the color-corrected masters that theatrical prints are duplicated from, and were used in the past to make the home video telecines from 1985-1995." Another common practice is keeping print masters, which are high-quality, fine-grain prints kept in the eventuality that no other higher-quality copies or masters are available.
What this tells us is that Lucas wasn't lying—the original copy of Star Wars is, in fact, gone. What exists in its place is a composite film that has been restored and spliced together with Special Edition scenes and sections from other, later prints. There exist enough film copies and back-ups to re-create the film, however, so nothing is impossible in terms of a more classical high definition re-release."
Digital streaming is very flexible so they can offer more options than a fixed disc. They can even give the user the option to switch between remastered and original scenes at the exact frames by comparing and aligning them. In Blade Runner for example, you wouldn't have to watch all 7 versions of the same movie, you can watch one and see the different scenes.
This would have been a good opportunity to push UHD. They could have streamed it in 4K and sold new Apple TVs along with it.
As long as they do a better job than what Lucas did for the 2008 DVD set, which was to simply hook up a LD player, run the shoddiest fullscreen discs and record them onto a server, then compress the file and dump it onto a DVD, selling that as the "original editions". (LaserDisc has no Macrovision or copy protection due to a technical flaw so this is honestly what they likely did).
I want the original with the cleaned up FX, but not the silly extra scenes.
Great!...
I mean, my greatgrandparents once told me of these films...
This was like waiting for the Beatles.
Honestly you'd be surprised how well the original SFX has held up, it really is quite remarkable. I was watching Fellowship of the Ring the other day and that movie hasn't aged nearly as well.
And they're still the botched versions of the Original Trilogy, which means my LaserDiscs will stay around for the indefinite future.
Same here. I'll wait for the 9 film collection in a few years. By then, it may even be 4k.