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GREAT NEWS! In fact, it's so great, I HAVE TO SHOUT ABOUT IT!

Heh, okay, now that you're all deaf, here's some good news about the coming availibility of the *original* Original Trilogy on DVD.

http://www.starwars. ...ws20060503.html

In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie and, as bonus material, the theatrical edition of the film. That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983.

Isn't that great? Lucas has seen reason! I guess now I'll forgive him for the Prequel Trilogy.

I'm glad to see he hasn't forgotten about his fans, because this has shown that they can and do make a difference!

(Apologies, Chef, if this should be in a different place or if this link has been posted up before. Please feel free to move or delete, as you wish.)

I was wondering if anyone's dislike of the Prequel Trilogy has ruined their memories of the Original Trilogy-- or if the final nail in the coffin is the refusal of Lucas to re-release the OOT onto DVD.

For me, the PT really, really shook my love of Star Wars, and I've wondered if anyone else had a similar experience...

Hello, all. I've nearly gotten through watching the miniseries of Battlestar Galactica on DVD for the second time, and my thoughts about it have turned towards the Star Wars prequels.

Perhaps you know that the new Battlestar Galactica series on SCI-FI is a re-imagining of the original 70's series. It has a different cast, a different look and feel, and slight (from what I have gathered) differences in storyline and characters (perhaps the biggest is that Starbuck's a woman).

Contrast this with the Star Wars prequels, which have also re-invented to a certain extent, the look and feel of a classic 70's movie series. They too have a (mostly) different cast (and of course, slight changes to the characters!).

Sadly, I've not yet seen the classic BSG series (though I would love to), but the thought has struck me that BSG 2003's 're-imagining' of the whole mythos is perhaps a more intrinsically successful operation than the "new canon as backstory" course that the SW prequels have taken.

Now, perhaps some old-school BSG fans would dislike some, many, or all aspects of the 2003 version, and that would be their right, but why make a sequel or even a prequel to a 20-plus year-old franchise? Unless you went back to using the same type of models and technology as used in the original BSG, and the exact same cast (put through a time-warp so that they haven't aged, which is impossible), it would look so different, so disassociated from the look of the original that you might as well go forth and do a different version of the story altogether.

That's what the makers of BSG 2003 have done. A fan of the original could very well dismiss it and refuse to go along with it, but the beauty of the re-imagining concept is that they could do that freely. The 'canon' of BSG 2003 is not glommed onto the original series, as the Star Wars PT has been glommed onto the OT, or even as the new CGI effects have been glommed onto the SW OT. If an old school BSG fan dislikes the new series, he/she can do so without having people say, "Well, the new stuff is CANON!" It can potentially be dismissed without making the old BSG series stink retroactively.

The Star Wars prequels, on the other hand, claim to be the original backstory of the OT. But the problem is, they feel too much like new stuff stuck onto the classics, like gum to the bottom of one's shoe.

I was wondering as to how much of the original trilogy's special effects shots were left in the new boxed set of DVDs. Say, for example, have all the model ships been completely replaced with CGI ships?? This would be one of the greatest blow for me in terms of of ever picking up the boxed set.

*Shrugs* The "Alien" movies' effects still look great; all four films used models for their starships.

For the life of me I can't remember the name of this thing, but I believe that there is a National Film Registry that preserves movies that have had a significant impact on pop culture. I heard a few years ago that the 1979 cut of 'Alien' was in this registry, and I've also heard that it has recently added the original '60's version of the Nutty Professor.

Does anyone know if the original OT is preserved somewhere? If it isn't, it should be, and if it isn't, well then why not?