Lucasfilm today announced that the entire Star Wars saga will arrive on high-definition Blu-ray on September 12th all over the world, except for North America, which will be getting it on September 16th. And there’s more than 40 hours of bonus features. Here’s the breakdown.
Today is “May the Fourth,” aka Star Wars Day. Lucasfilm used this auspicious date to announce the full list of features for the Blu-ray releases of Star Wars, revealing pretty much everything but pricing, including the lovely, original box art.
The saga is being presented in full 1080p high-definition video, and 6.1 DTS Surround Sound audio. You can choose to buy the complete saga, or just collections of the classic trilogy or the prequel trilogy. The special features include tons of content newly dug-up from the Lucasfilm archives and never before seen by the public. They include:
- Cast & Crew commentaries for all 6 films, including brand new commentaries compiled from archival interviews with the cast and crew (nifty!)
- One Blu-ray disc is devoted entirely to archival material for the prequels, including the deleted and extended scenes from the DVDs, concept art, cast & crew interviews, a fly-through of the Lucasfilm Archives, and more. Another Blu-ray disc contains the same materials for the original trilogy.
- An additional disc 8 documentaries — some new, some old — which range from 26 minutes up to 91 minutes in length. There’s the original “Making of Star Wars” from 1977; “The Empire Strikes Back: SPFX,” from 1980, about the effects used in the first two films; “Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi,” from 1983, which chronicles the film’s production and techniques used to create creatures like Jabba the Hutt; 1977′s “Anatomy of a Dewback,” a look into the making of the Special Editions; 2007′s “Star Wars Tech,” which originally aired on the History Channel; “Star Warriors,” a 2007 docu about the saga’s costumed fans; “A Conversation with the Masters: The Empire Strikes Back 30 Years Later,” a 2010 retrospective starring George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Lawrence Kasdan, and John Williams; and 2011′s”Star Wars Spoofs,” a collection of satire clips from TV shows and Internet videos.
Lucasfilm will be showing off some of these special features at Comic-Con International in San Diego this year.
