So last Monday night (Tuesday morning) Anya and I made our way to the local Hastings music/dvd/book store so that yours trully could pick up my copy of the Star Wars DVD's.

*sigh*

My geekdom continues with no sign of stopping. Actually nix that. There is a date in the forseeable future when this whole geek parade comes to an end. It'll happen next May when the muchly anticipated (at least by me) final episode of Star Wars will be released. After Episode III, there are few movies or events in pop entertainment that I can see myself getting *too* jazzed over. Maybe a third "X-Men" will do it for me, and I can see myself getting pretty pumped for the new Bryan Singer directed "Superman." But other than that, there really isn't much on the horizon that's got this geek enthused.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm totally jazzed about Episode III. I think that it's going to make "The Empire Strikes Back" look like a bake sale. There is just too much bad stuff going on that I can't forsee too many light hearted moments throughout. And if you've been keeping up with spoilers to the same level as I have, you gotta wonder (actually Lucas has publicly wondered this as well) how the new movie is going to get a PG rating.

Even without spoilers, there are just certain things that we know are going to happen. ALL of the Jedi are wiped out except Obi Wan and Yoda who are so defeated they have to go into hiding. Young children are born and have to be taken from their mother and put into "foster households."

And last but not least, there is the epic duel between Obi Wan and Anakin. I don't know about you, but the 10 seconds they showed on the "Making of Ep. III" featurette on the dvd has totally gotten my hopes up for something special. It looks like it's going to be a GREAT fight scene. But even beyond all that, many people who have seen the script and the filming of that scene say that not only is it a great fight, there is a lot of great dialogue throughout. How cool is that?

But for the matters at hand, the DVD's are pretty awesome. The movies themselves have been given the enhanced treatment and the picture and sounds quality are amazing. Although I haven't watched all three of the movies yet on dvd form, I have "browsed" each of the different movies and think that the dvd set is well worth the purchase.

There have been some changes to the movies. I've never had a problem with the special edition changes, and I certainly don't have a problem with these changes of those changes.

-The "official" emperor is put into "The Empire Strikes Back" instead of the other actor who was a stand-in in the original "TESB." There is some new dialogue to the scene which serves to tie things together pretty nicely.

-The CGI Jabba in Ep. IV has been updated and looks more like the original Jabba from "Return of the Jedi."

-Han and Greedo has been fixed slightly. They more or less shoot at the same time now with Greedo barely missing his mark instead of that cheesy head duck thing they did in the Special Edition.

-Boba Fett's voice has been changed to sound the way
a "clone" of Jango Fett should sound. He did a good job of matching the voices and putting the same amount of "gruff" into his voice.

-Hayden Christensen replaced the original actor in the final scene where Luke sees the ghosts. A lot of people are all pissed off at this replacement. I think it's kinda cool actually. Lucas has said that he's going to explain the whole ghost thing in Episode III, so I'm sure it'll wrap up nicely. I think it has something to do with someone returning as a ghost in the form of when their Jedi powers were at their peak.

The features on the fourth disc are pretty amazing. There are many extensive documentaries about the characters, the lightsaber, and the movies themself. The crown jewel being "Empire of Dreams" which is a 2 and a half hour documentary about the making the movies. It's more or less the same one they showed on A&E but with about 45 extra minutes tagged on. Personally, I think each movie deserved a two hour documentary in to the making of the movie, but this will have to do until Lucas releases the inevitbale re-re-re-re-release.

Overall it's a pretty good set. Lucasfilm has said that they will probably do one final set with ALL the movies, ALL the bells and whistles sometime in 2007. So for now, you'd be safe to buy these.

may the force be with you. :-)

matt out