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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

Star Wars: TPM NOT on DVD in 2000 121

Posted by Hemos from the retracting-the-rumour-mill dept.
FlyveHest writes "The rumour posted yesterday about Star Wars : The Phantom Menace being launched on DVD sometime early next year has been retracted by Newsaskew, the same people that posted the rumour the first time around. Someone obviously did a little too much Sherlock Holmes work, and drew some conclusions based on LucasFilm changing VHS distributors from a company that doesn't produce DVDs to one that does."
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Star Wars:TPM NOT on DVD in 2000 More

Star Wars:TPM NOT on DVD in 2000

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  • Re:dvd taking over vhs (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With VHS and DVD, you've got a medium that if it gets a scratch, you've got a ruined $30 movie. Video tape is encased in the hard plastic, and about all that can really happen is it melting in a hot car or the tape getting eaten by the player. You can fix the tape, and even tape it back together, and you just have a little tiny glitch in the movie, but the rest is still viewable. With a DVD, it becomes a useless coaster.

    I think you might be looking at this from the wrong angle. VHS tapes are basically an analog format. I'm not saying analog is bad, but it usually directly reflects the life of the product. In this case, VHS tapes wear with age and with changing environmental conditions.

    For example, a lot of people have the Star Wars trilogy, and, if they have viewed it a number of times for any reason, the picture quality of the tape has degraded, but, due to the slow degredation (similar to living with a child and watching them grow up, you don't see the small changes because you are there all of the time), the owner may not notice immediately.

    We'd all like to believe that that $30, $40, or more we spent on those VHS tapes meant that we got the greatest possible quality TAPE. Unfortunately, reality tells us that we paid for the most cost effective tape in the distributor's eyes, which definitely doesn't relate to quality.

    DVD's can withstand the environmental changes much better than VHS. DVD's are completely digital; nothing but a light beam touches the medium. So there is no physical contact, and, therefore, no wear. Sure, a DVD can get a scratch. But that is what error correction is for. :)

    Have you ever had a CD that looked like someone sandpapered the underside of it? It was something you needed or wanted badly, and, as you put it in the CD Player, you prayed that it would work, and, thankfully, it did! Same principle with DVDs.


    I just hope DVD writers come down in price.. I've used my CD writer more times than not to copy a CD of mine that had a severe amount of scratches on it (from [mis]use) to a brand new CDROM.. I felt like I rescued the songs at that last minute, fearing that one more scratch would have made it unreadable. :)


    shameless plug
    I really don't know what all of the fuss is about with the damned encryption on DVD's. When will the movie 'engine' realize that it's a waste of their effort. I mean, geeze, they went through this with CD's (Ohmygosh, they can copy it to TAPE! What will we do?!?) and VHS tapes (Ohmygosh! They'll duplicate it! Let's copy protect it.. it'll only hurt their VCR a little, and degrade the video slightly during normal viewing). Looking back, they should know by now that it never really hurt sales...
    /shameless plug
  • In all honesty, it really doesn't matter to me much anymore if Star Wars makes it onto DVD. I've got plenty of other movies I'd happily watch on DVD. Star Wars has dwindled in interest to me. Empire is still good and Star Wars is fun to watch but I wouldn't lose sleep over not seeing them much again. I've got plenty of other movies on DVD to keep me quite happy.
  • It's 100% fact that it was posted here yesterday. Does that count?
  • For some odd reason, Lucasfilm was fairly big on the Laserdisc format (also made a THX Laserdisc standard too), an essentially now-dead format in the US. LD is still alive in Japan because they have as 10%+ player penetration vs 1-% in the US.

    WAITAMINUTE! Why this inconsistency!? There are more DVD players now than there ever were LD players (in the US), so why is Lucas holding out on a more popular format? The copy protection scheme really doesn't sell much more or fewer copies IMO...

    I have the original edition (remastered) of the Star Wars Trilogy on LD, so I'm not concerned, and LDs CANNOT have Macrovision, so I can make a VHS copy to play at a friend's house. :)

    Of course, I know all the drawbacks of LD vs DVD, so no one needs to reply to me to say them...
  • Don't give me this "entepeneur worship" crap of yours. _I_ am the consumer. I demand that if I'm going to fork over my hard-earned money, I don't get jerked around by a conceited, high-on-himself, sef-proclaimed "artiste". _We_ consumers drive the economy and spend _our_ money, so I'd better darn right demand something other than crap from this famous-movie-maker-of-the-week George Lucas.

    It's only if we consumers _do_ make these demands on Lucas that we'll get what we want.

    You, my friend, are just setting yourself up to be a corporate tool, manipulated by those marketing drones that see fit to shove any old crap down your throat. And you, being the obedient consumerist that you are, will eat it right up.

    -Dean
  • hahahaha. You got all hoity toity and then you admitted liking The Matrix. You sir, have no credibility.

    Damn straight I liked the Matrix. Forget the obvious reasons--you've heard them, Descartes, kick ass graphics, whatnot.

    It's the little touches--the polish--that made that movie what it was.

    Remember the scene with the women in the red dress? Betcha didn't notice that the entire crowd was composed of identical twins and triplets--the concept being, Mouse needed to duplicate people in order to create a crowd. Gee, nobody notices, but it's there, and it gives another edge of loneliness once you realize just what that means.

    What about the reuse of numbers throughout the movie? Or the fact that the movie has a surprising amount of symmetry, more than you'd expect(sometimes obvious, like the movie beginning/ending in an apartment with a specific number, sometimes less so).

    The point is, Matrix was probably one of the more memorable movies in some time, and even if it wasn't, the creators of the movie have shown their fans far more respect than "Independant Filmmaker" Lucas has.

    If I lose credibility in your eyes for being of this opinion, oh well.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • I defended The Matrix in another post, but the bottom line is that The Matrix could dwell in the ranks of Ishtar and Planb 9, and I'd still take note of the fact that while Lucas seems to be going out of his way to bleed the Star Wars license out of every red cent, the folks behind the Matrix have seen fit not only to *gasp* actually release what consumers want in time for Christmas, but *also* commission a wide range of stories and comics taking place in the Matrix universe and place them online, free for anyone to read.

    I see nothing much left in the Star Wars universe but pretty graphics and dollar signs. There's much more potential to be found with The Matrix.

    Our opinions differ. I'll survive.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com

  • If he chooses not to release on DVD, that is his perrogative. I don't care what his reasoning is. If he doesn't want to release on DVD because he thinks Satan wrote the DVD standards, then so be it.

    Allow me to provide an analogy.

    I went to my bank today with my paycheck(it finally arrived; just in time for Christmas!). I told 'em I needed the funds from the checks available immediately--I couldn't wait two days, because then I'd be shopping on Christmas.

    "Do you have an account with us?"

    "Of course."

    "Would you like your money in large bills or
    small?"

    I actually just wanted to have the money available on my check card, so I could run to Fry's and imbibe some obscene amount of raw tech. No problem--the teller told me she'd talk to the manager, and make sure the funds went through.

    Now, you know? My bank really had no obligation to do anything beyond cash my checks according to the policies I agreed to when I opened my account. That's their job--to hold my money, and give me electronically mediated access to it when I need to withdraw some amount to pay for something.

    But, you know what? They did more. They've actually given me surprisingly good service every time I've called upon them. They've gone above and beyond what I'd expect, and I've got myself a 40GB Hard Drive and a 8x Yamaha Burner sitting in my 2.2.14pre16 Linux box(had to upgrade the kernel to support the drive) right now because of their service.

    I don't have to do business with Bank of America. I've even heard of other people having far less positive experiences than I. But they've been good to me, so I'll stick with them.

    George Lucas, on the other hand, appears to have an autocratic and idiosyncratic grip on what he will and will not provide for the consumer. And that's fine. That's his right. But I'm going to enjoy his movies less, enjoy the universe and all the synergy he can shove down my throat less, because he doesn't see fit to meet the needs of his customers.

    This isn't like Open Source. We're paying Lucas quite handsomely for the services he provides. BofA could have left me hanging until tommorow, or even till Christmas Eve, before they would have given me access to my funds. Lucas has chosen to leave his fans hanging until at least some time well after Christmas before he'll fulfill their request for a DVD version of TPM, very literally not in the same century or even millenium that the movie was released in theatres. BofA impressed me. Lucas, I am sad to report, failed to even surprise me.

    But that's fine. That's his right. It's also my right to become progressively less and less interested in the increasingly contrived Star Wars universe, and more and more intrigued by the world the Wachowski brothers have created.

    That's how it works. As a consumer, I vote with my dollars. And my dollars are going elsewhere.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com

  • I don't see what any of the above has to do with the DVD release of TPM. Lucas didn't start the rumor. Don't blame him if some people will believe/repeat anything they hear.

    Quick clarification(it's an important one):

    I'm not disappointed in Lucas denying the rumors--nothing wrong with eliminating falsehood. I'm disappointed that I'm sitting here, half a year after Phantom Menace was released, and the originator of the most stringent audiophile standard(THX) won't even correct the rumor with an official release date.

    Hell, he won't even confirm that there will ever be a release date, except for maybe, some time in the future, when all three movies in the trilogy are released.

    I'm not pissed at the rumor. I'm pissed that the situation existed for such a basic rumor to even spawn. And, yes, he has every right to release TPM on any media he damn well pleases. However, I'd rather patronize a vendor who meets my needs. The man who spread THX can surely understand why I'd rather watch the Matrix DVD than TPM VHS.

    Bad service is bad service. Just because it comes from George Lucas doesn't make it any more forgivable. In fact, it probably makes it even less--The Buck Stops With Him.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • Your bank analogy is poor.

    I prefer "my balance is neglible"...

    You have no tangible relationship with Lucas.

    Ah, but this is not entirely correct. Average it out--an individual of a given interest level can be presumed to purchase x dollars of Star Wars goods over a period of y weeks, thus generating z revenue for George Lucas.

    There is no contractual obligation for this consistent flow of dollars, but there's a relationship there. That I have a temporary contract with my bank is meaningless--I can close my account at any time, just like I can choose to lower my interest level in All Goods Star Wars.

    Just because you want a TPM DVD for Christmas does not mean that he needs to accomodate you.

    Nope. He doesn't. But I don't need to go buy the VHS version, or for that matter be all too happy with the enterprise as a whole. Remember--my bank had every right to reject my request, just like I had every right to close my account, or fail to recommend them to my friends, or whatnot.

    Perhaps a better analogy is a supermarket--fail to stock the Mountain Dew that I crave, and not only will I go elsewhere to find Mountain Dew, but I'm going to think less of that supermarket and will be much less likely to return there in the future.

    The man probably has many reasons for not releasing a DVD:

    1) Plans to rerelease in the theatre

    He plans to release in VHS, therefore irrelevant.

    2) Doesn't want to put out a DVD months after being released in theatre

    Too bad. Consumers don't expect having to wait nine months to buy a movie. The industry standard is, what, four to five months, with the release date announced long in advance?

    Lucas refuses to follow the industry lead? Fine. I refuse to look forward to the video release of the movie. I did, however, look quite a bit forward to buying the Matrix DVD, and I wasn't alone.

    3) Wants to put out a quality DVD without being rushed

    What's he doing, hand-encoding the frames? ;-)

    4) Has concerns about DVD's ability to protect his IP

    Compared to what, VHS?

    I just don't understand where you sense of entitelment is coming from.

    Consumer Entitlement is the basis of the entire capitalist economy. Customers feel they deserve X. If they're not getting X, they go to another provider who actually does provide X. The original provider thus loses money/influence/power/whatnot, and either goes out of business or fulfills the consumer entitlement.

    It's that simple.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • The way I see it, Lucas is saving me money. If he releases TPM on DVD next April, I will buy it. If he releases the next two separately, I will buy those as well. Then, when he decides to do a big box set of all 6, I will buy that too (I'm a completist collector, I have both Pan and Scan and Widescreens version of the original trilogy on both VHS and LD). This way, I just buy the one big box set and save myself some dough.

    Look, I don't want to wait. I'm exercising my right to complain that George Lucas is not heeding the wishes of his customers, and I'm praising the Wachowski brothers for exceeding my expectations with their continual support of their film.

    Lucas isn't saving you anything. You're losing time. It is a reasonable expectation of the movie industry to release their films for home consumption within a reasonably close timeframe--around three to six months. Lucas has violated this standard consumer expectation. Furthermore, it's unheard of for product to have no announced release date at this point of the movie's life--Lucas is violating this too.

    I'm not asking or looking for a top-down boycott/lawsuit/whatever BS is out there. It's pretty simple economics--this provider is not meeting the needs of its customers. While there is an existing penalty to "switching interests"(Star Wars as Vendor Lock-In! Whoa!), I think the presence of far more consumer friendly media players will have its effect on Star Wars.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • Go with the flow, Mr. Lucas. You're just one director, one movie studio in all of Hollywood (and in all of the world!).

    Beyond that, he's one director who should know better, in the one movie studio that brags about it's ability to make its own choices. You can't on one hand have so much responsibility for the entire home theatre industry and in the other ignore the desires of that same industry!

    I suppose Lucas could choose to release a copy of TPM spoken in Navajo Crypto Slang. That doesn't mean it wouldn't piss everyone off.

    I mean, he's acting like TPM was a much better movie than it honestly really was. The flick excelled in pretty much the one department(graphics and sound) that he's choosing to ignore in his home release. It boggles the mind.

    --Dan

  • Consumer Wars (Score:5)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Thursday December 23, 1999 @03:54AM (#1450168) Homepage
    OK, this is getting ridiculous.

    Aspects of the tragic human tendancy to continually return to an abusive mate are beginning to show up here--a (now retracted) headline story about how maybe, possibly, somehow George Lucas's Audience might actually be granted an ever-so-precious DVD home release of Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, within a year of the original theatrical debut(ooh!).

    Oh! My word! He's so great! What a wonderful, selfless, giving man, always willing to take that extra step*BZZZZ* Youch! Damn Pizza Hut chick with a blaster...

    C'mon, people. Being jerked around is being jerked around. Lucas is more of an audiophile than most of us combined--for crying out loud, THX. He knows who his fans are. He knows why he's able to fund the entire production of his movies(flicks?) based on the licensing of toy rights alone.

    If any film studio was treating its customer base the way Lucas was, the Slashdot community would be up in arms. As is, we truly cannot comprehend how the film industry's ultimate indepedent, a shining symbol of individuality in a land of second guesses and conditional green lighting, could behave in ways more exactingly greedy than the biggest, most cynical corporate mogul could ever imagine. Consumers have purchased--often redundantly--millions of Episodes, Trilogies, and Special Editions, yet we're left in such baited breath that Slashdot posts two stories in three days about how "Oh, we might get DVD...oh wait, who knows if we'll ever get it. Oh fooey!"

    Mr. Lucas, this is not the way you respect your customers. This is the way you alienate them. But that's fine, because you know what? This summer, I watched a movie that engaged me technically, that appealed to my philisophical intelligence, that asked questions that were left unanswered. At the end of the movie, not only did I remember each of the character's names but I cared about who they were and why they were. The effects blew me away, both in their originality and in their execution. And you know what the best part was?

    No bullshit. No games. Just the top selling DVD thus far. The Matrix has all the magic that George Lucas once tried to honestly sell. Maybe he can do a turnaround--I've made mistakes in my life, publically admitting here the tragedy I see in the fall of Lucas may end up being one of them. Redemption's a good thing. But it's not the end of the world if he doesn't find it. While Lucas was out complaining about all the fans, the Wachowski brothers were hard at work updating www.whatisthematrix.com [whatisthematrix.com].

    You want to know what the future of engaging your audience looks like? Ask the Wachowski Brothers. They understand.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • It'd be nice to have a little investigative filtering before an article gets posted, but that takes time and effort. It's funny (in a good-natured way) to see the Slashdot folks suffer the same conundrums as the mainstream press, in the sense of wanting to be the First With The Big News, while trying (hopefully) not to lie outright and/or look stupid.


  • By then we might not care anymore! That'd be terrib-- wait...then again, I guess it wouldn't be so bad after all!



  • Until all cd players play mp3's which probably won't be too long now.

  • on the whole, Slashdot does a great job of dispelling rumors. We are the new model of journalism because we don't take anything the media says for granted, we find out ourselves.
  • That's what Lucas said. No DVD until the trilogy is finished
  • Okay, I know I'm really late on this and chances are someone else probably said something about it already (what can I say? I'm stuck with a 14.4 dialup at my parent's house for the holidays!)

    When I was at the San Diego Comic Con this past August, I dutifully attended the Star Wars panel. It was announced (much to the booing of the crowd) that Lucas did not want to release *any* of the Star Wars movies on DVD until all of them were out in the theater. This was because he was thinking of bundling them together and doing a real nice package with it (for the fans, he claims). There was also some talk about him not liking the DVD format, but I can't remember if that was someone's accusation from the audience or if that came from the messenger's mouth. I can't imagine that he'd hate the format. This was August, mind you, before the encryption was "cracked" (which still gets me to shake my head. Weren't people pirating DVDs *before* the encryption was cracked?)

    We all booed. And I still boo. Shame on you, Mr. Lucas! You are make me very disappointed in you and your mega-franchise. First Jar Jar, now this. No, Virginia, there isn't a Santa Claus. He's been turned to the dark side.
  • Remember those clear disks that came by a month ago? Lucas may be looking to cash in on the next generation of home video. How many of us would buy a new kind of player if you could get both trilogies for it in 36 languages... on two disks?
  • Yup.. AFAIK he (George L.) has always maintained in the press that there will only be a DVD release (or any release for that matter) of parts 1, 2 and 3 after the completion of part 3.

    So 2006 sounds like a reasonable estimate. May even be 2010 :-)

    Bye, Arno
  • What's this "we"? You own Andover stock or something?

    -jon

  • Ummmm Slashdot HAS made some horrific blunders and dosen't do research... let's face it /. isn't a new agentcy at all but a refrence system pointing us to news storys SOMEONE ELSE reported and lets us comment... as well as pointing to all kinds of intresting stuff and the occasional Rant..

    So I'd say /. has as much chance of being a model of journalism as Pizza hut...

    Having said that... I have not seen very much reporting from News agentcys.. it's easy to confuse what /. dose with the news media becouse far to often the news media isn't reporting the news it's just repeating what someone else reported.

    It's even so bad on occasion news agentcys have taken to repeating what /. posters say... and thats sad... and funny...

    The news media is still comming to grips with things as they are... in the future they'll have to produce QUALITY not QUANITY if they want people to read there news... so /. is PART of a better model but /. dosn't do the reporting.. they just refrence the people who do... the best reporter gets the /. :)
    It'll be not the first report out the door but the most detailed report that gets our attention...
    /.s job is to FIND that report and let us rip it to shreads....

    Also on the plus side /. prints retractions on the front page... no one else dose that
  • I have heard from anonymous (trusted sources) that Lucasfilm is actually not planning on releasing TPM or any of the other star wars titles at least until episode 3 is out. Apparently they plan on releasing all _SIX_ star wars parts in very rapid succession once the entire story has been completed. One guy recons that this wont be until about 2008 or 2009!
  • What I believe you fail to realise is that there is a difference between DVD and VHS. They are different formats, VHS won't "die" anytime soon if not for legacy reasons, then for the ease of use, widespread implementation and cheap media. DVD or something similar is as obvious a progression as cassettes -> CDs was. We already had laser discs and it won't take many years before a DVD-like medium becomes very popular and widespread.

    Lucas has good reason to not like DVD. We all know that the format itself is far superior to tape (twice the number of lines, digital format, etc.) but we also know that any digital format makes copying a _hell_ of a lot easier. You can bet if SW DVDs come out, Lucas will be hiring yet another major law firm to scour the internet looking for mpeg-1 lower quality versions available for download. The current SW releases on tape must be captured on to a computer system and then encoded, but any digital format can be resampled with tremendous ease (any idiot can use a freely downloadable "tool" to do it with only one button press). DVD isn't widespread enough either. Lucas is waiting for DVD to be more common than VHS (at least for new releases), then he will have another of his "special edition" SW release campaigns.

    Here's a question: What kind of quality were the original SW master tapes? Remember that the original Star Wars was released quite some time ago and that a DVD (or any similar) release can only be of the same (or less) quality as the original recording.
  • Yes, that is my point, however, let me point out that in your repetition of my original comment you failed to grasp that trilogy means 3, not 6. By the time the "trilogy" is finished, there will be six parts in total.

    If you're going to copy what I say, at least get the figures right.

    Thanks,
    Jonathan.
  • Someone obviously did a little too much Sherlock Holmes work

    Damn you Moriarity!
  • Fair enough if you don't buy videos... you've got little or no need for a DVD player (you might as well rent VHS in that case).

    However, I'd say with the popularity of VHS purchases in music shops, supermarkets, etc., most video owners do own at least a few VHS movies. I bought my DVD player in March. I've spent about five times the price of the player on discs since then, and I love it. I haven't bought or rented a tape since (before it was a three or four a week habit).

    DVD may "take over" VHS the same way CDs took over cassettes.. ie., budget markets, compilation making, recording TV while out, etc. will stay VHS. Film distribution will become cheaper via DVD in bulk: encoding and mastering is currently very expensive, but will drop. For now, DVD piracy is uneconomic -- for the price of a DVD, you might as well buy the legal version. Not releasing TPM is going to increase piracy.

    Maybe wait for high-defn DVD (or whatever).. I'm prepared to fork out for new kit every five years, though.
  • ...until 'A Very Wookie Christmas' is released on DVD before he releases TPM on DVD. ;P
    --

  • Duh? (Score:2)

    by handorf ( 29768 )
    Doesn't it seem like we're all a little quick to believe this. Lucas has said he doesn't like DVD really... what, did we think that the DVD Encryption hack would make him like it MORE?

    Only after VHS is right and truly dead will he convert, although god knows why. I can't figure out why he doesn't want to make more money.

  • Your dvd copy won't deteriorate the way your vhs one will.

    Some people have better sound equipment hooked up to their computers than to their TVs and would benefit from this assuming they don't already have a vcr hooked up to the computer yet.

    Hack value speaks for itself.

  • That has to be the dumbest thing I've heard all morning (it's early, don't feel bad). I love Slashdot to bits, but a model of journalism? Don't be ridiculous, you must be gunning for karma or something.

    Real sources of journalism (i.e. Newspapers, and certain Magazines) actually do their homework before they write about stories. Rarely will you see a retraction in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, or Time because they're very objective and as they say, it's "Just the facts". If there's nothing to back a story up, they simply don't print it. Except of course editorials, but nobody is looking for information in those anyway :)

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Yeah, I'm here in Boston and I remember when they were fired. I was really shocked about the whole thing. Guess what? They were both fired that month. Two of the Globe's most popular writers got the boot because they were plagiarists. Tough shnookies, I guess.

    And how can you say there was no admission by the paper if, in the same sentence, you said that they admitted it in the paper? Were you reading the Globe that month? There were quite a few stories regarding it and I remember clearly reading an explanation from the editor regarding the circumstances of their removal.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Re:Rats.. (Score:3)

    by Tower ( 37395 ) on Thursday December 23, 1999 @03:27AM (#1450189)
    and I would have gotten away with it, too - if it hadn't been for you kids, and your dog...

    oh wait... that's Scooby Doo... not Sherlock.
  • And just what the hell good is a DVD copy of a VHS cassette?!

    --GnrcMan--
  • Arrrgh, don't say that - you might awaken "The Beast of Yucca Flats" [imdb.com] by accident!

    "Now would be a good time for some phrases. A man murdered. Flag on the moon. A woman's purse. I'll get back to you." -- Tom Servo

    Keep circulating the tapes.

  • Great point. Until there is a wide range of movies on dvd, which won't happen for years, there isn't a huge imperative for me to go out and get a player. there is also a morass of dvd standards that confuses the marketplace as well. DVD/ROM, DVD/PC, DVD/Audio, etc. I don't even know if these are the real names but I think you get the point.

    For myself, it really boils down to the movies, not the technology. Sure, it would be nice to see the movie in the format that it was released in, but it also would be nice to rent an old Hitchcock film that probably won't make it to DVD for years, if ever.

  • I personally don't care that Lucas makes money from licensing his Star Wars characters. He does that to remain independent of Hollywood's purse strings. As far as I see it, Lucas has no obligation to his customers other than to make sure that the $8 they spend to see his movies are well spent. If he chooses not to release on DVD, that is his perrogative. I don't care what his reasoning is. If he doesn't want to release on DVD because he thinks Satan wrote the DVD standards, then so be it.

    It's amazing and downright conceited for you people to make demands on Lucas. Who are you to tell him what to do? The nerve of you people. So many people today are self indulgent and think the world owes them something. Here's a newsflash: Get over yourself.

  • Your bank analogy is poor. You have no tangible relationship with Lucas. Just because you want a TPM DVD for Christmas does not mean that he needs to accomodate you. The man probably has many reasons for not releasing a DVD:

    1) Plans to rerelease in the theatre
    2) Doesn't want to put out a DVD months after being released in theatre
    3) Wants to put out a quality DVD without being rushed
    4) Has concerns about DVD's ability to protect his IP

    You are correct, as a consumer you vote with your dollars. But making this non-issue into some kind of Lucas is crapping on us because he doesn't do what The Matrix people are doing issue is a reach. I just don't understand where you sense of entitelment is coming from.



  • You can demand all you want. Some will listen. Some, like Lucas, won't. Whining about not being able to buy a DVD for Xmas is asinine. You can cloak it under consumerism, capitalism or whateverism of the week. The audacity of you people is laughable in my view.
  • So when exactly are the Star Wars movies going to be released on DVD? Oh, I'd say about 20 years after these 3 new ones are made.....just to pull a number out of the air........:)
    Hey, it worked once, didn't it?
  • Boo hoo.
    I wouldn't watch it again if you gave me the movie and paid me. It just plain sucked.

  • If I'm not mistaken, even pre-production of the two sequels for the Matrix hasn't started yet. Last I checked, they had barely started work on the script. But yes, they have said they will get both sequels out just months apart so we don't have to wait 3 years. I tend to like the anticipation though and being able to speculate as to what might happen next.
  • And that has what to do with the DVD releases? What, you won't be able to enjoy them at 40, but you will be able to at 26? You should be able to enjoy the movies at any age.
  • Lucas refuses to follow the industry lead? Fine. I refuse to look forward to the video release of the movie. I did, however, look quite a bit forward to buying the Matrix DVD, and I wasn't alone.

    Lets assume for the moment that the Wachowski (sp?) brothers had decided to wait until the next two sequels had been finished and released all 3 Matrix movies in a DVD boxed set at the same time. Would you be complaining just as much in that case or just figure that it will be cool to have them all in a box set and that it will be awesome once it comes out.

    The way I see it, Lucas is saving me money. If he releases TPM on DVD next April, I will buy it. If he releases the next two separately, I will buy those as well. Then, when he decides to do a big box set of all 6, I will buy that too (I'm a completist collector, I have both Pan and Scan and Widescreens version of the original trilogy on both VHS and LD). This way, I just buy the one big box set and save myself some dough.
  • The only VHS tapes I've bought are for my parents. My DVD collection grows with the release of such movies as The Matrix, Austin Powers 2, etc. You're right, I'm not the norm, but heck, what's the fun in being "the norm"?
  • Bought it three weeks back at a local Suncoast. $16 bucks, widescreen and fullscreen. No availability problem (at least here in the US).

    The original 'House on Haunted Hill' is also newly available on DVD. I'm rewatching it now..

  • StarWars overrated (Score:3)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Thursday December 23, 1999 @05:28AM (#1450203) Homepage Journal
    Screw Lucas. Go spend the money on 'Dune', or 'Apocalypse Now', ' Night Of The Living Dead' or even 'Roman Holiday'. They're all better films than PM. Why everyone is so worked up about a 'delayed' release date for The Phantom Menace is beyond me. Now, the delay on the Trilogy is inexcusable. They are truly masterpieces, and I am honored to own them on cap-disc.
  • DVD may take over VHS in the future, but it won't be in the near future. People already have lots of their movies on VHS tapes, and DVD doesn't allow you to record your tv shows to watch later. I think it'll be like the cassette tape and the CD. The only thing I use cassette tapes for anymore is to create workout tapes from my CDs, since CD players are cheap now and I have one in my car and a couple in my house. I have a CD burner that I could create mix CDs with, but it's generally faster to make a mix tape, and I need variety, so I tape over the previous tape when I get tired of those songs.

    With VHS and DVD, you've got a medium that if it gets a scratch, you've got a ruined $30 movie. Video tape is encased in the hard plastic, and about all that can really happen is it melting in a hot car or the tape getting eaten by the player. You can fix the tape, and even tape it back together, and you just have a little tiny glitch in the movie, but the rest is still viewable. With a DVD, it becomes a useless coaster.

    When people start buying only DVDs and only very few people are left who still buy VHS tapes, will we get to the point where DVD will take over. To fully take over, we need a recording medium, and I don't think DVD will cut it. We need something that allows you to record over last night's tv show that you already watched. Maybe once those hard drives get popular.....

    I don't really care about the Star Wars trilogy. They were OK. JarJar was annoying, and I don't really want to watch them 101 times. Let Lucas be on his high powerful horse and not release Star Wars to his fans. There are other movies to watch and spend money on.

  • I guess that Lucas is still going to pull the "make 'em wait" crap with The Phantom Menace. We probably won't see the entire collection on DVD until 2006 or so. Don't count on the original Trilogy (episodes 4-6) to be released on DVD anytime soon either.

    I don't know why Star Wars has to be one of the only franchises that makes people wait forever between film and video releases. Every other movie is coming out on video three to four months after it is in the theatres. Hell, I rented South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut in November, just a few short months after it wrapped up on the big screen! Even The Matrix came out pretty quickly, and I hear they may be going immediately into production of a sequel (unlike what Lucas would do). They're not going to make us wait.

    Merry Christmas, everyone :o)



    awkwardone

  • Lucas has said he doesn't like DVD really...

    Hence all the rumors (before Divx's demise) that the original Trilogy would be only released on Divx because of the triple-encrypted protection that Circuit City's format offered. This, of course, was an outright lie in order to drum up consumer support for Divx. Now, thanks to consumer education, Divx is dead, and Open DVD reigns supreme!

    Indeed, Lucas doesn't really like DVD, but if it becomes the dominant format, he will really have no choice but to release it on DVD if he wants to stay competitive.



    awkwardone

  • about a year ago it was found that 2 writers for the Boston Globe were making up stories and printing them

    Those names would be Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle. They come up often in my high school journalism class (when we talk about libel, plagiarism, etc.) They are textbook examples of such. Both stories made national news and were very embarrassing to the Globe.

    Patricia Smith used composite, fictional characters, and Mike Barnicle lifted quotes from George Carlin's book, Brain Droppings, without giving proper credit. I don't know where Smith is, but I do know Barnicle is writing for someone else.



    awkwardone

  • it all has to do with marketing.

    I don't know what their trying to do with it, but that magic word is supposed to turn us all into believers, and make us complacent once more. No - they're probably trying to form a relationship with a distribution company so that in six years they can start to distribute DVDs in "special collector's editions", and rake in the dough just like the girl scouts.

  • Assuming it is legal to mak a personal backup of your own copy of a film. It would theoretically be possible for a company with dvd mastering facilities to master a dvd of your personal copy of TPM (from the video) for you own personal backup.
    If this is the case then couldn't some smart arse decide that he would save you the bother of asking for a backup and be very nice and do the backup before you even bought the film. Therefore when you bought your TPM video form him, plus a small fee for the cost of backing up, he would give you your dvd backup of the movie aswell.

    and hey presto you now have TPM on dvd and nobody broke the law (i think).

    So assuming that the quality of the VHS is good enough you will get the DVD that is so sought after!

  • Sorry to rain on your parade but... the main reason you don't see retractions in the "real" sources of journalism is because they refuse to admit they screwed up.

    Case in point, about a year ago it was found that 2 writers for the Boston Globe were making up stories and printing them. One even admitted in the paper. A month later the stories were gone. No admission by the paper at large that this had gone on (for almost a year by some accounts elsewhere), and no admission that the story had even happened.

  • "Mr. Lucas, this is not the way you respect your customers."

    I don't see what any of the above has to do with the DVD release of TPM. Lucas didn't start the rumor. Don't blame him if some people will believe/repeat anything they hear.

    Heck, I could start a rumor there's a new version of Windows coming out that is completely stable, never crashes, and only takes up 10 megs of your hard drive. Hopefully that rumor would never be the lead story on /. because simply is not credible. And neither is a rumor about TPM coming out on DVD when 1) Mr. Lucas has a history of holding back Star Wars movies for long periods before releasing to the home market 2) Mr. Lucas is known to not be a huge fan of the current DVD format and 3) TPM was just in theatres earlier this month!

    If you REALLY thought TPM was going to be out on DVD in a legit release in the next year, then, while mommy and daddy are sleeping, sneak into their purse or wallet, take those little pieces of green and white paper, and mail them to me.

    Geesh, I expect more /. and its audience. I know a lot facts start out as rumor, but if G-d himself came down from the heavens to tell me this one, I'd call him a liar to his face.
  • That is, at the earliest 2005.

    This is what I've heard several times, and I have no reason to doubt it.

  • Someone posted on AICN [aint-it-cool-news.com] a few weeks ago that the release announcement would be in (early?) February. She works at a video store, and also said that such announcements are generally made about 3 months prior to the release, maybe in time for Memorial Day.

    But then again, this is Lucas. Oops, typo. I meant LuCASH. He'll probably delay it until next Christmas just because the fans will put up with it.

    The Lord of the Rings is more worth the wait anyway.


    Dracos
    Dracos
  • Amen. Lucas is nefarious for building up hype: I was way more excited downloading the trailers for episode 1 than when I actually saw the movie. To be quite honest, I'm sick of the fat man's self-indulgent crap. I can only think of one reason why he'd be opposed to DVD, and that is to attract attention to his "uniqueness". Let's hope that he wises up and concentrates on making Episode 2 a decent film.
  • Wish I could spend money on Dune. Unfortunately, some sort of copyright snafu killed its availability.


    --Fesh

  • The biggest reason not to buy a DVD player right now is that you can't get any of The Trilogy on DVD. DVD truly won't have arrived until we get to see all of the Star Wars films in this format.

    Although, in the meantime I think we can make due with The Matrix. ;)

  • The rumour posted yesterday

    I thought everything reported here was 100% FACT!

    I feel so used. :(

  • This is so stupid. I was 4 when the first one came out in theaters. At that rate, I'll be almost 40!?!?! by the time he releases the six of them on DVD (if indeed, he realizes just how crappy VHS really is). Why?
  • I haven't rented a single VHS cassette in 1999.

    But I have rented DVD's out the wazoo.

    Cassette tapes? What the hell are cassette tapes? Oh - is that the thing in my wife's car that my CD's don't fit into? (seriously, the cassette deck in her car and my ancient walkman are the only remaining vestiges of analog audio in my home).

    Yes - if you need to record SNL, "the big game", a show you don't want to miss, then use good 'ol VHS. But once you've heard a good 5.1 DVD through a good 5.1 system, you'll realize what crap VHS really is!
  • Thought it was pretty elemental myself...
  • Here, we have DVD...
    Are you KIDDING? Walletbuster video has ALL new releases in on DVD - and the cool part? When all the crappy VHS copies are out, the DVD's are still there! Plus, 800.com has anything you could want to buy, and Netflix has 'em all for rent!
  • It wouldn't surprise me if Lucas was going through the movie frame-by-frame making sure it lives up to his "high and mighty" standards. Well, hopefully he'll take out any scene with that dam kid in it. That boy couldn't act his way out of a soap opera...
    =======
    There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
  • DVD is in digital format, which allows higher resolution and much clearer picture quality. There is no real security format which would prevent you from making copies. The down side to recording to VHS is the picture quality will degenerate. Quality won't be as poor as recording from VHS to VHS. In time the copy protection will be figured out. Until then, just don't get caught.

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