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Usually ships in 1 business days | | | | | | Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980 & 2004 Versions, Widescreen Edition) | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Actors: | Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels | | Director: | Irvin Kershner | | Format: | AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC | | Language: | English | | Subtitle: | English, Spanish, French | | Number of Discs: | 2 | | Studio: | Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment | | Run Time: | 124 minutes | | DVD Release Date: | September 12, 2006 | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 417 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 417 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
84 of 97 found the following review helpful:
 George Has Become The Emporer Sep 11, 2006
By Bruce Aguilar
So after waiting 11 years or so, we finally get a re-release of the original The Empire Strikes Back in all it's unaltered glory. Just as fans have been dreaming about since the advent of DVD.
Well, um...I don't think any fan was dreaming about this particular release.
The original release version of The Empire Strikes Back (the only reason to buy this set as most all fans will already have one of the previous Special Edition releases) is relegated to bonus material on disc two. Ouch! But wait, it gets worse.
George Lucas, the champion of pristine presentation in the theatre and at home has released the film that made him a legend in the state of the art of technology circa 1993.
Yes, that's right. This transfer is from the laserdisc release of '93. Even worse, the film is not anamorphic like just about every other modern day DVD. What does that mean? Well a non-anamorphic DVD has a low visual clarity and the image won't fill a widescreen TV. To make a movie anamorphic takes very little time and money. That Star Wars is not anamorphic shows a disregard for the film that is troubling.
Star Wars fans expect these landmark films to be treated just like many other films (Vertigo, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Snow White, etc.) that have gotten detailed restorations that cleaned up dirt, grime and audio ticks and presented the films in today's state of the art. This is the release most fans were dreaming of. A release that showed the film some modicrum of respect.
George, the fan base you have worked so hard to woo over the years is fed up with your shoddy treatment of these films.
62 of 71 found the following review helpful:
Bait and Switch! May 27, 2006
By M. French
"NoHandLuke"
Lucasfilm is marketing this trilogy release on the inclusion of the unaltered versions of the films when in fact this is a shoddy laserdisc transfer on a bonus disc and the buyer is forced to purchase, yet again, the 2004 versions also. This is essentially retail fraud given that Lucasfilm holds itself as a bastion of home video quality and film preservation - these transfers are 13 years old, non-anamorphic and substandard. YOU WILL BE PAYING $[...] FOR OLD LASERDISCS TRANSFERRED TO DVD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. You will not be able to watch them on a widescreen TV with adequate quality - this is shameful and shameless marketing taking advantage of buyers. DO NOT BUY!
60 of 71 found the following review helpful:
the movie deserves five stars but the dvd treatment a 0 Jul 13, 2006
By MATTYG
"MDG"
to paraphrase darth vader " I find Mr. Lucas lack of faith in the oot disturbing"
out of all the three at least empire deserved the gold standard when It came on dvd in it's orginal version. But non anamorphic for one of the greatest sequels in movie history please!
again thanks for nothing mr. lucas.
Please somebody stop him before film history is erased forever by a so called film preservationist activist, who often likes to re-write history and cgi the crap out of it.
Please AFI and the DGA stop this madness! Lobby him to perserve these films as they deserve to be treated not as bastard children he once disowned.
179 of 227 found the following review helpful:
Move along. These aren't the DVDs you're looking for. Jun 27, 2006
By J. Renner
If you love the original Star Wars trilogy as much as me, it is time to send a loud and clear message to Lucas that you will not endorse a subpar, inferior product. Do not get too excited when you pop this DVD into your player to watch on a widescreen TV. The 1980 version will appear as a tiny, low-resolution image. It is a non-anamorphic transfer (which in 2006 is NOT an industry standard), so it is NOT enhanced for 16x9 viewing. Get ready to enjoy Star Wars like you never have before - as if you were watching it through a mail slot!!!
Boycott this DVD until Lucasfilm acknowledges and corrects this. This trilogy's most loyal fans deserve better.
20 of 23 found the following review helpful:
5 stars for the film(s) 3 stars for the presentation on DVD of the 1980 unaltered version Sep 17, 2006
By WTDK
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.-Albert Einstein"
First off I have no problem with George Lucas altering his films. They are HIS films after all but I do take issue with Lucas not making the original films that a generation (or two) grew up on available in a restored form.
Fans should be aware that while a marked improvement on the laserdisc edition (which appears to be from the same source elements)the image is improved by being transferred digitally vs. analog. The film looks decent although no where near as good as the digitally enhanced edition included here. Why Lucas could not have had these anamorphically enhanced is beyond me (it would probably have required another transfer however and that does cost $$).
However, there's some issues with the print being unstable at times with the resulting image shakey on screen. Colors are bolder here than on "Star Wars" more than likely because the film elements survived the passage of time better (and the fact that they are a bit younger as well). The bigger your widescreen monitor is the more noticeable the flaws are in the prints, the transfer (it's nonanamorphic which basically means there's less clarity, less detail and inferior image quality). Anamorphic is the standard for DVD and improves the image quality signficantly so I'm a bit surprised that Lucas didn't at least try and upgrade these to an anamorphic transfer in some way shape or form.
The digitally altered version looks terrific. It's interesting because the fact that Lucas presents the original with minimal digital clean up and no restoration is kind of like an unhappy child being forced to hand over something they don't want to--they make sure it's in as bad of shape as possible so that no one will want it. It's almost as if Lucas is saying, "see I was right about how bad these things looked".
I hope we might see this improved for the NEXT incarnation coming out next year (rumor has it that it will be a deluxe boxed set of all the films)but have no firm info on that. This might be the only time fans can have original version I'm just disappointed that George didn't think enough of the fans of his films to improve the presentation of the original "Empire" without altering further.
See all 417 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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