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Star Wars…The Bootleg! I'm at a comic book convention (yes, I am a nerd) and something catches my eye. I was like a fish to a shiny lure: Star Wars was playing on a small TV. No, not just Star Wars, but a Star Wars DVD was playing in that booth piled high with pirated copies of all kinds of sci-fi and horror films. For the uninitiated, these booths sell hard to find to the impossible to find sci-fi, horror, and superhero film. It seems highly illegal, but these things are somehow every ten feet in any place nerds will gather. As I watched the movie I was in paradise. How can a Star Wars freak turn his back on the dream of owning this film on DVD I ask? Scared, but enthused, I bought Star Wars : A New Hope (the classic version). For those of you who don't know the difference this is the one where Han doesn't move his head like he has no freakin' spine. “How bad could it be?” I thought. I soon learned my lesson. Summary: Star Wars is the story of a whiny kid who learns the value of friendship while at the same time saves dissident freedom fighters from their oppressive government. My Thoughts:
The case itself is rather impressive. The cover is the original theater poster where Luke looks like He-Man, and Carrie Fisher has breasts that are only slightly bigger than Luke's. On the back of the case there are several screenshots from the film. If you look close enough, you can tell that it was printed on a higher end, yet non-commercial printer. On the bottom portion of the back there are a ton of official looking symbols such as the NTSC worldwide logo, and the THX Mastered logo. I don't know who they are trying to fool with these logos, but this DVD seems to come from the magic pretend land where Star Wars can only be found at a Nerdcon booth, which is owned by some fat sleaze-ball with a beard.
Opening the case, I found that the disc had a rather nice sticker from the Special Edition release poster on the front. Again, this is another shining moment of half-assed crap, because the picture doesn't cover the whole width of the disc. I have to question the genius of making a disc look nicer by NOT choosing a picture that covers the whole disc. With even lowered expectations, I put the disc in my DVD player. To my amazement the Dolby Digital opening looked great. After this, the shoddy menu screens made me waver again, but I still had some hope. I selected “play movie” and after the annoyingly loud THX screen destroyed any shred of hope left died when my player began experiencing major problems. At first, a small glitch signaled what was to come. There was a digital distortion when R2-D2 and C-3PO walked down the hallway, which I knew was a bad sign. Then, at about the time R2-D2 receives the hologram from Leia that player stopped for a few seconds, then after a few seconds passed it started again. What magic and joy caused such a problem, I do not know. I wouldn't have minded a cruddy picture and only okay sound, but when I can't even watch the film I realized how badly I'd been screwed out of some hard earned cash. Some tubby monkey was busily counting his ill gotten gains, laughing like Jabba the Hutt somewhere. Since the disc wasn't doing these things in the demo TV at the convention, I tried to give it a shot on my secondary DVD player just to see what would happen. The first time I tried playing it there was a constantly looping THX logo on screen, which is never a positive sign. I had to shut it off and clear the memory, and then hit play again before the movie would even start. After that, it played just fine, so I was grateful at least for that. I suppose I could hook up up the secondary to my receiver in the living room, but at this point it isn't worth it. In case you're wondering, the picture quality of this fine disc is not DVD standard even in your wildest dreams. It's not a VCD, but it might as well be. On a scale of “Is it better than a VHS tape?” I'd say yes, but not better than a brand new VHS tape. It is more on par with a VHS tape that has been watched 70 times and has seen the business end of a magnet. When the familiar opening credits roll for the first time on a decent sized TV, you'd swear you were watching the film on television in the early 1970s. I think that it only looks pretty good on a convention television because of the small size of the TV screen. Blow it up to a normal size set and it reveals its problems in all their glory. I guess I got what I deserve, after all George Lucas deems it unnecessary for us to not own Star Wars on DVD and he must have a reason. I'm sure all the waiting will really pay off, after all, I've heard he's hard at work making the discs as I write. If we're all lucky, he's inserting even more dance numbers. That's the one thing I think Star Wars needs, more dance numbers. Extras: Even a pirated movie has extras! Included on this disc are theatrical trailers taken from TV, and interview with George Lucas which was obviously done for something else. The last extra is called "The Concept of Star Wars". "The Concept of Star Wars" is yet another interview ripped off from something else. Brilliant. The title menus are fuzzy pictures from a couple of the films and look pretty crappy and are completely devoid of motion. You know you're watching garbage as soon as you see these screens. Score: Film : 9.0 Extras: 2.0 Edition: 1.0 (Editor’s Note: This was written before the announcement that the Special Edition versions will be released on DVD in September of 2004. Sadly, so far there are still no plans to include the versions we know and love.) -Paul
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