One of the biggest stories to come out of the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show is the announcement that the Star Wars saga is coming to Blu-ray, though this is hardly surprising news. If there's a road to make money off of Star Wars, you better believe you'll see Grandpa George driving down it. This time the movies come in either a boxed set of the original trilogy, the prequels, or the complete saga. There are also promises of some 30 plus hours of extras and bonus footage.What has been withheld, however, is if the original trilogy is the original theatrical versions we Brats have grown up with or if they are the horrible bastardized "special editions". Once upon a time, Lucas promised that the original versions would never be released on DVD, yet bare-bones, stripped down versions were made available. If I were a gambling man, I'd bet that the Blu-rays are going to be the "special editions" cause Lucas doesn't really care if we like the originals better. He likes shoving the special editions down our throats and knows that people will buy 'em anyway.
If I may editorialize for a moment: I wish I could get more excited about this news. As much as I loved the original Star Wars trilogy, I've grown weary of the franchise. It's become stale and somewhat boring, focusing on space politics rather than fun and coherent storytelling. It may go against my geek cred to say, but I feel that many older fans are still with Star Wars out of habit. Yet kids still love Star Wars in the same way that we did. So it's hard to argue against it. (I'd be lying if I said I'm not excited to share the original trilogy with my kids. But not those new fangled prequels.)
The Blu-rays won't be released until September, but you can pre=order them from Amazon right now. Just remember, George isn't going to stop here. Later you'll be asked to buy the 3D versions too.
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