MULTIMEDIA: Why Does George Lucas Hate Us ?? Editorial

An Open Letter to George Lucas.

At the end of November 2000 Lucasfilm released the Star Wars trilogy on video only for the 6th time. This was such a slap in the face to his fans. Maybe the dozen people who haven't had this on video thought it was great, but it wasn't. For the last 3 years DVD has taken the world by storm. For the first time you are able to duplicate and even surpass the movie theater experience. A great DVD package with tons of extras and an awesome home theater system takes movie watching to a whole new level. So where is the Star Wars DVD?? It doesn't exist!
Many people can't even comprehend this. There are people coming into the DVD market every day buying a player and just naturally going to get Star Wars as one of their first purchases. Wrong! They cannot fathom that it doesn't exist. There is no answer for them or us. This has been bothering me for a couple of years now, but I just found out something that pushed me over the edge. This is the last straw !!
At the end of last year Lucas released a digital Laserdisc package of the Trilogy with the Episode II segment in Japan only !?! All the effort it takes to do this on an outdated format is incredible. Where is the DVD then!? So Lucas is saying there is such a demand for Laserdisc in Japan that he would spend all the time and money to release this limited high priced set, but not release a DVD set? If they put it onto Laserdisc it is a simple transfer to DVD. It could be out tomorrow. In Hong Kong pirate companies are doing this day and night making their own DVDs - when is Lucas going to wake up? The Star Wars Trilogy is the most requested DVD of all-time - there is no denying it. I don't want to hear some tired excuse from Lucasfilm that they don’t have time. Oh, they can make a special boxed set as a Japanese exclusive and even release it on the simple to pirate VCD format, but not DVD – the ultimate format for home use ever created! Why are we being denied the best possible way to view SW at home? What is his problem? Why does he hate us?
He can just release a no frills THX DTS version with the Episode II feature and put out some super duper loaded-with-extras version later if he wanted too. Lucas could stand to make a billion dollars worldwide on a DVD release. He could donate it all to charity even if he doesn’t want it. There is just no excuse when the other big directors including his best friend Spielberg are doing it with his Jaws version with 75 minutes of extra footage. Or James Camerons’ 6 hour magnum opus for T2, or Ridley Scott’s 4 hours of extra footage on his Gladiator Masterpiece – everything Episode I was not.
So George, where is our DVD? Don’t say you are working on it. It has been digitally transferred onto the Laserdisc format as far back as 1993 with many, many extras – there is no excuse, it is a no brainer. The artwork is there, the print is there. So where is the DVD for the fans? Why are you denying them? You own a mutli-billion dollar empire that can carry out your wishes at the snap of a finger. All you have to do is tell your staff what you want and it will get done, so why isn’t it a done deal? You release SW on every single available format in the past right away from 8mm reels of film to beta to CED to LD. And while you are at it why not release The Indiana Jones Trilogy and Willow too (which is out of print on every format.) ??