One of the big pieces of “news” coming out of the C2E2 convention in Chicago this weekend was that Steve Sansweet confirmed that Lucasfilm is working on a Blu-ray Ultimate Box-Set of Star Wars.
It’s amazing how this news spreads like wildfire, even though I originally reported it (with the exact same source and much more substantive details) back in July of 2009. You can read that full article and check out the full interview here, but here’s an excerpt from the story last year:
Q: Is there any talk whatsoever, and I’m not even going to ask for a date because I know that’s ridiculous, but is there any talk about the Star Wars movies on a high definition format?
A: Yeah. I mean obviously we’ve been looking at that for a couple of years and I think one of the questions is when is the market penetration there and these days, will there be a market penetration before everything goes streaming? But we’ve been looking at an ultimate box set of the Star Wars movies, all six of the movies. And what special features would be. And clearly these days, if you did an ultimate box set and didn’t do it in HD, Blu-ray, it just wouldn’t make any sense. So now it’s a matter of thinking okay, we’ve been thinking about this for a while, we know what kind of assets we want to use, we’ve done some work in cleaning up things, it’s really a matter of making that decision of when’s the best time to release it.
Do you wait and have an event because you’re working off of the fact that there’s going to be a new live action TV series?
All those things are very much in motion. I can say with pretty good confidence that at some point in the next several years there will be a complete set of Star Wars movies and lots of extras and deleted footage and anything anyone could want. Although I say that with some trepidation now because our fans want everything, “Why the Holiday Special wasn’t on there, you ruined my life!”
But in the next few years there will be an ultimate box set and certainly a Blu-ray set.
Q: That leads into my next question. Over the years, there have been a lot of making of documentaries. In my day job, actually, I’m a documentary filmmaker and the Star Wars behind the scenes documentaries are what prompted a lot of that, like From StarWars to Jedi and The Making of Star Wars and I’ve got all my old VHS copies sitting around. Are we going to see any digital releases of those either on DVD or Blu-ray? Is that even in the cards?
A: I hope so. Because I agree with you. Those have not been seen by the current generation of Star Wars fans and I think they hold up well for having been done at a certain time and certainly they are on the list for assets to be considered for an ultimate box set.
It doesn’t sound like very much has changed since then. As far as the release date, Sansweet pretty heavily insinuated then that the release might be tied to the release of the new live action series. Rumours of the live action show have it starting on TV in 2011 or 2012.
Now Digital Bits is reporting that they have inside information that places the release of the Blu-rays in October 2011.
But if current plans remain unchanged, our sources say you’ll be enjoying The Force in 1080p next October.
October 2011 coincides with the beginning of the television season for the 2011-2012 year.
Sansweet seemed pretty sure when I talked to him that the release would be wisest for Lucasfilm when they could tie it to an event and insinuated heavily that it was the Live-Action series. I know it’s a stretch, but reading the tea-leaves here, could this mean we get the Live-Action show in 2011? Or could this be tied to one of the animated shows that have been announced? Anything is possible, but if you connect the dots here, I think I have a pretty compelling, well-reasoned case that if the source of Digital Bits is accurate, we could be looking at the Live-Action series in October 2011.