Star Trek 40th Anniversary, Star Wars Original Trilogy
More information has come out about the “Enhanced” editions of The Original Series Star Trek, from the official Star Trek website. My apprehension has largely been alleviated after watching some of the sample clips. It looks like they are being respectful of the original series and largely limiting the new CGI to the spaceships, what Sulu sees through the viewscreen (planets), and other stuff like phaser fire. Other than that it looks like a lot of effort went into cleaning up the image and re-recording music such as the iconic theme song. I was also surprised to find out these remastered episodes will start airing as soon as next week.
Meanwhile, the “real” original trilogy of Star Wars (Episodes IV, V, VI) are now available on DVD. These versions are without the enhancements of the Special Editions — without a CGI Jabba, Greedo shooting first, and Hayden Christiansen’s ghost hanging with Obi Wan and Yoda at the end of Jedi. There’s a part of me that definitely wants to experience the Star Wars of my childhood, warts and all, but the packaging of these DVDs is pretty lame. Namely, that these original versions are packaged with the special editions, which I already own. So in order to buy this original trilogy, one has to buy the special trilogy all over again. I don’t get it.
Couldn’t all this Star Trek and Star Wars stuff be available for download from the iTunes Store? No, that would have made the customers too happy…