1997 saw the return of the Star Wars Trilogy to the big screen. With the original film digitally remastered, plus all new, never seen before footage and updated soundtrack it proved to be the ultimate movie experience.
This classic film was restored in all its original glory for a 90's audience, some of which were either too young or just not around to witness this extraordinary science-fiction film which heralded the era of the summer blockbuster movie.
To coincide with the films 20th anniversary, Lucasfilm released both full-screen
and widescreen versions of the Special Edition. Meanwhile, here in
the UK, home cinema enthusiasts were ecstatic when it was revealed that
Encore Entertainment had struck a deal with Lucasfilm in 1997 to bring the
all new Special Edition to the Laserdisc format.
If you've been reading the home cinema magazines then you will probably already know of some of the problems that have plagued this release, both on video and Laserdisc. For those that haven't, read on...
With the worldwide release on video of the trilogy, serious quantity and quality control problems manifested themselves. It seems that some retailers have complained about the shortage of boxed sets of the trilogy, to some it would appear that 20th Century Fox underestimated the demand for the video's, which were supposedly limited to a 3 month shelf life (no more copies were to be sold after 28th February 1998). Many people complained about the quality of the packaging, sound and picture quality.
"HCC (Home Cinema Choice) received several complaints about the Star Wars Special Edition trilogy, released recently by Fox Video. The video trade's leading weekly paper has also confirmed that all manner of problems beset the trilogy. Not only had there been large unfulfilled orders for the widescreen versions of the movies, but there had been complaints about picture quality and examples of box-sets which contained two copies of the same film. One video wholesaler is quoted as saying: "Basically its absolutely chaotic. It's a monumental cock-up of the highest order." Reproduced from Home Cinema Choice December 97 issue.
Here in the UK, we had been informed that the UK Laserdisc release would come out two weeks earlier than the American version, that date was 27th October 1997. It was a dream come true, but there was only one problem, it didn't!
"A couple of issues ago we printed that this Trilogy boxset was not THX approved, despite coming from the same THX-approved digital master, and being pressed at the same Japanese plant as the NTSC versions, the situation has not changed. André explains:"It was not a question of time - after problems getting the artwork approved and the necessary pressing time, we felt that we would miss our release date if we waited for THX to certify the discs. Then Lucasfilm said that all the discs had to be certified, but we had already removed the logo from the beginning of each movie, and the inner sleeve." André also wanted to make clear that just because the THX badge isn't on this or some of Encore's other discs, it doesn't make them inferior in quality to NTSC THX badged ones, "Take Independance Day, for example, same master as the US version, same pressing factory - £15 cheaper because we didn't have it approved by THX". André Willey, production coordinator for Encore Entertainment speaking in Home Entertainment Christmas 97 issue.
If that wasn't bad enough, after the pressing run had been completed and sample discs were sent to THX for certification, an error was found. The problem was with the first disc in the box-set 'Star Wars', Lucasfilm was not happy with the the 3dB difference in sound levels between the two sides. To put this in perspective, a 3dB difference in sound levels means that one side is only half as loud as the other, this was a glaring error in production. The fault had been put down to the fact that an incorrect master tape had inadvertantly been sent to the pressing plant in Japan. The end result was that THX rejected the disc and exercised their right to order the batch to be scrapped. Encore announced that due to production problems there would be a delay whilst a new master tape was dispatched to the pressing plant in Japan, and to make matters worse it would take around one month to produce a new glass master, send it to THX for testing and commence the re-pressing of 5000 copies of 'Star Wars'. Apart from pushing the release date forward from October to December 1997, they also increased the price of the box-set by £20!
Once the discs had been re-pressed, samples had to be sent back to THX for approval. Encore had hoped that this would only take a matter of a few days, so that within a week the remainder of the discs could be flown back to the UK, packaged and distributed in time for Christmas, however this was not to be. THX finally gave their approval in January 1998 and the release date was moved forward yet again from January to 28th February 1998 (my birthday and the final day that the trilogy could be openly sold by retailers).
I finally received my 'Star Wars Special Edition' box-set some 5 months later than the original release date, was it worth the wait?, Yes! But just when you think everything's alright guess what? Another cock-up (I should be getting used to this...) of monumental proportions. On 'Return of the Jedi', Side 2 was CAV encoded so you could view the special effects sequences frame by frame, due to an error with the frame/field encoding process used on CAV discs the picture is unstable in still mode and is virtually unwatchable! Encore apparantly discovered this as soon as the discs arrived back in the UK, yet there is no mention of this on their web site. It took the May 98 issue of Home Cinema Choice to break the news to the public.
"Infuriatingly, it transpires that the problem with the CAV frame/field codes was apparent in the original pre-approved pressings of the discs. Encore also claim that Pioneer knew of the fault and is mystified as to how it got through the quality control process. Encore is hoping to replace the unstable Jedi disc (but not the whole set) for all those that request it."
Though this whole matter was a disaster from start to finish I feel that there are lessons to be learnt from this, firstly quality control should have been tighter. THX was a quality control system set up by George Lucas so that audiences would experience the film the way the director intended, either in a cinema or at home. To this end rigid guidelines were drawn up regarding the quality of both pictures and sound, the mastering process, the specifications for reproduction in cinemas and specifications for home cinema equipment.
THX, Encore and Pioneer need to take a long hard look at their quality control procedures, mistakes have been made and they should learn from the experience so that this regrettable incident does not happen again in the future.
The second lesson is that the consumer should not be forced to absorb the
extra costs in correcting products which have been defective in manufacture.
The fault does not lie with the consumer, it lies with the manufacturer who
should have taken whatever steps necessary to recover the cost of re-pressing
defective discs, and not pass them onto the consumer along with a lame excuse!
That is what contracts are about!
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