Disney, Lucasfilm and Fox have struck deals with one another and many of the world's video stores to make all six installments of the Star Wars saga to date available for download. From Friday April 10th, episodes one through six will be on Vudu, iTunes, Amazon and their ilk. Despite previous rumours, the unedited original trilogy will not be part of this release. We can't guarantee that these copies will match the Blu-ray releases of a few years ago - there's always the possibility of another tweak here, a different force ghost there - but it seems likely that they'll be at least 99% the same. So what odds on any kind of release for the originals, ever? Well, it didn't take long for Clockwork Orange to get back into UK cinemas after Stanley Kubrick died, I'll tell you that. There are some new supplements for the downloads, most of which are conversations between people involved in the making of the films. These differ retailer by retailer, however, so I won't even try to put a list together. And I do think it's worth mentioning that the Blu-ray boxset is much cheaper than the downloads, with iTunes charging about $120 and the box currently clocking in around $90. Much more on Star Wars over the next week or two as Celebration is happening in Anaheim soon, and bringing with it a new poster, a new trailer and all sorts of other goodies. Stay tuned.
Brendon Connelly has been a film writer since the early 90s, with time on the staff of Orbit Magazine, Slashfilm, Bleeding Cool, Den of Geek and many more. He's a long time teacher of film studies and practical filmmaking classes, and has directed music videos, commercials, short films and more. His favourite film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, his favourite food is pancakes or crepes, and he tries to live his life by the teachings of Kermit the Frog.
