[wshuff]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3306092800&category=2307

They have to be bootleg, but how can this go without Lucas sending stormtroopers to the sellers house and dragging him off to prison?

Where do these bootlegs come from?  Asia?

[shokunin]

You'd be surprised how many bootlegs are in Asia.  Many are however, cheap transfers from various sources, possibly even laserdisc  , transcoded to mpeg2 and then put on DVD!  I kid you not!  I've even seen some VHS tapes transcoded to mpeg2 and put on DVDs in Hong Kong and Taiwan.  I've not seen these Star Wars DVD's in person, but I would definitely question the quality of the picture and what source they came from.

[Rob Babcock]

I truly have no interest in any pirated discs, but you can almost see why even the average guy might give it a shot; you've got classic movies that have sold millions of copies and Lucas thumbing his nose at all those fans.  His claim is that he wants to personally supervise the DVD production and that he can't do so till the last new SW flick is in the can.  Aw, c'mon!  What a load.  Does that mean that no one at Skywalker is capable of doing it without George supervising?  Besides, he's legendary for releasing edition after edition.  Surely he could crank out a basic DVD set w/minimal extras, then put out a Special Edition, overseen by himself.  Then an Extra-Special Edition, followed by the Delux-Xtra-Super Collectors edition, etc.

[bubba966]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3306092800&category=2307

They have to be bootleg, but how can this go without Lucas sending stormtroopers to the sellers house and dragging him off to prison?

Where do these bootlegs come from?  Asia?

Yeah, they're most likely from Asia. And probably transfered off the Special Edition LD's. Which isn't exactly a bad thing. There have been many a DVD pressed off LD masters.

I've yet to actually watch any of the SW bootlegs yet. Though I doubt they look as good as the LD does played back on a good LD player. Fortunately for me I've got the original Trilogy & SE Trilogy on the best LD pressings. And the best LD player to play them back with.

The discs in the picture on the eBay auction you linked to above are some of the best looking cases I've seen yet on the SW bootlegs. Most of them have a bunch of logo's on the packaging that don't belong (like the CDS logo off a Sony DVDP) as well as bad typo's. But the set in the auction doesn't seem to have those problems. And it's interesting that it's a DVD 9, most bootlegs I've seen are DVD 5's . I'd love to get a look at them myself, but why bother spending the $ when I've already got them on 12"...

[bubba966]

I truly have no interest in any pirated discs, but you can almost see why even the average guy might give it a shot; you've got classic movies that have sold millions of copies and Lucas thumbing his nose at all those fans.  His claim is that he wants to personally supervise the DVD production and that he can't do so till the last new SW flick is in the can.  Aw, c'mon!  What a load.  Does that mean that no one at Skywalker is capable of doing it without George supervising?  Besides, he's legendary for releasing edition after edition.  Surely he could crank out a basic DVD set w/minimal extras, then put out a Special Edition, overseen by himself.  Then an Extra-Special Edition, followed by the Delux-Xtra-Super Collectors edition, etc.

Rob, the idea on the real reason behind why Lucas hsan't put out "The Holy Trilogy" on DVD yet goes like so.

Lucas gets big cheese off THX licensing fees. Studios aren't THX mastering most all of the DVD releases. LD's & even VHS THX mastered many, many releases by many different studios. Lucas isn't terribly pleased with the DVD format, and that's probably the main reason why. So to respond to the lack of THX mastering on DVD, he's withholding the one thing the DVD format needs most. Episodes 4, 5, & 6.