The George Lucas Usenet Archive

Re: close Star Wars DVD announcement
From: George Lucas
Newsgroups: alt.video.dvd
Subject: Re: close Star Wars DVD announcement
Keywords: Maybe I'm gay, maybe not
Summary: My announcements to all and sundry
Organization: Lucasfilm, Ltd.
Message-ID:
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 20:20:39 -0600
Steve wrote in <[email protected]>:

Every man and his dog think they know when the Star Wars DVD's will be released. Seems to me everyone knows squat, except the chinless wonder George Lucas himself. When he lowers himself to acknowledge the people who helped make him his money, bought the merchandise, etc, and takes time out of his 'busy' schedule to personally supervise the discs production, the discs will be announced officially.


Dear Steve,

I caught your post as I was browsing through some of my favorite newsgroups. I'll say right off the bat, I don't mind lowering myself to acknowledge the people who have made my Star Wars dream a reality--although in most cases I would prefer that they interact solely with my entourage of bootlickers, or failing that Rick McCallum. That way I can spend most of my waking hours in a trancelike state, the better to conceive my next awesome idea, or to spend hours upon hours browsing "the Web" (also known as "the W-W-W").

First off, I'm not sure that DVD is the right medium for my movies. As you know, I want the next release of the trilogy to be the absolute final last release ever in pristine collectors' edition form, so regular DVD just doesn't cut it. Did you know that Hi-Def DVD is just around the corner? It's not right to release my little cinematic beauties in any but the ultimate, perfect edition, never to be changed or altered again for the remainder of mankind's existence. (VHS and Laserdisc were exceptions.)

Therefore, I have set my staff here at Lucasfilm to work on the perfect medium, which as you may have heard is the bio-cube, a 3x3 inch biochemical organism that will be able to hold 100 million terabytes of data when it is rolled out approximately sixty years from now. I for one can wait, and I know you can too, because you don't have any choice.

But it's not just that. Over the past several months, while my second unit director finishes up the last dozen or so minor scenes with Ewan and Natalie and Ian, I have been re-shooting a few Episode One scenes in my basement, because I felt that now I can finally make Episode One the way I originally intended to, three years ago. Basically, I will be replacing all of Jake Lloyd's shots with myself, digitally enhanced to appear younger than my current 39 years. So when you ask, "What's the hold-up, pally-boy?" there is your answer.

Continue to spend as much money as you can on the merchandise and other by-products of my story. I am grateful that you do so, because after all, you the fans made my merchandizing empire possible. Without you, Star Wars could have been just another Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. When was the last time you saw Gil Gerard making an appearance at a comic book convention, the way David Prowse still does (speaking of which, is the man incapable of getting another job???)? Next time, though, try to buy a few more tickets so my movie beats the Titanic.

May the Force be with you,

G.L.