Graphically well done, I'm not commenting on the story.

Damn, your Blu Ray player must suck. : /

I don't have a projection personally, but I do have a 42-inch 1080p LCD, and 720p doesn't cut it for me on that television. Perhaps that's because I'm not watching it natively, but still, I would be able to see the pixels, and that's the exact thing I want to get away from. But I also don't like being very far from the screen. Sure, if you sit back it's fine, but I want a theater experience, and having to sit at a certain distance to avoid seeing the shortcomings of the material you're watching is something we shouldn't have to worry about.

Also, I've got a PC hooked up to that TV running AnyDVD HD on it, stripping the DRM for me, mostly so that I could take screenshots of the discs easily. I think we've talked about that program before, it's great. Perhaps that was someone else who used that program. Yes, it is a shame that we need such a thing, but I'm not going to refuse to buy Blu-rays. I don't buy anything I don't absolutely want (any more, I used to...), and it's worth the money to me for the movies I do want. In addition, most of the movies I have purchased on Blu have been between $10-20 on Amazon, in all honesty. And Speed Racer was my very first one, as chance would have it.

EDIT: Also, the PS3 loads Blus pretty fast. Honestly I can't imagine any other Blu-ray player being better than a PS3 unless it is region free.

EVEN MORE EDIT: I guess it's important to note all this is coming from the guy who thinks that a 2560x1440 monitor is worth buying.

GOD SO MUCH EDITING: I have to say, I agree that Netflix streaming looks surprisingly good. I definitely am fine streaming HD content from Netflix in the place of a Blu-ray, if only for the sake of convenience. Honestly it blew me away, they're doing a great job.

And, amusingly, it is the only Star Wars movie not directed by Lucas. I also liked it, but the 'I am your father' scene is cringe-worthy whenever I see it. Mark Hamil was... ugh... awful... seriously, hurts my brain to replay it in my head even. :P

As for the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD debate, it really does come down to what movie you are watching AND what screen you are watching. I have a 46-inch Samsung LED, and I can totally see the difference between a quality Blu-ray and an HD-DVD disc. However, I never saw the difference on the 32-inch Samsung LCD I had before. Crap Blu-rays are crap on whatever you watch them on.

You know what looks really good?

Light projected through celluloid.
Nothing else comes close.

----

Will I buy Star Wars on Blu-Ray... well, I have the original trilogy on DVD. I'll never buy new ones because they suck.

I didn't throw a nerd-hissy fit about Jar Jar like everyone else did (and maybe I should have)... but the very first moment I heard the word "midiclorine" I wrote off the entire series.

When I was a kid, if I wanted to be a Jedi, I could work hard and train like Luke. Today, the ability to harness The Force turns out to be nothing more than a parasitic infection. Fuck that and fuck George Lucas for having kids and wanting to make deals with toy makers.

The new films are irredeemable unadulterated trash.
Return of the Jedi was Directed by Richard Marquand.

I'll probably never understand those people. Jar-Jar was funny.

You do realise he means boot time as in, time it takes before the actual movie loads, right? That includes all the crappy FBI messages and stuff that you have to sit through and can't skip like you used to be able to with a VHS tape.

Yes, but Ewoks were Lucas's idea, AFAIK. And for that I I totally blank Jedi from my memory. It was supposed to be Kashyyk, dammit. :) Yeah, yeah, it was first Lucas' decision to make it Kashyyk, then he changed his mind, but I can never forgive Ewoks... ever. They are like hairy space gnomes, and I can't stand gnomes. The only thing worse than gnomes are elves, and I think Jar Jar Binks is secretly an ugly space elf, so there! :P

Also, in other news, I totally concede that you were correct and that I was wrong. :)

I suggest you to watch 2001, Blade Runner or Inception first on DVD and then from Blu-ray. Those both are detailed movies, which really benefit from the added information from the increased resolution.

After you've watched a couple of Blu-rays it's actually pretty distracting how bad the DVD resolution actually is. Some movies suffer really bad from too compressed image.

Granted, not all movies really benefit from blu-ray, but some do.

Every video benefits from the better compression though, even with a bad transfer. Watch a few DVDs up close, like on your large PC monitor, and you can often see digital compression artifacts. Crazy.

There is a producer by the name of Gary Kurtz who had worked with Lucas on American Graffiti and the first two Star Wars films. He and Lucas split after Empire both due to events that happened during Empire and the direction Lucas was taking the story in Return of the Jedi. Shooting on Empire went 75 days over the 100 day shoot plan and Lucas had to borrow money to complete the movie. Kurtz was the producer and some say Lucas removed him from the third movie because of the poor planning on Empire. Kurtz contends he left because Lucas regarded the Empire as a failure and Lucas started to change the planned plot of the trilogy from Lucas' own story bible for the third movie. According to Kurtz there was never supposed to be a second Death Star in Return of the Jedi, no Ewoks, and the ending of Return of the Jedi was supposed to be bittersweet rather than euphoric. This is essentially a summary of the Wikipedia article on Kurtz.

One wonders what the details of the original story were. One day I would like to read that original story bible/outline if it still exists. Probably never will get to, but from the snippets I've heard about it, it sounds interesting. Although perhaps upon reading it, I will simply be upset that Lucas didn't stick with his original creative instincts.

The best Star Wars movie wasn't even directed by Lucas. Empire Strikes Back was directed by Irvin Kershner and it was so much better because of it.

Return of the Jedi was also not directed by Lucas. For Empire, Irvin Kirshnir was a good director and they also had Lawrence Kasdan on the script. And Lucas didn't change his mind about the direction the story should go in.

Me, because I'm dumb.

/thread.