Star Wars Petition Great, But What About LaserDisc?!
Dear Gary: I have read your efforts to petition for the DVD release of Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, and I would also support the notion wholeheartedly, except.. I don’t actually own a DVD unit... and if I did, it would probably be based on a personal computer platform first before investing in a player for my home entertainment system. Seriously, I own a LaserDisc unit, and if there was a petition to release Phantom Menace on LaserDisc, I’d be signing 1000 times for it! What is the market climate like for Laser Disc? Are manufacturers still supporting the format, or is LaserDisc literally dead? I have seen catalogues for LaserDisc titles drop from tens of thousands of titles to literally less than one tenth by leading Californian distributors. LaserDisc is a rarity in Australia, and I was kind of relying on selecting the occasional disc every two months from American distributors to expand my library of treasured works. I do appreciate DVD’s audio and video quality, and most importantly, compatibility with HDTV, but what I don’t like about DVD is the “must play” track that forces users of DVD to either switch off the television for an arbitrary number of minutes, or sit and watch. (On some players I have seen in Australia, they don’t let you eject the DVD while playing this track!) This is one reason why I’m holding off buying a DVD player. The second reason is that no one in Australia is selling television sets that receive HDTV. They’re either PAL or both PAL/NTSC. So, I would like to see: • greater support for LaserDisc, but I find this unlikely in the future, • Phantom Menace on LaserDisc, and if ever possible, Episodes II and III on LaserDisc as well! I already own the LaserDisc Star Wars Trilogy boxed set and enjoy it immensely, even if I have seen it... what... some 50 times over 5 years?!
Tony Kavadias, Camberwell, VIC, Australia
mailto:tonza@melbourne.sgi.com
Editor Gary Reber Comments:
Unfortunately, the studios are no longersupporting the LaserDisc format. The last scheduled Laser Disc movie release from Image Entertainment was Universal Studios’ End Of Days. I do concur with your desire for a Laser Disc release of Star Wars: Episode I— The Phantom Menace, especially since Lucasfilm has released such in Japan in April (see our review in this Issue 39). We were discussing internally whether to run a “Star Wars On LaserDisc Campaign” on our www.Widescreen Review.com Web site, but have decided not do so (though we may go forward if we receiver other letters requesting such). Instead, we are focusing on encouraging Lucasfilm to release on DVD at this time at least a movie-only version. It is pathetic that the studios no longer will support the LaserDisc format. Even though the installed player base is upwards of 2 million, the majority of those households have added a DVD-Video player to their home theatre systems and there no longer is a viable market to produce LaserDiscs.
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