The Force Won't Be With DVD Lovers

The home video version of ""Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace'' will hit stores worldwide the first week of April, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. loudly trumpeted [last] week. It's something of a movie distribution landmark, the companies noted, given the challenges getting versions of the film in all the appropriate languages shipped to all the appropriate sales locations at one time. What Fox and Lucasfilm didn't mention, however, was a release date for a DVD version of 1999's biggest grossing film. That's particularly odd, given that creator George Lucas made history with the movie's digital projection in theatres in Burbank, Northridge and New Jersey last summer. And Lucas plans to make yet more history with the high-definition digital video shooting of the next ""Star Wars'' episode. It'll be digital all the way, from whiz-bang effects shots to the most straightforward close-up of a plain old human, using special cameras built by Sony and Panavision. So why no digital version of ""Phantom Menace'' for the home? It's a question that's consumed a lot of Internet bandwidth in recent days among the remarkably single-minded fans of the series. But Fox officials say there's a simple answer. ""The truth is that George wants to do something really great with it, and he doesn't have the time,'' said Fox spokesman Steven Feldstein. ""He's in preproduction with the next sequel, and is doing the writing on it. He starts shooting on it this summer. The DVD format provides the opportunity to do a lot of different things, but it takes time, and that's the one thing nobody around here has.'' So despite grossing $922 million worldwide so far on ""Phantom Menace,'' Lucas apparently can't afford to hire decent help to get the DVD version done. And don't hold your breath waiting for anything else from that galaxy far, far away to appear in the new format. Feldstein said not to anticipate a DVD version of ``any of the Star Wars movies, clearly not for 2000 or the foreseeable future.''Note: Sign the ""Star Wars On DVD"" petition at www.WidescreenReview.com.

Source: Los Angeles Daily News via New York Times Syndicate