'Star Wars' makes its SteelBook debut in November
Posted Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 4:53 PM Central
Last updated Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 4:54 PM Central
by John Couture
Chalk another one up in the worst-kept secret in Hollywood column as today Fox, Disney and LucasFilm (yes all three) announced that Blu-ray SteelBook versions of the Star Wars films will make their debut on November 10. For those of you scratching your head at the term SteelBook, it refers to the collectible metal packaging that some films have been released (or re-released) in over the last few years.
To be fair, previous SteelBook versions of the Star Wars films have been available in the United Kingdom since 2013, but this is the first time that a version will be made available to the rest of the world. So, I know you're asking the important questions, what new features will there be and how much?
That's the bad news. According to the release on StarWars.com, there will not be any new features or bonuses in the collection. They will basically be the exact same Blu-ray versions that are currently available now. The only difference will be the collectible SteelBook packaging. It wasn't immediately clear if the previously released new featurettes from the digital release would be included in this package or not, but given that the digital release was handled by Disney and this release is being put out by Fox, I would guess not.
That does lead to an interesting thing though that was brought to light by today's announcement. While Fox continues to hold all rights to A New Hope basically forever, it was thought that with Disney's announcement earlier this year of the films' debut on digital that some sort of deal was brokered between Fox and Disney. While the finer points of the deal are still unknown, it would seem that Disney is handling the digital rights of the films while Fox will retain the rights to physical media until May 2020, when the rights to the other five films not named A New Hope will officially go to Disney.
Of course, with Star Wars: Episode IX set to come out in 2019, 2020 would be an ideal time to release a new "complete" collection of all nine films in the franchise. Funny how that works out, huh? The fly in the ointment will still be Fox and A New Hope, but I'm sure that the two studios will come to an agreement on that, right?
Before you ask, yes these will be the special edition versions of the films. If I were a betting man, I wouldn't expect that we'd see the original theatrical versions of the films before Disney is able to secure the home distribution of other five films in 2020.
As for the cost, each film will be available with a suggested retail price of $24.99. Fox didn't immediately release the SRP for the collection, but I would wager a bet that it would fall somewhere between the $139.99 price of the existing The Complete Saga and the $149.94 individual price of all six movies together.
As with any SteelBook, I know what you really want to know is what it will look like. Thankfully, I've included the art below for each film and the complete collection and this is where I think the SteelBook collection falls flat on its face. The appeal of SteelBooks is the art obviously and the choice of characters and art is curious at best. I wouldn't have chosen General Grievous for example and I think not having a Han frozen in carbonite SteelBook for Empire is a wasted opportunity.
I would have bought have easily shelled out the money for Han in carbonite SteelBook and I can't believe that I'm the only one who feels this way. But, as it stands, if you have successfully avoided buying the films on Blu-ray up to this point, then the SteelBooks might be the ones to tip the scales. Interestingly, the dark side is represented on five of the six SteelBooks with only Yoda representing the good guys.
Of course, maybe that's a spoiler for Force Awakens. What if Yoda was really on the dark side this entire time? Whoa!
