Blu-ray Review: 'Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith' (2019 Buena Vista Home Entertainment Reissue)

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The 2019 "Multi-Screen Edition" reissue sports new slipcover/jewel box art based on Drew Struzan's 2005 theatrical release poster. © 2019 Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)
As part of the pre-release marketing blitz ahead of the December 20 premiere of J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Buena Vista Home Entertainment reissued all 10 of Lucasfilm Ltd.'s live-action Star Wars feature films, including the existing Skywalker Saga Episodes and the two A Star Wars anthology films (Rogue One and Solo) on DVD and Blu-ray in late September. Dubbed the "Multi-Screen Edition" because each disc comes with an insert that contains the code for a streamable/downloadable copy, this 2019 rerelease marks the first time that The Walt Disney Company's home media distributor offers the first six Star Wars movies made during the George Lucas era at Lucasfilm (another Disney subsidiary.)


Publicity photo depicting eight of the 10 titles in the 2019 Multi-Screen reissue. (Not shown: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story). © 2019 Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)

Although Buena Vista has been releasing Star Wars titles on home media since 2014 (its first offering was that year's Star Wars: The Clone Wars - The Lost Missions), but the Multi-Screen reissue marks the absorption of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment into the Disney family; six of the 10 titles in the Multi-Screen Edition were originally released by Fox on DVD and Blu-ray between 2001 and 2015.

The 10 titles released in the 2019 Multi-Screen Edition are:

  • Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace
  • Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones  
  • Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
  • Solo: A Star Wars Story
  • Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
  • Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope
  • Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
  • Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
  • Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens
  • Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

What's New...and What's Not

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith made its Blu-ray debut on September 16, 2011, as part of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's nine-disc Star Wars: The Complete Saga and the three-disc Star Wars:  The Prequel Trilogy box sets. Over the next four years, Fox reissued writer-director George Lucas's final Skywalker Saga quite a few times, the last instance being the 2015 Limited Edition Steelbook, which dropped less than a month before the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens that December.


The evil (and Jedi-killing) cyborg General Grievous is featured on the cover of Fox's 2015 Limited Edition Steelbook reissue of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. © 2015 20th Century Fox Film Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)


In each instance, Fox's Blu-ray reissues of the first six Star Wars films that it owned the distribution rights to until earlier this year involved cosmetic changes to the packaging and, in some cases, the art on the discs themselves. The content within the discs, including the feature films, the menu, the audio and subtitle options, and the audio commentary tracks (each film has two), however, remained the same from September 2011 to November 2015.

Considering that the Disney-21st Century Fox merger was only finalized in the Spring of this year, it should surprise no one that this trend of releasing the same content with new snazzy packaging has not changed; the Blu-ray of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith in the Multi-Screen Edition is identical to its 2011 forerunner in almost every aspect.



So if you're expecting any new tweaks in this first Disney-era home media release of the 2005 capper to the Anakin Skywalker-becomes-Darth Vader story arc, forget it. The 2019 Multi-Screen Edition doesn't come with new menus, trivia tracks, or tinkered-with scenes.

To be sure, the packaging has been revamped. The art on the slipcover/Blu-ray jewel box is a riff on Drew Struzan's 2005 theatrical release poster and the photorealistic art on that year's 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment/Lucasfilm DVD release. The three main characters in the Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker - Anakin himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Padme Amidala - are the central figures of a montage that includes images of Republic clone starfighters, Emperor Palpatine's shuttle, the framework of the first Death Star, C-3PO, Obi-Wan and the newly-minted "Darth Vader" dueling with lightsabers, and, looming menacingly in the background, the helmet of Star Wars'  most iconic character.

The only other purely aesthetic change to the Revenge of the Sith Blu-ray from the Fox original is the art on the disc itself. Instead of a stylized Roman numeral III and the film's title superimposed on a blue-gray label, the Multi-Screen Edition features a still from the last scene in Revenge of the Sith where Anakin and Obi-Wan speak to each other as comrades and friends. All indicia associated with 20th Century Fox or its home video arm have been omitted from the label. The only carryovers from labels on the previous editions of the Blu-ray are the movie's title and the stylized Lucasfilm logo.

However, the 2019 Multi-Screen Edition does bring something new to the table, so to speak.

For the first time in a Star Wars Blu-ray release of films that were previously released by 20h Century Fox Home Entertainment, the six discs of the Tragedy of Darth Vader, including the Blu-ray disc (BD) of Revenge of the Sith, now include inserts with the codes for digital copies that may be viewed on any Internet-connected device with a Movies Anywhere, iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, or Vudu account.

Such inserts have been included with the Blu-ray/DVD editions of the new Star Wars films produced and released by Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Motion Pictures Studios,. Fox, on the other hand (maybe due to the terms of its contract with George Lucas) did not include digital copies in its many BD releases of the first six Star Wars films; the first HD digital copies of those films made their online debut in 2015 and only came about after complex negotiations between Disney, Lucasfilm, and Fox, which at the time owned the distribution rights to five of the six Lucas Era films and owned Star Wars: A New Hope outright. 

Accordingly, if you buy the Multi-Screen Editions of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and the other five Star Wars films previously released by Fox, you are now able to own the individual films of Star Wars: The Digital Movie Collection with their unique extra features. 

On Movies Anywhere, for instance, the digital version of Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (marketed as Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith) is bundled with a plethora of extras. Some, like Conversations: The Star Wars That Almost Was and Discoveries from the Inside: Holograms and Bloopers are exclusive to the digital edition and aren't on any of the Bonus Discs I own. Others, such as Star Wars Tech and Interview: Samuel L. Jackson, are ported over from either the DVD or Blu-ray Bonus Discs. 

As I've said in my previous reviews of the Multi-Screen reissues, the opening logos sequence in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith differs from one streaming venue to the next. I can access my digital copy on two services - Amazon Prime Video and Movies Anywhere - and the viewing experience of the movie's start is vastly different. 

If I want to see Revenge of the Sith with the familiar 20th Century Fox Fanfare (which John Williams re-arranged and recorded in 1977 for the original Star Wars film and was used by Fox in many of its subsequent films) and "searchlights" logo, I have to do it on Movies Anywhere.

In contrast, the Amazon Prime Video version omits the 20th Century Fox logo and Fanfare altogether. In its place, the Lucasfilm logo appears onscreen, accompanied by a snippet from the score of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. 

Bottom Line: If you are new to the Star Wars franchise and have not yet bought any of the movies either on physical media or digital format, by all means, get the Multi-Screen Editions. However, if you already own them in either format and aren't interested in yet another re-issue, you can skip this reissue.

Blu-ray Specifications:

Video
  • Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (30.59 Mbps)
  • Resolution: 1080p
  • Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
  • Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio
  • English: DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
  • French: DTS 5.1
  • Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
  • Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
  • Note: DTS 5.1@768 kbps - DD 5.1@448 kbps
Subtitles
  • English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Discs
  • Blu-ray Disc
  • Single disc (1 BD-50)

Digital
  • Movies Anywhere, iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu
Playback
  • Region A

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