Blu-ray & DVD Box Set Review: An Overview of 'Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga' - The 'UK Edition'

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Publicity photo of Buena Vista Home Entertainment's region-free Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 18-disc box set. © 2020 Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)


On Monday, April 20, Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) and Lucasfilm Ltd. released the 18-disc variant Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, a counterpart to the larger 27-disc box set of the same name released less than a month earlier as a Best Buy exclusive. I bought my from Walmart.com – I haven’t seen it as an official release on Amazon, although I have noticed that the 27-disc version of The Skywalker Saga is sold at the site by third-party sellers at inflated prices – this smaller, less elaborate box set was intended primarily as the region-free European release, as it sports the rating seals from the British and Irish counterparts to the Motion Picture Association of America as part of its indicia. 


From a young Anakin Skywalker’s descent into the dark side to the rise of the Resistance and their struggle to restore peace in the galaxy, the story that electrified a generation comes to a striking conclusion. The saga will end. The story lives forever. – Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga publicity insert.
Promotional photo of the region-free "UK Edition" of Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.
© 2020 Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)

 


Like its larger, more expensive Best Buy exclusive stablemate, this version of Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga collects for the first time all nine Episodes of the three core Star Wars trilogies, including 2019's Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. It also offers viewers a remastered Blu-ray of Rian Johnson's Star Wars Episode VII: The Last Jedi. This new version now adds an isolated music track with John Williams' magnificent score, a feature not present in the original 2018 Blu-ray. 

The "UK Edition" Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga box set is compact and less elaborate than its larger, pricier Best Buy counterpart. It shares some of the packaging motifs: as in the Collector's Edition, the Death Star and the Star Wars logo are prominently displayed. But where the Best Buy set is ensconced in an elegantly-engineered slipcover which slides open to reveal a tray with a DigiBook that holds 27 discs (nine 4K Ultra High Definition [UHD] Blu-rays, as well as 18 High Definition (HD) 1080p Blu-rays. the "UK Edition" houses its 18 HD discs in a slipbox with a flip top and three separate DigiPacks with storage for six discs. The DigiPacks hold one Star Wars trilogy per six-disc pack.

Though this version of the Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga contains all 18 of the Blu-rays found in the larger set, the "thank you" letter from Mark Hamill is now printed onto the inner surface of the fliptop box's ramp-like front panel. It has the same text as the one in the Best Buy set, but it is not removable from the slipbox. 

Also, this set does not include the Movies Anywhere codes for digital copies. If you want to stream the Star Wars saga legally without using illegal sites such as BitTorrent, you can either buy the individual Blu-ray releases and get the keycodes there or subscribe to Disney+. (The Best Buy Collector's Edition does include a two-page insert with Movies Anywhere codes, but those are almost certainly the keycodes for the 4K content.)

Bottom Line

The Blu-ray-only Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is, as I said before, is a smaller and less expensive alternative to buying the 27-disc Best Buy exclusive Collector's Edition. I have both, and while I can say that there are only a few nationality-based differences in the content (the English subtitles for the deaf or hearing impaired viewer are in British English in the "UK Edition"), I find that I'm using the smaller set as my "everyday" one. The discs are easier to remove from the DigiPacks, for one thing. And until I get my 4K UHD TV set and its peripherals connected, I can't view my 4K Star Wars Blu-rays. 

So if you don't have a 4K TV with a compatible Blu-ray player or simply can't afford the $249.99 set from Best Buy, but still want Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on Blu, I recommend this region-free "UK Edition." It is, as Obi-Wan Kenobi might say, the Star Wars box set you're looking for. 

For a more in-depth look at this box set, please see Blu-ray Box Set Review: 'Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga' (UK Import) at our sister blog on WordPress, A Certain Point of View, Too




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