A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Star Wars: Rebels  Created by: Simon Kinberg, Carrie Beck, and Dave Filoni Based on the works of George Lucas A year after the Walt Disney Company bought Lucasfilm Limited from its founder and CEO George Lucas, Dave Filoni and his crew at Lucasfilm Animation were told to close down production of the animated series  Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which was airing on Time-Warner's Cartoon Network.  The Clone Wars had just finished its fifth season, and Filoni's team was in the midst of producing Season Six when Disney pulled the plug on the Emmy-winning series. Lucasfilm's corporate owners wanted to focus the company's creative efforts on the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens feature film and other projects - including a new animated series for the Disney Channel's cable sibling Disney XD: Star Wars: Rebels. Created by Filoni with writers Simon Kinberg and Carrie Beck, the series' first season is set 15 years after the events of Star Wars - Episode II

(C) 2017 Lucasfilm Ltd. and Buena Vista Home Entertainment On Tuesday, April 4, Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) - Walt Disney Motion Pictures Studio's home media division - released the Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy three-disc set of director Gareth Edwards' blockbuster hit  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. This home media debut of the first in a series of Star Wars Anthology stand-alone films comes less than four months after its theatrical premiere and almost one year after the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Blu-ray and DVD.  Although BVHE offers various "exclusive" editions for specific sellers (such as the "SteelBook" edition for Target), most Star Wars fans will probably buy the set that I bought from the Disney Store - the three-disc edition with two Blu-ray discs (BDs), one DVD, and the code for a digital download (which expires after April 4, 2022).  In many respects, BVHE'sBD/DVD/HD Digital Copy Rogue One  combo package resemb

(C) 2016 Lucasfilm Ltd. and Buena Vista Home Entertainment In April of 2016, less than four months after the theatrical premiere of J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) released the blockbuster movie on Blu-ray and DVD. This home media release was a huge success in its initial run; The Force Awakens was the No. 1 best-selling Blu-ray/DVD combo set at Amazon and other retailers, including Best Buy. As I wrote in my review of that release: Buena Vista Home Entertainment did a remarkable job with its first BD/DVD of a Star Wars feature film. J.J. Abrams’ foray to that galaxy far, far away looks and sounds great on HD TVs, especially large sets connected to 5.1 stereo home theater systems. What I didn't know at the time was that Disney-owned BVHE had released, in addition to its regular plastic-packaged Blu-ray/DVD combo three-disc set, a SteelBook edition exclusively for Best Buy.  Now, if you are a regular reader of A Certa

“Star Wars: The Complete Saga – 2015 Re-Issue” On October 13, 2015, 20 th Century Fox Home Entertainment re-issued “Star Wars: The Complete Saga,” a nine-disc box set that collects the six films of George Lucas’s epic space-fantasy series set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” on Blu-ray discs (BDs). This set, which also includes three BDs of bonus materials culled from Lucasfilm’s archive, has the same content as Fox’s 2011 “Complete Saga” collection. The only major differences are the packaging and, in some sets, the artwork on the BD labels. Considering that Fox has re-issued “Star Wars”-themed box sets countless times since the days when videotape was the dominant home video format, it’s obvious that the studio hopes to capitalize on renewed interest in the nearly 40-year-old franchise as a result of Disney/Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” “Star Wars: The Complete Saga” was dropped a month before Fox introduced the Limited Edition Steelbook BDs for e

(C) 2015 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment A few weeks before the release of Disney/Lucasfilm's "Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens," 20th Century Fox tried to entice fans and collectors with a reissue of George Lucas’s Classic and Prequel Trilogies in Blu-ray disc (BD). On November 10, the studio released all six movies of what Lucas calls The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker in new steelbook packaging with newly-designed cover art. Lucasfilm has not made any editorial changes to the movies. As a result, the 2015 BDs of “The Phantom Menace,” “Attack of the Clones,” “Revenge of the Sith,” “A New Hope,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” are identical to the discs in Fox’s 2011 “Star Wars: The Complete Saga” box set. (Incidentally, Fox reissued that box set in October with new Darth Vader-themed DigiBook packaging.) The 2015 Steelbox Edition  “Years after the onset of the Clone Wars, the Sith unveil a thousand-year-old plot, the Republic

(C) 2015 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment On November 10, 2015, 20th Century Fox re-issued its Blu-rays of all six of George Lucas’s original “Star Wars” films in all-new Limited Edition steelbook packaging. Fox’s marketing move took place less than a month after the studio’s release of its 2011 nine-Blu-ray disc (BD) set, “Star Wars: The Complete Saga” in a new Darth Vader-themed box. It also occurred six weeks before the premiere of Disney/Lucasfilm’s highly anticipated “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” The Limited Edition steelbook series, which includes “Star Wars – Episode II: Attack of the Clones,” is not unprecedented in Fox’s long history with the franchise the studio launched in 1977 when it produced Lucas’s “Star Wars” (aka “Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope.” For instance, 20th Century Fox Home Video (the forerunner to 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment) released its last VHS edition of the Classic Trilogy” the same year it rolled out the DVD for “Star Wars –