SW OT DVD Sales smash all records

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-09-23 07:30pm

$115 000 000 in one day. Even including Battlefront, that still evokes a "holy fuck."

http://www.starwars.com/episode-iv/news ... 40922.html

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-09-23 07:32pm

Is there anything new or are these the same reworked films as before?

Mark S · Post by **Mark S** » 2004-09-23 07:32pm

I haven't got them yet. Have they snuck in a scene of Lucas laughing maniacally and rolling around in a big pile of money?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-09-23 07:36pm

Yeah, I read that over at The Digital Bits. Even with the Battlefront numbers (whatever they are) excluded, that's still record breaking. If the ratio was 50/50, which it most likely wasn't, then the DVD set sill would have sold around a million copies at least.

Also, sales reports from Walmart indicate that the widescreen version is selling about 80% MORE than the fullscreen version...

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2004-09-23 07:37pm

Mark S wrote:I haven't got them yet. Have they snuck in a scene of Lucas laughing maniacally and rolling around in a big pile of money?

It's likely to be at the end of RoTJ in a single frame.

I'm sure in the next update...we'll see him laughing some more

.

I got them...and so far...mostly satisfied, I do have to admit the quality is very good and the TV trailers truly show how crappy previews can honestly get.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-09-23 08:43pm

Also, sales reports from Walmart indicate that the widescreen version is selling about 80% MORE than the fullscreen version...

Well, yeah! I waited til today so I could get a wide screen edition. Why cut off the Sentinel class in Tattooine?

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-09-23 09:39pm

Wow, maybe this will prompt more old movies to do a special edition DVD?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-09-23 09:40pm

Um, lots of "old" movies have been getting special edition DVD releases for quite some time now.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2004-09-23 09:41pm

Fuck that maybe they'll stop making the shitty pan & scan crap and stick to widescreen as the standard format with these sales figures.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-09-23 09:51pm

Stravo wrote:Fuck that maybe they'll stop making the shitty pan & scan crap and stick to widescreen as the standard format with these sales figures.

No kidding. Such a move would save the studios (like Universal) some money, since they wouldn't have to manufacture so many full frame discs that often don't sell much anyway.

Hell, just looking at general sales figures should convince them of that: widescreen versions always sell several ranks higher than their full frame counterparts.

Continuing to suport full frame is going to do nothing but create a backlash when HDTV and widescreen TVs become widespread enough in a few years, so all those people that complained about the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen are going to complain about the grey bars on the sides of the screen...

Mlenk · Post by **Mlenk** » 2004-09-23 10:27pm

When I went to Best Buy on Tuesday to buy it there were like 2 or 3 Widescreen Edition's left compared with nearly a whole shelf full left of Full Screens.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-09-23 11:59pm

Mlenk wrote:When I went to Best Buy on Tuesday to buy it there were like 2 or 3 Widescreen Edition's left compared with nearly a whole shelf full left of Full Screens.

Yesterday, there were a hundred or so fullscreens, and NO widescreens. The whole display was ratfucked by various people to make sure no widescreens were hiding.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-09-24 12:15am

I guess the good news is that if you really want a Pan & Scan version give it a little while and they might be available cheap.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2004-09-24 03:32am

I always thought it was stupid that they would release a DVD on both "formats" (widescreen and full frame), but I've heard it's because there is at least the perception that people aren't savvy enough to realize the potential of DVD, and they don't understand that you could swap between them for your preference, so they artificially split them up into the two formats for the lowest common consumer. Or something...

Some people utterly hate letterbox, because they think they're being cheated and they think the black bars are "distracting." But I think that's a clear minority. And it's basically impossible to find widescreen VHS movies anymore (the last one I bought was "Blade" in 1999). So people just naturally associate widescreen with DVD and full frame with VHS. But then with "widescreen tv's" it might confuse some people, thinking that widescreen dvd's are only for those types of tv's.

I am not surprised that it's made so much money, hey, it's Star Wars, and people have been waiting for this for seven years! But why are they counting the Battlefront sales figures? What does Battlefront have to do with the OT except that it was released on the same day? Sounds a bit fishy to me...

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2004-09-24 04:45am

Because it ties in with the movies?

I dunno....

Um, lots of "old" movies have been getting special edition DVD releases for quite some time now.

Yeah, they like to call them "Special Editions", but doesn´t that really mean just extra docs and some cut-scenes on the side? Or have there been additions/changes in the movies themselves like SW?

Equinox2003 · Post by **Equinox2003** » 2004-09-24 05:20am

Not sure why the numbers for the game would be counted, not like they
need to pad the DVD sales numbers. I am happy to see the set break
records, I also own the widescreen versions.
I also once thought of the 'black bars' as distracting. But the full screen
version can ruin movies. In the full screen T2, I never knew that at the
end John Conner could see the T-1000's metallic feet, thus knowing that
it was not Sarah. In the full screen one could not see that.
That is just one example of how i came to like the widescreen format
much better. By the way, did anybody buy the DVD's and battlefront?

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2004-09-24 05:42am

VT-16 wrote:Yeah, they like to call them "Special Editions", but doesn´t that really mean just extra docs and some cut-scenes on the side? Or have there been additions/changes in the movies themselves like SW?

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Alien movies, The Abyss, Star Trek movies, etc...

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2004-09-24 11:33am

VT-16 wrote:Because it ties in with the movies?

I dunno....

Yeah, that's no reason at all. It isn't the movie itself, so it shouldn't count as anything but a game sale. When counting TPM VHS sales did they also count sales of Episode I Racer or The Phantom Menace game? It's pretty weird. And if anything those games tied in more with their respective movie than Battlefront does (at least from what I know of Battlefront).

Now if Battlefront and the trilogy were available as a set together that might make sense, but clearly that wasn't the original intention. Otherwise why would they include a demo of Battlefront if you were getting the full game already? And if it did count a theoretical "DVD + game combo" then that should count as "One," on the tally, not "Two" but it sounds like they used the latter, to pad the figure? Okay...

Yeah, they like to call them "Special Editions", but doesn´t that really mean just extra docs and some cut-scenes on the side? Or have there been additions/changes in the movies themselves like SW?

Star Wars seems to have taken the "Special Edition" to a new level. Before 1997, "Special Edition" was akin to calling something "Limited Edition" or "Collector's Edition." For actual CHANGES to a movie, people used "Director's Cut" (see Blade Runner, Aliens, etc). Then again those DVD's I think came out after the SE was in theaters, but the cuts themselves existed beforehand, just not on DVD yet. But yeah, before Lucas's Special Editions, people probably didn't think of "the movie is actually different" but just "oh this set has more extras or its really high quality."

I don't remember what year it was, but there was some tv spot explaining the difference between "Letterbox" and "standard" or something. It was on one of those classic movie channels (might have been AMC). It made a dang good bit of sense to me, and since having watched a few movies like that and compared it, I was hooked.

Post by **Kuja** » 2004-09-24 11:38am

Suck it, Titanic! Here's what a real smash hit can do!

Sean Howard · Post by **Sean Howard** » 2004-09-24 01:08pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote: Also, sales reports from Walmart indicate that the widescreen version is selling about 80% MORE than the fullscreen version...

Definitely true. In my area, Target and Wal Mart both had tons of fullscreen copies, and 0 widescreen copies. I had to go to Best Buy and pay 10 more bucks to get the widescreen.

It just seems crazy to me that they even made a fullscreen version. Who the hell buys those things?

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2004-09-24 03:38pm

So........... would it be advisable to buy now, or wait till ROTS comes out, and get the whole boxed collection?

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2004-09-24 06:59pm

PainRack wrote:So........... would it be advisable to buy now, or wait till ROTS comes out, and get the whole boxed collection?

If you are really patient, I would say you could wait till the true High Definition release with all the proper fixes and polishing comes out around 2007. But if you can't wait till then or can't stand your VHS tapes anymore, then by all means buy the DVDs, or at the very least RENT them to see if you would rather wait it out or not.

Personally, Im glad I bought them because my VHS tapes are all full screen and are becoming degraded and damaged.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-09-24 08:35pm

VT-16 wrote:Because it ties in with the movies?

I dunno....

Hmm... the most amount of entertainment sold by a single company in a single day... ever.