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All the existing Star Wars movies are finally being made
available as legitimate digital downloads beginning April 10, with pre-orders already available on many platforms including
iTunes,
Amazon Instant Video,
Xbox Video and
Google Play,
and more, with the general price at most retailers set at $20 per
movie, or $90 for the whole collection (which means you can save
yourself $30 by only buying the original trilogy, as is the only sane
course of action).
Before you ask (and this was my first question), sadly the original
trilogy consists of the “special edition” features, which means you’ll
have to deal with George Lucas’ random smattering of weird CG elements
and animals, and the betrayal of Hayden Christensen’s ghost.
The downloads are also HD resolution, meaning that at least you’ll be
able to enjoy this on your HDTV set or on your mobile device in high
resolution, and you get various extras along with your purchase,
including documentary features, deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes
vignettes. Depending on the outlet, you might find additional bits
included along with the films, as well.
Part of me is thrilled, of course, but I’m holding out hope that
there’s a special bonus feature included which is actually just
completely untouched high-resolution versions of the original trilogy
without any Special Edition modifications. It very much looks like we’ll
have to put up with the digital “enhancements,” however, but that still
won’t stop me from purchasing the original trio of movies for what is
probably the fifth or sixth time at this point.