The Star Wars Trilogy (1995) VHS Box Set Overview

As I mentioned in my reviews for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi this is the box set that introduced me to the Star Wars Trilogy. It's how I remember watching the Star Wars Trilogy most fondly and it's how I like to go back and watch the movies whenever I want to watch all three of them.

The thing that I find the most interesting about this box set is the interview with George Lucas at the beginning of each tape. When this box set came out in August, 1995, Star Wars was in an interesting place. All we had at the time was three movies, two made for TV movies, a really bad made for TV holiday special, two spin-off cartoons, a ton of comic books, and a handful of novels. George Lucas was also in the middle of making the first movie in a prequel trilogy that would detail the backstory of who Darth Vader is, where everybody came from, how Obi-Wan fit into the story and a lot of things that the fans of the trilogy wanted to see on screen, rather than in a novel or a comic book. So to rewatch the three parts of this interview, one on each tape, is like getting into a time machine and returning to that time where Star Wars was exciting and so many good novels, comics, reference books, video games, and toys were coming out of various companies and the material wasn't limited to just one medium. This box set is a testament to that.

Oddly enough when I was watching these movies this week for review, I thought the sound quality was actually better through the headphones I was wearing than it is on the DVD copies of the movies that I have. Which is weird considering that this release is 25 years old while the DVDs are only 16 years old. It can't be because the THX Digitally Mastered sound was better in 1995 since THX was brand new in 1995 and they improved on it as time went on and it would've been much better by the time the 2006 DVD releases came out. Maybe it's just the VCR playing through my TV that's doing it.

The individual cover for each movie is iconic. You have Darth Vader for Star Wars with the Death Star battle underneath him, a Stormtrooper for The Empire Strikes Back with the Imperial attack on Hoth underneath, and Yoda for Return of the Jedi with the final Lightsaber duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader as the Emperor watches on the Death Star underneath. What I want to know though is why have two Dark Side people and only one Jedi on the covers? The Stormtrooper on The Empire Strikes Back makes sense because of the movie's title. Same with Yoda on Return of the Jedi I guess. I just thought it would make more sense to make it either all good guys or all bad guys.

Before the interviews on each tape is a preview for this box set. For those of you who own it, or owned it, you remember when the sound of the escape pod ejecting from Princess Leia's ship from Star Wars blares and the announcer says, "For those who remember. For those who will never forget. And for a whole new generation who will experience it for the very first time..." before the Star Wars theme song sounds. Apart from the movies themselves, this is probably the most iconic part of this box set. That was my true introduction to the Star Wars Trilogy. When I sat down to watch Star Wars the other night, I got chills of excitement seeing that preview again.

I don't have much else to say about the box set since I already reviewed the movies themselves earlier this week. Plus I'm pretty sure that every Star Wars fan either has this box set in their collection or had it at one time or another. Anybody who watched the trilogy for the first time between 1995 and 1997 definitely had this set, so you've all seen it before. To this day this is still my favourite release of the original Star Wars Trilogy. Even over the later DVD releases. It's not necessarily the best release the trilogy's ever had, but it's definitely my favourite.

And that's it for Star Wars Week everyone. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm not going to be posting anything tomorrow, but I will be back on Monday for my first VHS series post, beginning with The World of Teddy Ruxpin Volume 1: The Treasure of Grundo. Have a great rest of your weekend folks. Talk to you later.