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Picture and Sound

The picture is unbelievably sharp with some fantastic colour tones and details and no doubt down to the fact that the film was filmed and stored digitally. There is not a picture blemish or hint of pixelisation in sight. However, although it is good, it is still not perfect. The fact that it is so good has caused a number of problems. With the heavy dependency on computer animation it can be all too easy to spot the computers work. Although the space battles and cities scenes are flawless, it is the droid invasion and subsequent invasion of Naboo that is the disappointment. At times you could almost be watching a cut scene on a computer game it is that obvious.

There can also be some hideous amounts of outlining around the characters, again, this becomes more apparent when there is some sort of computer generated animation in the background, and it most likely caused by the actors being shot against a blue screen.

If the picture is somewhat disappointing then the sound makes up for it in a big way. Whereas the 25th anniversary Laserdisc reissues were rather disappointing in the sound department this THX soundtrack is breathtaking and truly demonstration material. Naturally, it is the pod race and space battles where the soundtrack truly comes into its own with a plentiful supply of surround effects and deep rumblings from the sub-woofer. Even people listening on a humble stereo hi-fi or television will be hard pushed not to be impressed.

There was one strange thing that I noticed with the subtitling and I'm not sure whether it was just down to my DVD player. Whenever someone spoke in an alien tongue there were no subtitles on the screen and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about. I was certain that subtitles had been present at the cinema so I checked the available subtitles and eventually found another English subtitle track with the alien translations on them. A deliberate ploy? I'm not sure.