The TV Addict 

Much like he did with the original trilogy a few years ago, George Lucas apparently has decided to go back and re-release THE PHANTOM MENACE, ATTACK OF THE CLONES, and REVENGE OF THE SITH as special editions. It seems the Grand Master of the galaxy far far away is still not quite happy. It’s probably best to let the man speak for himself:

“Though we certainly did our best with the technology that we had at the time we made these movies, we were never quite able to realize the original vision I had for them. Now that moviemaking technology has grown with leaps and bounds, we now have the opportunity to make these movies exactly the way I had always imagined them in my head. I recently re-watched the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, and was really impressed with how well Peter Jackson did with melding together CGI and non-CGI effects. So with these Special Editions we’re going to go back to some of the model based effects we were using back with the original Star Wars.

I think Star Wars fans will relish the opportunity to see these films the way I meant them to be seen. This isn’t a Director’s Cut so much as a final cut of the movies. It’s not going to make much money for us in the end. It would make a lot of money if I wasn’t rich. But I’m not doing it for the money. I’m doing it as an artist with a particular vision, and hopefully moviegoers all over the world will be able to share it with me.”

Currently the plans are to stagger the releases of each of the three films throughout 2009, with EPISODE I coming out in February, EPISODE II in July, and EPISODE III in November. The Special Editions will then hit Blu-Ray in 2010. There are currently no plans to release the original cuts on Blu-Ray.