May the Force be with you

Wow! I'm so excited by this news I just had to share:

This September: Original Unaltered Trilogy on DVD
May 03, 2006

In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie and, as bonus material, the theatrical edition of the film. That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983.

This release will only be available for a limited time: from September 12th to December 31st. International release will follow on or about the same day. Each original theatrical version will feature Dolby 2.0 Surround sound, close-captioning, and subtitles in English, French and Spanish for their U.S. release. International sound and subtitling vary by territory.

"Over the years, a truly countless number of fans have told us that they would love to see and own the original version that they remember experiencing in theaters," said Jim Ward, President of LucasArts and Senior Vice President of Lucasfilm Ltd. "We returned to the Lucasfilm Archives to search exhaustively for source material that could be presented on DVD. This is something that we're very excited to be able to give to fans in response to their continuing enthusiasm for Star Wars."

Click this link for the original article.

I refused to buy the previous DVD releases because I couldn't accept the changes that had been made to Episodes IV, V, and VI... yuck (I don't think I'm ever going to buy I-III, btw). The only possible draw backs I can see here is that they're going to cost an astronomical amount of cash, and that they're being released right before the new DVD formats start coming out.

Update: Well, now that I've calmed downed a little bit, I re-read the article--it looks like they're sticking both versions of each movie on the DVDs. Oh well. Just because it's there doesn't mean I have to watch it.