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October 1, 2004

Defective Star Wars DVD Replacement Details

I bought the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD a few days ago and took it home fairly pumped. I stayed that way right up until the scene where the Death Star blows up Alderaan (sorry for the spoiler), which consistently locked up or reset my DVD player.

I took the set back to Fred Meyer, where the clerk told me they were out of widescreen editions. So I checked back today and the clerk told me they're not only out of widescreen editions, but that other people have been complaining about the same scene (which occurs in Chapter 26). So a little googling netted me a lot more complaining from others with the same problem. One BestBuy clerk reported 50 returns on the first day the set was out.

A little more digging netted me a phone number: 888-223-2FOX. That's the Fox customer service line, which is taking names and addresses for a mass replacement disc mailing. The person on the other end of the phone told me they're still waiting for replacements to arrive, hopefully early next week.

If you're a true audiophile and have a decent sound system, maybe you'll want to skip the whole thing. It sounds like Lucasfilm hosed up the audio, reversing the rear soundtrack channel.