The U.S. Revenge of the Sith DVD press day was held this past Thursday, October 6, at Skywalker Ranch. This was the first time since the Episode I DVD press day back in 2000 that the event was held at the Ranch, which almost guarantees attendance by invitees since the destination is more important to most than any news that may come from the event itself.

Skywalker Ranch has a certain mystique not held by other studio headquarter locations. Even in this crowd, you still hear some who think George Lucas lives there, or it's where they film the movies. Neither of which are true of course ? a fact likely already known by readers of this report.

What you may be surprised to know, however, is that with the recent moves by many of the Lucasfilm companies to the prestigious new Presidio facility in San Francisco, the Ranch, Big Rock Ranch, and San Rafael (eternal home of ILM) are nearly devoid of Lucasfilm occupants.

Skywalker Sound, located at the Ranch, was again the meeting place for the DVD press event. With its many sound mixing rooms, one of which turned into an impromptu home theater courtesy of THX (of course), and their impressive THX Stag Theater, this is the perfect location for a demonstration of these incredible new discs, but more importantly, the rich "value added content" they are also famous for.

Jim Ward, Sr. Vice President of Lucasfilm and President of Lucasarts, was our familiar host. The media invited list was bigger than ever and to match it, the Lucasfilm guest list was the best yet. In attendance was the Yoda duo, Rob Coleman and Frank Oz, as well as Ian McDiarmid, and Hayden Christensen.

The day started off with Jim Ward doing some demonstrations of the opening space battle and the final duel to 15 journalists at a time in the home theater room. Honestly, having been to a few of these, the bar is set quite high, so I expected to see just more of the same, but I walked out of there quite surprised. The demos were even more amazing than I could have wished, particularly the image quality. Everything was more sharp, more colorful, more richly detailed and impressive than any movie I have ever seen on DVD. Jim was correct to say that if you didn't get to see the movie projected at one of the digital theaters across the globe, you really didn't see it as intended. For a fact, I have not seen a DVD that made me more sorry I have a home office instead of a dedicated big-screen home theater. When you watch this movie, find the largest and nicest screen you possible. You'll be quite happy you did.

We didn't spend too much more time on the movie itself, though it was confirmed the version on the DVD is the same exact cut as the theatrical release. That is, until George Lucas ultimately revisits it, as I'm sure he is likely to do some day in the future.