Warner Home Video and Lucasfilm have today announced the Blu-ray and DVD release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Complete Season Five on 10/15 (SRP $59.97 and $49.98), including all 20 episodes (two presented as extended director’s cuts) and three hours worth of extras (cast and crew interviews, deleted and alternate scenes and more).  Also coming that day is a Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Seasons 1-5 Collector’s Edition box set on Blu-ray and DVD (SRP $149.99 and $119.98) containing all 108 episodes of the series, plus an exclusive The Art of The Clone Wars book, filled with never-before-seen concept art.  The question is, what’s happening with all the content created for Season Six, which was cancelled in the wake of the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm?  It doesn’t appear that it’s going to be included here.  Perhaps they’ll turn it into a mini-movie?  Who knows?  Anyway, more here.  And here’s the trailer…

First up today, our own Tim Salmons has checked in with reviews of Criterion’s excellent new Blu-ray editions of a pair of sci-fi classics from different eras of the cinema: Alex Cox’s Repo Man and William Cameron Menzies’ Things to Come.  Both reviews (and the discs too) are well worth your time… so enjoy!

In announcement news today, CBS and Paramount have set The Honeymooners: Classic 39 Episodes for Blu-ray Disc release on 10/15.

Paramount has also set Gentle Ben: Season One for DVD only release on 10/15, starring Clint Howard and Dennis Weaver.

All right, let’s catch up on some other release news from the last few days…

As you’ll recall, we  mentioned yesterday that Pacific Rim is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com (on Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray).  So too is World War Z (Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray) and The Lone Ranger (on Blu-ray).

Meanwhile, 20th Century Fox, MGM and History Channel have set Vikings: Season One for Blu-ray release on 10/15.

All right, looks like it’s going to take us a few days to completely catch up on news from and post Con, because the announcements keep coming in…

First up though, our very own Dr. Adam Jahnke has turned in the latest edition of his excellent Burnt Offerings MOD DVD column, featuring an update on Warner Archive releases for this week (including the classic Captain Caveman animated series) and upcoming MOD/DVD-R releases too!  He’s also reviewed Warner Archive’s The White Dawn on MOD DVD-R.  Don’t miss it!

Also here at The Bits today, Russell Hammond has once again posted the weekly Release Dates & Artwork update with all the latest Blu-ray, DVD and Video Game cover artwork and Amazon.com pre-order links.  As always, a portion of anything your order from Amazon after clicking through to them from our links goes to help support our work here at The Bits and we greatly appreciate it!

Now then… let’s get to some announcements news…

First of all, my apologies for missing last week’s Burnt Offerings.  The column got swallowed up by the chaos that is San Diego Comic-Con.  At this point, the event has turned into a giant black hole centered smack dab in the middle of July that consumes everything else in its wake.

Of course, I was down there to participate in The Bits’ annual Blu-ray Producers panel and, as usual, it was a fine discussion with some of the sharpest talents in the industry.  Although they weren’t there as panelists, the team from Warner Archive was nice enough to attend in the audience and they confirmed that Peter Weir’s Fearless will indeed be one of their next Blu-ray titles.  The movie features one of Jeff Bridges’ very best performances and if you like Bridges as much as we do, you know that’s high praise indeed.  Keep your eyes peeled for an official announcement of this highly-anticipated title soon.

Well… we’re back from Comic-Con!  There’s lot of entertainment news to report from the event these days (including word that the next Man of Steel film will be a team-up with Superman and Batman), but the Blu-ray/DVD release news is excellent and abundant too…

First up, on our own Digital Bits BD Producers panel, we exclusively revealed that Shout! Factory is currently hard at work on a fully-remastered Blu-ray box set of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse: The Complete Series.  The show was originally finished on 1-inch analog tape, but it was shot on film and star Paul Rubens has all the original 16 and 35mm negative.  So it’s all being scanned in full HD and then digitally restored and remastered.  Rubens himself is working closely with producer Brian Ward and the Shout! team to create new special features, so it should be pretty terrific.  We showed a special video preview during our panel that offered fans a glimpse of the restoration work, with before and after comparisons.  It looks absolutely amazing!  (We’ll see if there’s any chance we can show it to you here.)  The set is expected to be released sometime in early 2014.  The exact time frame will depend on how long it takes to finish the restoration properly – they don’t want to rush it, they want to get it right.  Watch this space for more details.

The Only Game In Town

Here’s the first time I ever stumbled upon a film set – my family and my eight year old bad self had driven from Purcell, Oklahoma to San Antonio, Texas to attend the HemisFair ’68, a wing ding of a World’s Fair (do those still exist?) which featured H.R. Pufnstuf as its mascot and the Tower of the Americas as its symbol of both American and Texas ingenuity and, as I remember, a heck of a place to eat while slowly spinning above the earth.

All right, for the next three days, some of The Bits crew is going to be making our yearly pilgrimage down to Comic-Con in San Diego.  As you know, we’re holding our regular Blu-ray panel down there on Thursday afternoon (4-5 PM in Room 5AB) so if you’re down there, we’d sure love to see you there.

Meanwhile, we have a couple things for you while we’re away…

All right, quick one for you today…

First up here at The Bits this morning, Russell Hammond has updated the Release Dates & Artwork section with all the latest Blu-ray, DVD and Video Game cover artwork and Amazon.com pre-order links.  As always, a portion of anything you order from Amazon after clicking to them through our links goes to help support our work here at The Bits and we surely do appreciate it!

Finally, I believe we promised you some reviews, did we not?  Okay… here’s a couple.  Our very own Todd Doogan has just checked in with a look at a pair of recent Blu-ray releases from the folks at Kino Lorber.  To be specific, he’s reviewed a pair of classic Jean Rollin titles from Redemption Films in HD, including The Grapes of Death (1978) and Night of the Hunted (1980), both of which star a former French porn star by the name of Brigitte Lahaie.  They’re fascinating film, so do give them a look.

Enjoy and see you back here tomorrow with more!

Back tomorrow!  Stay tuned…

- Bill Hunt

The Digital Bits is pleased to present this retrospective article to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of Die Hard, the action-adventure classic that turned Bruce Willis into a superstar, catapulted John McTiernan to the A-list of movie directors, and created a new standard for the modern action movie. The article features an interview with action movie authority Eric Lichtenfeld plus a collection of historical data.