A Galaxy of Bootlegs

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Site created 12/15/97.

page created: 5/22/00

Episode I: The Phantom Menace
(Version C)

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This is the Episode I bootleg we all warned you was coming, mastered directly from the Japanese laserdisc release. It opens with the new Dolby Digital "Raindrop" trailer (in 5.1) and then defaults to an animated menu which you see below (with film clips playing in the background). Here's the funny part - the audio that plays during this menu is so irritating that you should probably hide all sharp objects before you give this disc a spin. It's in 5.1 and features a sound-alike rendition of the Star Wars theme, as if it's being hammered out on a Fisher Price toy piano. But that's not all - in the background to that are explosion and laser gun noises coming from all around you in 5.1. After about 30 seconds of this, I was ready to commit myself.

The main menu allows you to go to a chapter menu (with 6 animated chapter selection windows - there are actually 13 chapters on the disc) or another one of those Dolby Digital 5.1 demos, where speakers light up as sound moves around the room. The video on this disc is easily the best of any of the Star Wars bootlegs, in letterboxed widescreen with Japanese subtitles in the bottom bar of the letterbox. The audio is Dolby Digital 5.1 and it sounds great - just like the laserdisc. As you can see above, the disc's artwork refers to the film as Episode L.

You can see screen shots from the disc below. Keep in mind that when resizing them for the Internet, Photoshop tends to minimize imperfections in the picture, so the images may make the video look better than it is. Despite that, the video is really of very good quality, easily comparable to the laserdisc.

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