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21 June, 2001

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Star Wars fans can finally relax. LucasFilm and Fox have just announced that Episode I will be released on DVD on October 16, 2001 in the US. It appears to have been worth the wait. The double disc set will include approximately 480 minutes of material. That's six hours of extras on top of the movie's two hours.

The features include:

• The Phantom Menace, mastered by THX for superior sound and picture quality, presented in Anamorphic Widescreen and Dolby 5.1 Surround EX (English), Dolby 2.0 Surround (English and Spanish), and Dolby 2.0 Surround (French, for Canadian release)
• Audio commentary by Writer-Director George Lucas; Producer Rick McCallum; Co-Editor and Sound Designer Ben Burtt; Visual Effects Supervisors Scott Squires, John Knoll and Dennis Muren; and Animation Supervisor Rob Coleman, offering personal insights into the making of the film
• Seven never-before-seen deleted scenes with full visual effects completed just for the DVD release
• "The Beginning" -- an all-new hour-long documentary culled from over 600 hours of footage offering unprecedented access inside Lucasfilm and ILM during the making of Episode I
• Multi-angle storyboard to animatic to finished film feature, that lets you flip through the various phases of development of key action sequences
• Five behind-the-scenes featurettes exploring The Phantom Menace's storyline, designs, costumes, visual effects and fight scenes
• The popular "Duel of the Fates" music video that debuted in 1999
• All 12 parts of the Lynne's Diaries, the web documentaries that first appeared here at starwars.com
• Galleries of theatrical posters, print campaign, and never-before-scene production photos
• The original theatrical teaser and launch trailers, plus seven TV spots including the "tone poems"

The package is priced at $29.98. I highly recommend snapping up a copy.

Here are the release dates for the rest of the world:

Europe
Benelux October 17
France October 17
Germany October 25
Italy November 8
Scandanavia October 16
Spain November 8
UK October 15

Asia/Pacific
Australia October 17
Japan November 8
Korea November 8
Taiwan November 8

Latin America
Mexico October 16
Brazil October 17

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