Despite the fact I was only 1 1/2 years old when The Empire Strikes Back was first released in May 1980, the whole Star Wars Trilogy holds a fond place in my childhood, along with other memories such as He-Man and The Transformers. As a kid I had all the toys, the Hoth Ice Base, Luke, Leia, Han, Vader, Obi-Wan, the Ewoks (yes, as a kid I liked the Ewoks.. but my opinion has changed a little since them) and all the cool vehicles. I even had a huge mural painted on my bedroom wall of the Rebel Alliance attacking the Death Star. When I say huge I mean it, it was twice the size of me! I was Star Wars crazy.

Unfortunately in my early teens my parents decided 'Mark doesn’t need these toys anymore, let’s sell them at the local Trash and Treasure Market along with all the other cool stuff he has'. As you can imagine, to this day I still have not forgiven them for doing this!

Anyway, now I am 26 years old and I must say that the first watching of The Empire Strikes Back on DVD is a near religious experience. When the music started and I saw that yellow text start scrolling up the screen I could not help but sit there with the biggest grin on my face in a long time. I had friends who insisted they be present for the first spin in my DVD player of this disc; and as soon as that familiar music started the room fell silent, everyone knew they were watching a piece of cinematic history. When that Imperial droid probe crashes into Hoth at the start of the film you could hear everyone stop breathing for a split second in the sheer awe of seeing and hearing this classic film on our beloved format.

Everyone knows the story of the whole Star Wars Trilogy, even if they are one of the few that have never seen the films. One of my good friends has never seen Episode IV, V, or VI. What was his reasoning? He is waiting to watch them all, and I quote, 'in order'. The amusing thing is that this fact actually cost him a job at one stage a couple years ago (and I am not joking!). But I digress, back onto talking about the actual film. After the events in Episode IV: A New Hope, the rebel alliance is hiding out on the ice planet of Hoth. When the Imperial forces discover their location they barely manage to escape. After their escape, Luke and R2D2 then goes to seek out the Jedi Master Yoda to complete his training on the swap planet Dagobah while Leia, Han, Chewbacca, C3PO and head in the Millennium Falcon to the Cloud City above the planet Bespin and the apparently welcoming arms of Lando Calrissian. Darth Vader manages to capture the people on the Cloud City and Luke senses a disturbance in the force and rushes to the Cloud City against Yoda's advice. It is here we have an epic clash of Luke vs. Vader and learn some shocking secrets.

There has been a whole lot of fuss created over the fact that the films presented on these DVD’s are not the ‘original’ films. Apparently George Lucas was never happy with the technology available in the late 1970’s and early 80’s that he used to create what is considered his masterpieces. In 1997 he decided that the technology was available to revisit these films and in his eye finish the project, dubbing them the Special Editions and giving them both a theatrical and video release. This caused uproar from the fans whom were not happy with the changes that were made, claiming that it degraded the magic of the film. Well this version of The Empire Strikes Back is not the Special Edition that die-hard fan’s love to hate… It is more something like a Super-Special-Edition, there is even more slight changes to annoy those die-hard fans. Luckily I am not one of those people, I believe that the films are George Lucas’ vision that he wants to give to us, and this is his definitive version (for now at least!). I actually believe it is sort of fun seeing the changes and if you can spot them all. That’s just my opinion, it seems everyone has their own opinion on this topic.

Saying that, I really have no problems with the insertion of special effects, Greedo shooting first in A New Hope, the Emperor being changed to Ian McDiarmid, or Vader being portrayed as Hayden Christensen at the end of Jedi. But one thing that has slightly annoyed me is the dialogue between Vader and the Emperor changing, I guess it does fit in now that we have Episodes I and II, and the upcoming Episode III, but it just sticks out as major change and made me do a double-take and re-watch the scene a couple times.

Presented in the original aspect ratio on a dual layer disc, there has been a whole lot of tender loving care given to the restoration and transfer process of this film. If you have just purchased a large screen plasma television, you really cannot go wrong with using this film as a demo of your expensive purchase to your friends, but for those with 68cm televisions or smaller it is still a super-sweet treat for the eyes.

Split over 50 chapters, it is easy to jump to your favourite part in the film, but the layer change in the 27th chapter caused a slight pause on my Sony DVP-725 player. Luckily its not too noticeable or in a high action part of the film.

I did not spot one single flaw in the print; there were no spots, specks, scratches or any of those nasty artefacts that we sometimes talk about.

The surround sound is used to excellent effect, and boy does the subwoofer get a work out. The rumble of the Star Destroyers, the indescribable sound of lightsabers, the tweeting and beeping of R2D2, it is all superbly represented here on this one small shiny disc in an excellent Dolby Digital 5.1 EX track. Excellent use has been made of the soundscape with lots of directional sound utilised, but not to a point where it becomes overbearing or seems fake.

The entire Star Wars trilogy has some of the most memorable scores in film history; created by a man who has been behind probably 9 out of 10 of the best know scores of all time, John Williams. Listening to it on DVD is like nothing you have ever heard before, it really does sounds amazing.

Besides the cool themed menu system, the only other extra is an Audio Commentary track on the disc with George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Carrie Fisher, Ben Burtt and Dennis Muren. This commentary is fairly interesting to listen to, but I really would have loved to have a Hamill / Fisher / Ford / Lucas commentary included on the disc, that really would have been great. As it is, the commentary is a decent way to spend a couple hours and you probably will not get bored as there are no long pauses or breaks in the dialogue.

Also included on the disc, and it seems on all the Star Wars discs, is a THX system calibration option and weblinks to StarWars.com