New Return of the Jedi deleted scene and Star Wars coming to Blu-ray

Star Wars Celebration V has been running over in the States these past few days and the big news coming out of the convention is confirmation that the Star Wars saga will indeed hit Blu-ray in 2011, as rumoured by Lucasfilm representative Steve Sansweet back in April.

George Lucas took part in a telephone interview with The New York Times earlier this week and announced that it would be the 1997 Special Edition versions that were getting the glorious high-definition treatment: "You have to go through and do a whole restoration on it, and you have to do that digitally. It’s a very, very expensive process to do it. So when we did the transfer to digital, we only transferred really the upgraded version."

Although there was no suggestion in The New York Times piece that the prequel trilogy would be included in the box-set, Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox have since issued a press release that gives us a little more information - specifically, that it will comprise all six films along with documentaries, vintage behind-the-scenes moments, interviews, retrospectives and never-before-seen footage from the Lucasfilm archives.

As a tease, they've also released a deleted scene from Return of the Jedi, finally giving fans a look at Luke Skywalker's original entrance... [edit - which has unfortunately vanished due to a copyright claim from Lucasfilm. I'm sure you can find it on the net somewhere, but if not you've only got a year or so to wait!]

Be sure to head on over to TheForce.net for all the Star Wars news coming out of Celebration V and look for the Star Wars Blu-ray Box Set to hit stores next autumn, just in time for the lucrative holiday season.