Package photo
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Return of the Jedi, VCD, Angel/CeQuadrat, China 2000
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This is another bootleg VideoCD of the theatrical version of Return of the Jedi, courtesy of our old friends at CeQuadrat. According to the packaging the distributor is "Angel", but the discs have a "CeQuadrat" menu screen. According to the small text on the back, this is published by "Ningxia Cultural Audiovisual Publishing House", if Google Translate is to be believed. I'm sure the other films in the trilogy were released as well, but this is the only one I've come across.
The film is offered in cropped fullscreen, with chinese subtitles, also for the alien languages. The files are dated Jan. 2000, which means this follows at least three years' worth of bootlegs of the Special Edition versions. It does not make sense to release the old, theatrical cut at this point in time. The image is also really soft, even for a VideoCD, and this looks to me like it was taken from a VHS source. Curiously, there is no Fox fanfare at the beginning, and the actual Star Wars title card is cut out completely. The film goes straight from the "A long time ago..." title into the crawl, with an abrupt jump. I suppose keeping the Star Wars name off the screen offers some false sense of security against prosecution if your're a Video Pirate? This came in an Amaray style, 2-disc box, which I've never seen on any other release. I bought this off eBay in 2011. The discs are pressed, not burned, but as of 2025 the last half hour of disc 2 is unreadable. |
CeQuadrat logo
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Lucasfilm credit
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A long time ago...
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Opening crawl
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Star Destroyer
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Jabba subtitles
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Obi Wan
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CeQuadrat logo (Beginning of Side 2)
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Shuttle landing
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Emperor's slug
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