Crack The Whip

At last! The most anticipated DVD release ever is finally making its debut. No, not the original Star Wars films but close. We're talking about the Indiana Jones trilogy and, after the kind of wait that would have had even his holiness the pope cursing Spielberg for not getting his arse in gear, the films' digital transformation is all but complete. Top of film fans' wishlist for a DVD makeover, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade will appear remastered in THX on shiny silver platters later this year as part of a trilogy box set. The films will not be available individually, we're sorry to say, so it's all or nothing with this one. The set does come with a bonus-imbued fourth disc, however, which contains four hours of supplementary material including interviews with Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford and deleted scenes - one of which being the much talked about extended swordfight that Indy avoids with a well-placed bullet in the theatrical version. The set will hit US stores on 4 November for the princely sum of $50 and, joy of joys, us Brits will get our sweaty little hands on it the very same day. The only slight problem is that, once again, Spielberg has neglected to provide a commentary track. According to a spokesman from Lucasfilm, the absence of such a track on all three films was a strategic move. "We felt that because of bandwidth issues and, more importantly, the amount of information provided on the fourth disc, it would be redundant to include a director's commentary track on the title discs." Balderdash! That's what we say. There's never so much information that a commentary isn't welcome and Mr Spielberg, if you're listening, there's no excuse for your reluctance to provide them. So there.