Gatefold artwork (Click to Enlarge):
Return of the Jedi, Laserdisc ("CD Video"), CBS/Fox Video. France 1990. 1478-35
Widescreen 2.35:1 - Digital Stereo (French) - PAL - 3 sides (CLV)
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Though not specified anywhere on the sleeve, this is a widescreen release, featuring both a French opening crawl and French dubbing. The on-screen Huttese subtitles are also in French, with the accurate theatrical font. Even the end credits are in French.
Due to the running time of Return of the Jedi, the film had to be spread over three sides, thus this is a 2-disc set. The side-break between side 2 and 3 is quite abrupt and should have been chosen better. Also, side 3 is under 30 minutes long so it could have been encoded in the superior CAV format. At least they took the opportunity to make a nice gatefold sleeve with further images from the film. You will also note a still from Empire on the back cover. Seeing as they had more disc space to play with, Side 1 starts with a quick promotional trailer for other CD Video releases, claiming "The New Generation of Image and Sound" (Includes clips from Romancing the stone, Wall Street, Bagdad Cafe, Star Wars, The Last Emperor, Chariots of Fire, Crocodile Dundee, Cocoon, The Big Blue, Kagemusha, Ran, Commando, Subway, Alien, Aliens, 9 1/2 Weeks, Betty Blue). On my copy, one of the protective disc sleeves advertises these same films under the heading "Also available from CBS/Fox Video" (see below). The other disc sleeve is just a generic LD-format sleeve. In 1989 European Tech company Philips, one of the inventors and major patent holders of the Laserdisc format, made a push to relaunch the Laserdisc format in Central Europe under the "CD Video" banner. The format is exactly the same as Laserdisc, with analog PAL video and PCM Stereo sound, but the actual discs were gold coloured. Unfortunately, these "CD Video" discs have a propensity for the so-called "Laser rot", and it is not uncommon that they suffer from excessive speckling, dropouts and crackling sound when played back today. My copy is okay as of 2025, thankfully.
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