Van Ling, the producer behind the visually exciting menus on both The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones DVD sets has returned to the galaxy far, far away... this time to the classic galaxy of the original Star Wars trilogy. The Los Angeles-based producer once again created menus that launch the films from a number of worlds and environments, from locations as diverse as the Massassi Temple on Yavin IV, to the carbon-freezing chamber on Bespin, to Jabba's palace, and the bridge of the Executor.

Fans of the original trilogy will benefit from both Ling's skill as a producer and by his deep-seated affection for the Star Wars films. He and his team faced unique challenges during the production process, but the end result is proof of their creativity and talent, and to Ling's ability to manage diverse elements.

When he first produced the menus for The Phantom Menace DVD, Ling suggested three different menu sets that were randomized so viewers could enjoy a different experience each time they put in the disc. As a fan, he found that a benefit of the triple random menus was that he did not have to pick and choose his favorite scenes.

"I always want menus to capture the spirit and the environments of the movies," he says, "but there are so many environments in these movies there's no way to do justice to them with one menu each. It's a testament to the richness of the films."

Ling produced the Episode I and II DVDs with three menu environments, and now the original trilogy set the same way. "I locked myself in because I wanted to do it that way," he recalls. "As a fan I would have been disappointed if there was only one menu per disc."

Three different menu sets create more work for any production, but even more so as the classic films presented more challenges than the new films. And the team had less time.

"The good news is the that triple menus allow us to give more to the fans, to create more of the worlds and be more complete," Ling says. "The bad news is we're doing three times as many menus. A schedule is a schedule. And we had less time to do four discs than we had for either Phantom or Clones."

In addition to time constraints, Ling and his team tackled the difficulties inherent in working with older film.

"The process was a much greater challenge on the original trilogy than the prequels," Ling recalls. "Whenever you have what are referred to as classic films or 'catalog films' that have already been archived, you have to do a lot of archeology."

Ling describes the Lucasfilm archives and image archives as much better than most, but the sheer volume of material needed demanded many searches. The age of the films also meant that film quality was often poor, even though the team worked from a good transfer.