Force freaks, get ready to add another version of director George Lucas' space opera to your already overcrowded Star Wars video shelf.

Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox on Tuesday announced the release of Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace on DVD this fall, marking the first time the Star Wars saga will be distributed on the digital format.

"Finally, it is here," the relieved Peter M. Bracke writes on his DVDfile.com, a site dedicated to the digital format. "It is hard to believe that what we've all longed for ever since we picked up our first DVD players has finally arrived."

After umpteen versions on VHS and laserdisc, Lucasfilm is going all out for its first DVD from the Star Wars saga.

"We're very excited about the added-value material," says Lucasfilm spokeswoman Lynne Hale. "We've got scenes newly created just for the DVD which were never completed for the film."

The two-disc Phantom set is packed with six hours of bonus material, including several exclusive documentaries and never-before-seen-footage, as well as a running commentary--a first for a Lucas movie.

Fans will also be salivating over a Sarlac pit-full of behind-the-scenes info on the making of Phantom, with mini-featurettes containing storyboards, animatics, the original theatrical trailers, TV spots and details on the movie's storyline, production design, costumes, visual effects and fight scenes.

The Phantom DVD will list for $29.98 and hit stores nationwide on October 16. (Lucasfilm would not say when the original trilogy (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) would be released on DVD.)

In the meantime, some imaginative young Jedis have crossed over to the dark side and put together their own digital Menace. But you can't get this special edition in stores--at least not legally.

Two unauthorized fan-edited versions of The Phantom Menace have been making the rounds via the Net and underground video stores.

The two versions, edited by anonymous fans, attempt to improve upon the cut Lucas released in theaters in 1999.

The seamlessly spliced-together Phantom "Re-Edits," as they've come to be called, each made over the movie differently.

The most publicized version, "The Phantom Edit," was put together by a Los Angeles fan who axed 20 minutes of the movie's sillier moments in favor of a darker vision. The would-be Lucas removed significant amounts of Jar Jar Binks and recut the Anakin Skywalker scenes to make him more sinister and mature.

The second version, "The Phantom Re-Edit: Episode 1.1.", created by two guys in New York in cahoots with another in L.A., did away with the dialects used by Jar Jar and other aliens, opting instead to use subtitles "which made [the characters] far more believable and realistic," says Joshua Griffin, who reviewed both films for TheForce.net, one of the top Star Wars fan sites.

"I also do think that less is more overall with Jar Jar, and insiders have told us that Lucas is already working to that end with Episode II," says Griffin.

Griffin says the fan-edited versions are an "exciting and unique" way to see Episode I, but has a word of warning. "Editing a movie for your own use is absolutely fine...But when a copy of an edited movie is sent to other people without the consent of the folks that produced it, that is illegal by the standard of the law," he says.

That sentiment is echoed by a posting on the official StarWars.com.

"There has been a lot of attention paid recently to unauthorized edits of The Phantom Menace. While we appreciate fan enthusiasm in general, creating, duplicating and/or distributing any edited version of a Star Wars film is clear copyright infringement and is illegal."

And while some fans complained George Lucas was contradicting himself after previously giving his blessing to alternate visions of Star Wars movies, Lucasfilm's Hale says that's not the case.

"The people that were doing [the re-edits] were not acting maliciously," says Hale. "We've always encouraged our fans to have fun with Star Wars, but we do draw the line when they start duplicating and selling."