Hey, Wook, lent your letter my editorial talents. I didn’t cut any sections—we can let collective opinion decide that—but I did tighten the language, which saves some space:
*Dear Disney and Lucasfilm,
Today is the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, the film that started it all. Yet, where is that film? No, not the special edition, the original 1977 film. The one we grew up with. The film that changed our lives forever.
Saying this isn’t hyperbole. Those of us who were there that incredible summer of '77 had never seen anything like it. It was a major event in our lives. Some of us came away wanting to know how it was made. It prompted a desire in some of us to make movies or tell stories of our own. No matter the path we chose, George Lucas lit a spark that remains within us today.
One thing we all share are the memories of where and with whom we saw Star Wars, and even of shooting down imaginary TIE fighters out the back window of the car on the way home. For others, it was a brightly shining light in the middle of a turbulent childhood. If Luke and his friends could triumph over their trials, maybe we could too.
We saw the movie over and over again, probably more than any movie before or since. We know the lines by heart; we love the characters. Seeing our heroes again on the screen for the first time in 32 years was like reuniting with family. Star Wars is a very emotional thing for us.
All these years later, we would love to revisit the Original Trilogy that we remember, to recapture those memories of a long time ago, in a movie theater far far away. Those of us with families want to be able to show our kids exactly what we saw when we were their age and relive it with them. It should be such a simple thing to do.
Only it isn’t.
We’re limited in our choices to outdated video formats that are increasingly difficult to obtain and inch closer to extinction each year. And the now out of print bonus DVDs from 2006, which utilize ancient video transfers from 1993, are hardly better, if one can find them at all.
None of us ever imagined as kids that we would have to resort to “alternative methods” to keep these historic versions from fading to memory and, ultimately, disappearing from the collective consciousness altogether. We live in an era in which even “bad” movies are respected enough to be meticulously restored and made publically available.
We don’t bemoan the Special Edition’s existence. It simply isn’t the version of the trilogy we fell in love with. The Original Original Trilogy, or OOT, deserves to be seen in the absolute best quality afforded by modern cinema and 21st-centruy home video formats so that it can be loved again by all.
There is room for both versions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of The Jedi to coexist. And we want to give you our money for them; we really do! Please give us that opportunity. At least give us hope that we will be able to do so soon. Some of us aren’t getting any younger! That is all we ask.
Sincerely yours,
The Staff and Members of Originaltrilogy.com*