I’m certain we’ll get something for the 40th anniversary. They won’t let such an occasion go unacknowledged. And with all the 4K UHD discs coming out lately, they’ll have to put that out eventually too so it’s perfect timing. I would bet money that the OUT will be released, simply because they know damn well the fans will not be pleased if they try to put out just the SE yet again without George even involved. And because sites like this are cutting into Disney’s profits; yes, I know it’s a niche site and yes, I know we’re supposed to own the Blu-ray, but major publications have written about it and there’s no doubt plenty of people who download Despecialized without paying Disney a cent. They’ll want to rectify that just like the GOUT put a stop to laserdisc bootlegs.

Unfortunately we’re probably stuck with the SE forever though, even if it comes with the OUT, simply because the SE will have been the standard in one form or another for literally exactly as long as the original was. That means a generation or two grew up on it. For their sake, it would be nice if they also restored the 97 SE. Which might be easier; if it is true that the negatives are the 97 SE, it should be no problem whatsoever to throw that initial scan on as a bonus even if they alter it to the 2011 version for the standard release.

My ideal would be for them to hybrid it all together with branching: Scan the 97 negative and use it as the base, “despecialize” it for the OUT and “respecialize” it for the 2011 SE. Then stick it all on one disc and allow viewers to seamlessly select which version to watch, using the same footage for everything except for where scenes differ. This assumes of course that they get the colors and everything down perfectly for all versions, which would be pretty sweet. And since both the colors and audio of the 97 SE are unanimously praised around here, I don’t think people could complain too much if it was used as the base everything else was built around.