Now that this old news is resurfacing once more, I find myself reading the same thing: “the negatives for the originals are gone! no chance for the theatrical cuts!”
Mostly everyone who’ve wrote these articles can guess (or perhaps even know) that Reliance scanned the '97 SE. Because of this, they are all under the impression that there’s no simple way to recover the theatrical versions of the OT – because rumor has it the o’negs for the three films were conformed to the '97 SE. However, you don’t need a negative. Interpositives are very close in terms of quality to the original source, and if I’m not mistaken, they retain the original color timing, unlike the negative.
If the negatives actually are recut, then no sweat. Now, if for some reason LucasFilm only have access to the recut negatives and beat-up release prints, then sure – we can panic. But as seem from both MVerta and Poita’s work, a good 35mm release print scan can hold up very nicely.
My rant is over. Goodnight, and Happy New Year.