Slightly off topic but if the National Film Registry included Star Wars among its selected films in 1989, why did Lucasfilm offer the SE print 8 years after the fact??? Was Lucas intending to change the film(s) as early as '89 and wouldn’t submit a print until the film was ‘finished’???
Seeing as how the Library itself had two copies already and the National Film Registry is essentially just another bureaucratic wing of the Library of Congress, it probably wasn’t much of a priority. Who knows really? I’d be curious to see how many films on the registry don’t have prints submitted.
The library only has one 35mm print of the original Star Wars. Unless you’re also counting the 35mm print of the 1997 SE.
As for the NFR, I really probably shouldn’t say anything but it’s been so long since I heard the story I don’t think it’s a huge deal. The truth is they did try to get a copy of Star Wars by other means after Lucasfilm wouldn’t submit the original cut, but in the end it didn’t pan out. I cant go into details, but I can say that one of the “avenues” they were pursuing wound up being one of the sources for Mike V’s Legacy. So it kinda all worked out the same (the film being preserved but not available for public consumption) in a roundabout way…