I don’t think we’ll hear anything about the OOT at Celebration. We can only hope that they will release it this year low key
I don’t think we’ll hear anything either. And I don’t think we have a hope that they will release it, not this year, not 2020, not ever 😦 Thousands of fans going batshit mental over the 40th anniversary of a movie no-one is allowed to see anymore is kinda sickening. Lucasfilm denegrates its own legacy every year this drags on, while all and sundry kiss the ass of the stubborn old bastard who keeps a tight grip on the franchise even after selling it off for billion$.
Here’s Tom with the weather… 😉
Well I don’t know if I’m completely giving up hope that it will ever be released, not even after George dies, but I will say that part of me does wonder if they realize that most of the people who actually care about this now are old-timers who don’t make up their core fan base anymore, therefore not making it worth it in their eyes. A ton of the fans now grew up with the SEs and the prequels, and even some of those who didn’t are George loyalists who stood by his vision all the way through. (Just look at TFN for plenty of examples.) So basically, you have these basic audiences, ranked from largest to smallest in size:
- The mass public who isn’t even aware of the differences and doesn’t care.
- The diehard Star Wars fanatics who will buy anything and eat it up blindly.
- The young teens and twenty-somethings who cut their teeth on the SEs/prequels and if anything prefer that era.
- The original trilogy purists who are still holding out for the OUT.
The last group is the oldest, the smallest, and is considerably worn down by now, as this thread and whole site shows. Many have completely given up hope for a release and turned to the Despecialized/35mm projects. Many others just don’t care much about Star Wars at all anymore, either because they were turned off by the SEs and prequels or because they simply grew out of it. And many more have just resigned themselves to the SEs.
Except for those who stopped being fans at all, most all of these have bought the official Blu-rays regardless. Hell that’s supposed to be a prerequisite for downloading this site’s projects. So it’s not like they’re losing a lot of money here. They’re much more concerned with the future and expanding their fan base, rather than appealing to the niche part of it that is slowly dying out (metaphorically and sadly even literally in some cases), and will only continue to with time.
So while I wouldn’t be totally surprised if they did release the OUT eventually, probably once they’ve gotten back all the rights and therefore can squeeze as much money as they can out of it, I also would not be surprised if:
A. It doesn’t come until after George croaks, or 2020 at the earliest.
B. It is treated as a nostalgic afterthought “bonus” like the GOUT was, hopefully just with more care, and is not extensively marketed.
I would like to be wrong, but at this point I doubt it. I was sure this would be it, this is the absolutely perfect time after all. 20 years without the SE, now 20 years with it… It would have been “like poetry.” Oh well.