It’s been pointed out on numerous occasions that it appears that the general public does not care one way or another about the changes. This may be true but I honestly don’t understand how this affects the chances of a future OUT release.
If they don’t care about the changes, then what’s the point of even reverting them? That costs money.
An OUT restoration is gonna sell better than a mere restored version of the same print of the SEs. It’s already a general consensus that people are fine with the BDs as is. If Disney/Lucasfilm intends to keep the market open to those films they’re gonna have to do more than simply restore the same SE.
This is why I’m convinced we’ll see an official OOT restoration when the time comes for a UHD release at the absolute latest. Not as many fans will pay for the SE yet again just so they can watch it at a higher resolution and with HDR. Lucasfilm will need to incentivize it a little, and what better time to do an all-versions set than the 4k release?
They could do an unaltered release on regular blu in the meantime, maybe even package it with a new transfer of the SE from the RMW 4k master instead of recycling the 2011 discs (which still use the 2004 master) yet again. But I feel like they’re not going to do that because they know many who’d buy it probably wouldn’t buy it again in a few years on 4k. Plus they’d have to share more of the profits with Fox whereas I-VI probably won’t hit 4k until 2020 at the earliest anyway. Better to wait and use the OOT to incentivize a UHD release.
They could still put it out on regular blu the same day, for those people who really don’t plan on ever upgrading beyond regular blu. Kind of like how the Blade Runner set was released on both dvd and the hd formats on the same day in 2007. Ditto for Close Encounters that same year with dvd and blu-ray.