I’m sure Disney appreciates preserving their film assets. They have worked on Song Of The South, even if they’re not going to let anyone see it before 2525. 😉
Disney recently said tht the OT negs are still all cut to the SE and that they had no plans to change that.
They did say that they had scanned all of the elements that they had, including the removed OT elements, but that there were no plans to reconform to create a restored original trilogy.
So although what remains of the wonder that I had when first seeing Star Wars still remains, I find it hard to hold out any hope that they will ever restore and release an Original Trilogy.
It will very shortly be the case that the Special Editions will have been out for longer than the Original Versions were before the SE came along.
It is frustrating, because with the technology available now, a full commercial OT restoration of ALL THREE films could be done for under a million USD and by people who really know the film.
(1/8th of what they spent restoring just the soundtrack a few years back)
There is almost no chance they couldn’t recoup that, especially if they did a limited Cinema release as well.
The company I work for could complete each film within about three months if the funding was there, it is such a shame that Disney does not want to do it.