Sorry to just barge in on your conversation BTW.
Was interested in your posts as I did a seaarch a few weeks back on the Smithsonian website, and could not find the films. Am glad to hear that they exist somewhere (and are hopefull well looked after).
You have a point about the studio as author thing - but usually doesn't the studio then own the negatives and distribution rights? Was it part of George Lucas' best deal ever in history that he is able to mess with and distribute the films (rather than 20th Century Fox)?
I hope that the first Star Wars trilogy is going the sad way of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, as the original cut of the film has been completely lost. The this loss only happened because later people had a fabulous time re-cutting it for "improvement". Same with story with a couple of other films I think.
Am just suprised that people don't seem to find the 1997 re-edit completely scandalous.
