Do you remember, when Disney requested a print of the original cut from Library of Congress why would they ask for it if they say “oh we don’t care about the OUT” so clearly something is happening is not why ask for the print. Here is a quote from reddit:
“For those unaware, the only thing Disney didn’t get when they bought Lucas Films back in 2012 was distribution rights to Episode 4. According to insiders, Disney has a 4k copy of the original cut of the film but can not release it. Now that Disney has bought all of 20th Century Fox, they now have full control of that movie and can release it to the public.”
Disney has all of the original elements for the 1977 Star Wars and has scanned all of the elements in 4K for archival purposes.
They would have absolutely no need of a LoC print, do you have a source for this?
Lucasfilm did at one stage try to retrieve the LoC prints and replace them with the Special Editions, the LoC refused.
Also when making the SE release, Lucas did dig out an IB Tech print and showed it to the colourists as reference for the SE, saying that the IB was the look he wanted to achieve. I’m wondering if these events may have gotten confused into the “Disney requested a print” story, as I can’t see a reason that Disney would need one.
I’m not saying the story is definitely wrong, but I’d be interested to know what the source is.
I’ve spoken again with people inside the Disney archival and restoration team, and they still say there is no interest internally in releasing the original versions, but that they have digitally scanned all of the elements that they have. There is talk internally of a 4K SE release however.