Fang Zei said:
The consensus seems to be that the people currently in charge at Lucasfilm feel a sense of loyalty to George,
It’s this.
I happen to think it simply comes down to greed on Disney’s part and the desire to maximize profits.
Not this.
Either way - Fox never had anything to do with the original versions not being distributed. That was never at any point anything other than misguided fan speculation repeated so often on forums and comments sections that people just took it as read and repeated it themselves. There was never any inkling that theory had any basis in fact, it just sounded plausible-ish provided you didn’t look into it too closely, and nobody “winning” arguments on a messageboard was inclined to do that anyway.
It’s the same with the “Lucas built a clause into the contract” story that has since replaced the “Fox won’t let them” story that’s been mooted for almost 10 years. Lucas never built a clause into a contract, and Iger never agreed to such a clause. The entire notion of the clause even existing is a fan invention.
The holdup is Lucasfilm. Not Disney. And the people with the power to get it done at Lucasfilm don’t want to do it. If they did, it would be done already.