‘An Uncut and Non-Remastered List of Star Wars Editions!’:-
https://www.tor.com/2015/05/04/an-uncut-and-non-remastered-list-of-star-wars-editions-2 - 2015 article
a snippet…
"The thing that makes Star Wars truly great is Greedo shooting first. Wait, come back, I’m being serious! The original Star Wars trilogy was an incredible cultural touchstone, and obviously Star Wars merchandise and expanded universe novels created a whole world for fans to inhabit. However, the moment when Star Wars became truly great was the moment in 1997 when a generation of fans had to examine what this film meant to them, and why it was so important that Han shoot first. This moment galvanized an already fervent fandom to, if you don’t mind me mixing my geek metaphors, play Sam Beckett in the SWU, going back to earlier prints of the films to put right what Lucas had made wrong.
Using the sort of film tech popularized by Lucas himself, the fandom dove in and started making new editions of the original trilogy, and then turned their scalpels on each of the prequels. Rather than accepting anything as “canon,” they made their own."
and…
"I saw the original trilogy, uncut and pre-specialized, at about the same time that I read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a few weeks before I dove headlong into Star Trek: the Next Generation. I am personally pro-Original Trilogy and anti-prequel, but I come here today not to rant about that—okay, there will be some ranting, but mostly I’m just interested in how many different ways there are to watch these movies.
Plus, George Lucas’ own divided nature fascinates me, as does his fans’ reactions to him. Lucas wants people to have access to more tech, and Lucasfilm held The Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards from 2002 until 2012 (and apparently they’re coming back this year) — Lucas himself bestowed one of the awards. Troops, which showed Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru in a fairly negative light, won the OSWFFA’s Pioneer Award the year it was released. And he liked George Lucas in Love enough to send its creators a congratulatory letter. So he’s evidently okay with fans mucking about in his universe. Which is great!
But then there are his thoughts on the 1997 Special Edition vs. the Original Trilogy:
“There will only be one. And it won’t be what I would call the ‘rough cut,’ it’ll be the ‘final cut.’ The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, ’There was an earlier draft of this.’ …[W]hat ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that’s what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s, to go back and reinvent a movie.”
Which, again, I completely agree with keeping the studio out of an auteur’s vision! But I don’t think Lucas realized that it wouldn’t be the studios interfering, it would be the fans themselves. Over the last thirty years, Star Wars enthusiasts have come up with many ways to re-experience the films, some with official sanction, and some without."