‘Disney+ Should Offer the Star Wars Original Cuts—All of Them’:-
George Lucas has been retro-tweaking the saga for years. It’s time to give fans every version.
https://www.wired.com/story/put-original-star-wars-on-disney-plus
^ 2020 article. I know the above article was posted in the thread OP, but thought the accompanying words below, also from doubleofive, struck a chord, and were worth mentioning in here too…
https://twitter.com/doubleofive/status/1257273173231439875
It’s that special time of year when we all come together over #StarWars & I shout about the importance of preserving film history. Hopefully I’m able to shout a little louder this #MayThe4th. #ReleaseTheOriginalTrilogy @starwars @disneyplus @wired
“The SE’s function well enough as what they should be: a side-project version that looks more like and ties into the prequels. They’re the movies you can turn on when you want to rewatch the whole saga, an artifact to show how artists are better off not changing their works.
But they do not stand up on their own as individual movies or as a stand-alone trilogy… they assume that viewers have seen the movies already, which creates a recursive loop. If these were the movies that were originally released, they would not have become a phenomenon.
Even if Lucas has lost his sense of pacing and dramatic structure, audiences haven’t. Fans forgive the Saga Editions for all of their flaws simply because they’re still Star Wars. But those movies wouldn’t be Star Wars without the originals.
That’s what they fell in love with. They’re what the Academy nominated. They’re what the National Film Registry deemed to be ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’ movies. They’re what changed the way movies were made and inspired generations of artists.
The simple fact is that the originals are historical artifacts that can stand on their own, separate from the franchise they birthed… Fans should be able to watch the versions that hit theaters some four decades ago."