Nobody said there aren’t thousands of people who want to buy it. I’m one of those thousands.
But thousands isn’t enough. And it’s not hundreds of thousands, either. Bootleggers aren’t making “Big profits.” Just plain ol’ profits. Kind of. Probably not any more notable than any other bootlegger anywhere is making by burning torrents to blu and throwing that up on eBay. It’s not a lucrative hustle.
The demand seems high because we’re us, and we’re the ones making the demand, and we’ve been making it for 20 years. But we’re obviously not a priority to Lucasfilm. It’s why our preservations are left alone. It’s not because we’re secretive, or careful, or because we only upload to the most private of trackers, or anything like that. They’re left alone because we’re not competition, because our numbers aren’t enough to give very much consideration to.
We’ll know when an OOT is finally getting officially released because that’s when everyone’s fan-project is going to get shut down. Until then we’re a niche of a niche that isn’t worth bothering with.
Which is fine because with 4K, D+, and Despecialized, we dont’ really need to bother with them, either. The only thing an official release can get us now is corporate validation and that doesn’t really matter much, if at all.
Either way: These dumb rumors aren’t signs of anything but the rumor mill still working the way it always has. Nothing we’re hearing has anything to do with whether or not Disney and Lucasfilm decide to make the OOT available as a bonus feature for anything in the near future. That decision, if/when it’s made, will be made for reasons that have nothing to do with “appeasement” or money. Hopefully it’ll get made, but to continue believing there’s a way that “The fans” can make this happen doesn’t seem prudent, to me.
The fans have shown they’re better off making what they want to see themselves.