…Some *sshat in a Star Wars group on facebook kept deflecting to every technicality he could possibly grasp at…
This was your first mistake…people on those platforms are the worst. Not to say good people can’t be found there, but FB, Twitter, YouTube (shudders)…it’s just poison.
It was publicly stated years back by RAH that multiple Technicolor dye prints of each film exist in private collections, etc. That for me is adequate, as there’s plenty of classics on film who’s OCN was lost or destroyed long ago, and beautiful presentations now exist for consumption.
Just don’t engage with the worst the Internet has to offer.