Its an insult to see a fully realized and secondary world like the original Star Wars as a rough draft the way Lucas does. He is entitled to his very wrong opinion. Along with convincing himself Han always shot second.
And lying to everyone else about Han “always shot first” too. Lucas didn’t even manage to keep his own new story straight.
Its kind of insane that he never liked the movie, the one that shattered box office records, made him a multi millionaire before the age of 40. Put Lucasfilm and ILM on the map. Changed the entire focus and direction of the film industry towards blockbusters.
We know he wasn’t happy with certain parts of it for years. But it did seem he came to dislike the movie more around the time of the doing Special Editions and then the Prequels.
Like LexX, for me the original cut version is the only universe.
I would happily take them if they appeared on Disney+ in that “Vintage Star Wars” section, where much of the older Star Wars releases have been made non-canon, but can still be seen in reasonable HD quality.
Our own head-canon is what is really important, regardless of what Lucas or Lucasfilm tells us fans what is isn’t or isn’t. Just a pity they actively choose not to release all the different theatrical cuts of all the films for fans to view once more.