I concur.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJytdCvhMI
#Release_the_Marcia_Lucas_Cut_OTSW
My feeling after years of study is that Lucas doesn’t want to be reminded of work he wasn’t happy with at the time and only reminds him of what he lost. Every movie he swore it was the last and that he and Marcia could settle down after, but by the time RotJ was done, she was gone.
Doesn’t change the fact that it’s film history and should be preserved, but I get his hesitation now.
It’s not spite, it’s regret.
If he feels regret then he should show it and have some respect for the talent he collaborated with during those years. Instead it’s always him vs the studios, a rhetoric he continued during Red Tails period. Nobody gets me, nobody wants to take a risk, nobody understands my true artistic vision, etc. He spent a lot of energy and time and money on the work in the early days but jeez the tortured auteur thing and one standing alone is a sham and everybody knows it. He’s not David Lynch for crying out loud (someone who also had plenty of support from people close to him for a breakthrough 1977 movie).