I will be buying them because I don't own a widescreen t.v., or HDTV so I can deal with the fact that they are only letterboxed. In the event that someday I might have bought one though it would've been nice to have them anamorphic. The 2004 set displays well on mt t.v. even though is a 4:3 screen, because my rca dvd player alows me to set it to letterbox 4:3 cropping the image, I know I lose some of the image on the sides but I cannot afford a HDTV even at the cost of 1,500 dollars.

Besides the fact that these were the versions, (the definitive collection) that I had hoped would come to dvd since it's advent.

that being said I do not understand lynn hale refering to the original negative being altered in such a way that we can never have the original orginals again in HD format or even a theatrical re-release because they have been destroyed. I have a horror of an image of good old georgie standing over a trim bin cutting the original negative and throwing away those scenes he thought was not his vision.

I suppose he can't stand the fact that the first two star wars films the original versions were slated by the government as to be preserved, and that they are the versions AFI nominated on it's list of top 150 films.

They claim they can't afford the funds to retore them?, cannot or will not?

Then how come I was at theforce.net the other day and saw that he put a lot of money into cutting together a 3D version of phantom menace for release in 2007, a.k.a. the new cgi yoda version as seen on revenge of the sith's second disc. In fact I have a sneaky suppition that we will see special editions of the prequels before we know it, and uber HD versions of the 2004 cgi crappy versions with new tinkering.

Dare I say it it appears now that he apparently was the luckiest one trick pony ever with his success of star wars, will continue to tinker with his films.

Of course in his college years and during the original star wars trilogy it appeared he was a genius of design and editing, but that has been superceded by computer graphics and shoddy storytelling.

I can sum up the release of the original versions in one word bittersweet, I wanted to shout for joy at the annoucement but was also livid with anger over the treatment of the most beloved films of my childhood by Lucas. and his shitting all over them publicly and not offering them in an anamorphic 16:9 remastered form.