The print is not rotting. Fox spent $20 million for the Special Edition which included a full restoration of the negative. Additionally, the various interpositives are in relatively good shape, and even without those there are plenty of release prints that are in decent shape as well. The price of cleaning and scanning these is relatively little--just over a hundred thousand dollars. Not only would you have a high quality dvd transfer but you would also create an HD master to be used for every other subsequent video release from now until pretty much the end of the world. This is not an expensive undertaking--every other film distributor does it and makes back big profit. All those Criterion releases. The new dvds of Dog Day Afternoon, Godfather, Raging Bull--all the same process as i have described. Theres no excuse at all for Lucasfilm--they simply dont want to spend any money because they dont care about the films. This release is simply to put and end to the LD bootlegs, which is why the LD master is being used. It costs nothing and is marginally better than the bootlegs, thus nullifying the black market and putting that lost profit in Lucasfilm's pocket.