zombie84 said:The OOT prints exist! Of course they do! LFL did not destroy them. All Lucas said was that the original negative no longers exists. Because it doesn't--it wasn't physically destroyed, as in chucked in a furnace, it was just re-edited, so the negative now is in the edit configuration of the 1997 SE, thus technically you cannot go and make a new print without doing some work to put the O-neg back together the way it was. In any case, they have multiple Interpositives and Internegatives, plus reference prints, and Lucas himself owns a dye-transfer Technicolor print, which he lent to YCM labs as a reference for color since dye-transfer does not fade.

Hold on. See here: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa120.html#aswrant

On that page they say Lucas recalled and destroyed lots of prints back when he was making the SE. So maybe they don't have prints now, maybe they did destroy all the ones they have. Interpositives, internegatives, reference prints, the dye-transfer technicolor print you mentioned... maybe it's all gone. I know people keep mentioning Empire of Dreams as proof that he has prints hidden away, but isn't that just a few shots? All that would prove is that he has a few shots, not a full print.