http://io9.com/5500510/the-one-thing-george-lucas-could-do-to-sway-the-people-in-his-favor
Relevant Portions:
Philippe: You know that's interesting because it really reminded me of, there's a guy, who's actually in the film, whose name is Adywan he's essentially a God among fan-editors. The whole fan edit movement is a whole other thing, but he spent two and a half years working on his recreation of Star Wars the way it should be, according to him. It's just a tremendous amount of work. But you look at some of the stuff he's done, for instance, we actually show a shot, a comparison, between George's version and Adywan's version. In George's version there's maybe five critters [on screen] and Adywan's only has two. And I say, If you had a problem, if you had an issue with those critters, why didn't you just remove them all? But he wanted to keep [two of] them. It's so nit-picky, it's really interesting. That's how passionate they are. They have this vision of Star Wars and they appropriate it and it becomes theirs. And in fact, all of them talk about it in terms of "this is in MY Star Wars." It's a very personal thing.
There's the example of the originaltrilogy.com website who petitioned to put out the original edition, and within the first few weeks you had 78,000 confirmed signatures. So the excuse that it costs too much money to restore those films, with all due respect to Lucasfilm, it's baloney. Of course the fans would buy it and of course they would make their money back. George has made it very very clear that he does not want these original films to be seen. I've received e-mails from theaters saying "We tried! We wanted to do a retrospective on the great films of the 20th century and we contacted Lucas Film. We assumed we could get a print of the original Star Wars, we were denied that right.
This documentary really explores the social contract between artist and audience, what did you learn about this contract, what has it become today because of the internet? Has it changed?
This is a difficult question because you can approach this question legally or morally. I'll approach it from a moral perspective. I think we live in a age where culture is rising. The fans are rising in a powerful way, perhaps also in some dangerous ways. But also in ways that reflect where culture is now. In recent years the fans have been expressing this sense that George these are not just your movies, these are also our movies. They belong to our culture. The fan editing movement as a whole is an embodiment of that. Henry Jenkins talks about Alice In Wonderland and how Lewis Carroll, by [the author] giving it to the people made and allowing them to remix it, allowing people to play in that sandbox, was precisely what made Alice one of the most popular texts around. Even considering the resistance that Lucas Film has had, the fans have remixed made fan films it and continue to play with it. It's a shared thing. I understand that there is legal ramifications and copyright laws and that is all fair. But when something, like Star Wars transcends, it's not just a story it's something that touches most of us in a very profound way. It's a reflection of culture, of our own selves. Therefore I believe that culture is entitled to it. I feel very strongly about this, that the fans are entitled to a restored, pristine trilogy the way we saw it.