The Griff said:

Deja vu!

Anyway, it was 1997 and I guess the 'Special Editions' had all come out and done their thing. Sometime after there was a public holiday and yet another movie marathon. One of the programs was to be the Star Wars trilogy! The ads were in that weekend's papers and we were all quite keen to go (me especially, since a trilogy screening in '83 or '84 was how I first got to see EMPIRE). However, when we got to the cinema shortly before midnight on the night, we discovered that the trilogy screening had been cancelled. Why?

George Lucas.

Lucasfilm had found out about the marathon and put the kebosh on it. Needless to say, alotta folk were pretty bummed about the whole thing.

How does a theater not know you need legal permission to show a movie?

If they were showing James Bond films, and it got cancelled because the theater owner was too stupid/crooked to get/pay for the rights to show them, would you personally blame the owner of MGM or Albert Brocolli, or would you be annoyed at the theater owner for being stupid/crooked?