Sigh. Lucas has done more in my book for showing what a terrible idea the concept of "artist's rights" is than anything else. If anything, Lucas is a sad but extremely compelling reason to smack an artist's hands away and never let him near anything he's alredy created. I'm not one to trust huge corporations, but I have a hard time believing anyone could treat these films worse than Lucas himself. If Fox owned all three of them, we'd certainly have properly preserved versions of these films.

And for those who are confused, this is my take. The Library of Congress did get copies of the films when they were first released. But the National Film Registry, the branch of the LOC responsible for archiving and preserving culturally signficant films, has not been able to secure prints, thanks to Lucas's shortsighted idiocy. Granted, I'm not entirely sure why they don't just put the prints they already have into the vaults, unless they're just in too poor condition, but the article doesn't seem to suggest that. In fact, at least for Star Wars, they seem to be in surprisingly good condition.