zombie wrote: Fun fact: apparently, they were moved to storage and their status was changed to protected in order to save them because of savestarwars.com.
Only you are privy to all the behind the scenes conversations, but generally the LoC has been improving their facilities and much of the material they preserve is getting a new home in the last few years. For instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Audio-Visual_Conservation_Center
The National Audiovisual Conservation Center, also known as the Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation, is the Library of Congress's new audiovisual archive located inside Mount Pony in Culpeper, Virginia. (opened fall 2008)
The underground vaults (some set to temperatures below freezing) contain nearly 90 miles (140 km) of shelving, not including 124 nitrate film vaults:[6] the largest nitrate film storage complex in the Western hemisphere.
(lots of good links to articles about the facilities and what they accomplish in the links part of the wiki entry)
This should go over well with this crowd, even if it's almost 20 years old:
http://www.cinemaweb.com/access/pre_stmt.htm
"Preservation Without Access is Pointless"Statement by
The Committee For Film Preservation and Public Accessbefore
The National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress
Los Angeles, California
February 12, 1993
We believe that all films have historical significance and should be preserved, and we support the use of Federal funds for this effort. However, we also believe that with the use of public funds comes the responsibility to make the films available to the public. Upon expiration of copyright, those films whose preservation, cataloguing or storage has been supported in any way by public funds must become available without restriction.
Here's a nice list of film/media preservation links: http://www.hollywoodvaults.com/resources/#resources2
I'm going to keep posting these links until someone reads them:
Library of Congress Copyright Deposit records for all the Star Wars films.
(tells you what they have, when they were procured and other relevant things)
1977 - Star Wars
http://lccn.loc.gov/965122471980 - Empire Strikes Back
http://lccn.loc.gov/965122081983 - Return of the Jedi
http://lccn.loc.gov/965015201997 - Star Wars A New Hope Special Edition
http://lccn.loc.gov/975103431997 - Empire Strikes Back Special Edition
http://lccn.loc.gov/985022621997 - Return of the Jedi Special Edition
http://lccn.loc.gov/20066420531999 - The Phantom Menace
http://lccn.loc.gov/99468631
2002 - Attack of the Clones
http://lccn.loc.gov/20026364272005 - Revenge of the Sith
http://lccn.loc.gov/2005644161