bkev said:
You guys must really hate any museum that doesn't let you touch anything, don't you?
Horrendous analogy. Museums exist solely to preserve great masterpieces and display them in ways that can be enjoyed by any member of the general public. This is why anyone can walk into any of the established museums and enjoy these works as much as they please. They don't restore a historically important work and release a statement to the general public like "Michelangelo's David has been meticulously restored. It is locked in the basement, you cannot see it. Take our word for it, it is breathtaking. There are a couple Polaroid's available for public consumption if you don't believe us. Please buy T Shirts on your way out, the exit is through the gift shop." You don't need to "touch" these kinds of works of art to enjoy them, it's a visual medium, you likewise don't need to touch the original camera negatives of a film to enjoy one that has been meticulously restored for high definition and released on BD.... you simply need to sit down and watch the movie.
His efforts to "preserve" the original film are just as fucking useless for all concerned apart from himself - none of us will ever see them (and you're kidding yourself if you think otherwise.) These aren't being preserved for posterity, they're being preserved exclusively for his own personal use and enjoyment at best and at worst to sate his ego by establishing his own personal internet mythology when it comes to UOT preservation. That's fine, I have no problem with someone creating a version for their own personal use... but to pretend as though he's doing this community a tremendous service is fucking absurd - he isn't. None of us will be given the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of his labor.... and to use this vaporware to hock his SW-related merch is fucking bullshit. He's not releasing any material to be used by the likes of Harmy, DarkJedi, etc. He releases a tiny amount of screencaps with tweaked color grading every several months and bloviates about how vastly superior his presentation is relative to everything and anything else on offer.