I'm bumping this thread in light of last week's Disney announcement. Several weeks ago we learned that Clones and Sith would be hitting theaters only a few weeks apart next Fall. With Episode VII hitting in 2015, we'll obviously be seeing all three of the OT-SE installments hitting theaters much earlier than originally expected (late 2014 / early 2015 at the very latest).

I bring this up not out of any interest in the 3D versions, but out of interest for what this might mean for the OT in general. Will Lucasfilm spring for 4K rebuilds of the OT now that money is no longer an object? The current Lowry masters are stuck at 1920x817, which is just fine and dandy for hdtv and blu-ray, but the standard digital cinema resolution for a cinemascope film is 2048x872. Jim Ward called the Lowry masters a "digital negative" back in '04, saying they could use that for theatrical if they wanted to.

Well, it's been eight years and (correct me if I'm wrong) that master hasn't been projected theatrically anywhere.* That says to me that, no, hdtv resolution for a 'scope film is not a "digital negative."

*Was that special screening of Empire a couple years back (with Ford in attendance) the '04 version or was it a '97 print??? That's literally the only time I can think of where the lowry master might have been theatrically projected.