Not destroyed, not by a long shot. The original negative is conformed to the special edition edit and may no longer be viable as the basis for a restoration unless the pieces that got altered/replaced were in fact put into storage back in '96. Even if they were, I'm pretty sure the optical shots had completely faded beyond repair by the mid-90's because of the unstable film-stock used to composite them (they were thrown out and re-composited digitally), so they would need a second-generation source anyway.

For this and other reasons, it might make more sense to simply use an interpositive or the separation masters and use that as a starting point for an OOT restoration. Even then, it would still take a little thing called "time" and some "effort," both of which would require something called "money" to be spent. That's all George really meant.