generalfrevious said:
About the debate wether Lucas destroyed the original negatives for the special editions; I think that it could have happened. Most film makers would restore the negative before adding the special effects digitally. But since Lucas is dumb enough to make Yoda fight in the prequels, he surely must be stupid enough to splice the negatives of the originals for the special editions. Let's face it: years from now the original trilogy will be on Wikipedia's article on lost films.
Altering original negatives seems highly unlikely, despite the possible stupidity of the person doing it because:
1. It is much easier to apply any kind of changes to digital scan on a computer than directly to the film stock.
2. It is impossible to apply CGI physically on a film stock lol.
3. Even if you apply physical changes to film stock you don't do it on the only copy of it, in case any mistakes or accidents occur.
I am convinced both original film stock (or copies of it) and scanned unaltered digital version of it exist. The only other scenario is that Lucas explicitly ordered to destroy/delete them.