Well, it is a bit scary but there have been articles in fairly high-profile media before and the DeEd is always mentioned a hundred times over in the comments of all articles about the OOT, so when they contacted me with some questions, I figured they'll be writing the article either way, so it would be better if I had at least some sort of say in it. They edited my quotes down quite a bit, which was to be expected of course but in the process, they often sort of changed the emphasis of what I was saying. For example in the quote about my worries about the Disney release, they edited out DVNR, which I put first, because that's my biggest concern. They also completely ignored, what I consider the most important part of my response about copyright.
Here's the full text of my responses:
1) How did you originally get the idea to create the Despecialized Editions?
I study English and American Cultural Studies and the cultural impact of the original Star Wars was actually the topic of my undergraduate thesis. And I’m convinced that the Special Edition greatly diminishes the immense historical value of these films, so I do believe that people should to be able to view the original Oscar-winning versions of these films and that they should be presented in a quality that will do them justice. And that’s why I wanted to make the Despecialized Editions.
Another big part of why I wanted to make an edit like that was being able to introduce new people to SW without having to decide whether to show them what I personally consider a butchered version but in high definition, or an original version but from an mpeg2 encoded 1993 Laserdisc master with motion smearing, washed out colors and all the other problems of the 2006 “GOUT” DVDs. And, also at the time I started working on the Despecialized Edition, my little brother was like 3 and I wanted to show him the original versions when he was old enough and I can happily tell you, that my little brother got introduced to the adventures of Luke Skywalker at the age of five, using the Despecialized Edition version 2.1 and he loved it.
2) It's been a work in progress for some time--do you ever anticipate completing it?
I'd like to finish versions 2.5 of all three movies and then I'm hoping my efforts will become unnecessary, if/when the originals are actually released on BD (though if they aren't I'm confident that with the current state of fan-preservation efforts, a full, completely professional-looking restoration of the OOT is possible and could be done in perhaps a year or two).
3) Do you personally think that George Lucas will ever make the original unaltered trilogy available on DVD or Blu-ray?
Well, luckily for us fans, Mr Lucas can't release crap anymore but I do believe, that Disney is quite likely to release the originals eventually. The question is, whether it will be a worthy release - I'm worried though, that we may get a DVNRed release, with wrong colors and without the original sound mixes (all you need to do is look at other Disney catalog releases) or some sort of semi-despecialized edition with lots of the subtler changes left in. I'm hoping, that that won't be the case though and they will want to appease the fans by doing a proper release.
And yes, I do think it will be Disney, not Fox, who will be dictating the hows and whens of any new releases, just like it was Lucas, not Fox, who dictated them in 2004, 2006 and 2011. Fox only has distribution rights, which, the way I understand it, means that when the copyright owner decides to release the movies, they have to let Fox handle distribution.
4) Have you had to deal with any legal issues yet concerning this project?
Luckily, no. I, nor anyone else, are making any money on any of this and all of my projects have this disclaimer, which I put everywhere I make them available:
This is a fan preservation made for cultural, historical and educational purposes.
Fanedits and preservations must not be bought or sold.
Please report every fanedit or preservation you find for sale to webmasters of originaltrilogy.com.
Fanedits and preservations are an art-form and to be shared among legal owners of the officially available releases only.
Do not support piracy.
It is a sort of grey area but I do believe, that the vast majority of people, who download my projects are life-long fans, who do own all the official editions anyway. Plus my edits probably make up like 1% of all the illegal downloads of Star Wars, so I think these fan preservations (there are many others besides mine) don't present any financial threat to the copyright holders whatsoever.
5) What can fans who perhaps weren't aware of this project before do to help?
They can come to the originaltrilogy.com forum an give their support and share their experiences. The support and enthusiasm of the people at originaltrilogy.com has helped me a lot, whenever the work got a bit frustrating.
