towne32 said:
THX11384EB said:
Maybe it's a stipulation when airing it—you can only show the newest version, kind of like Star Wars.
In this case, is there even an HD version of the original available that they could run if they were allowed to?
Back in ~2002-3, either TMC or some other movie-centric channel(pretty certain it was TMC) aired the original version of THX1138 in HD(up-converted if TMC). I somehow missed this, and only learned of it later through a torrent/newsgroup; someone managed to cap it apparently. Of course the movie wasn't popular enough to have people still sharing it by the time I found out, so I never got a chance to even download a part of it. I bet with a little digging I can find a reference of it existing at some point.
With that said, it's possible that it was never actually aired in HD, and the "thing" that was floating around was a preemptive fake/hoax before the re-release in select theaters. I could be wrong about that because I am fairly certain that I confirmed the movie was aired at least once in HD as I went to the channel's website to confirm its airing/schedule; I specifically remember seeing an HD version listed.
Maybe someone else can confirm/corroborate this.