What if the original Picasso was destroyed in a museum fire?
Then wouldn't the truest reproduction be the most important thing to preserve?
I can make this comparison because, as far as GL has indicated, the OT prints are locked away, never to be released again. The LD's are the truest reproductions of how the movies were.
The rest of your argument agrees with this. All the reproductions are made in the pursuit of creating a true copy. It doesn't involve making any changes to the piece. Just clean-ups.
@MBJ: true about the rights to distribute it, but that's a different argument. You didn't really make a point against my Ark thingy.
Yes the other versions are named by their creators, but that's only to us. To the general public, or the "world" they are still the original movies that have been transferred (to varying degrees of success). Edited versions could not be viewed by the "world" as representations of the original films.
@Zion:
That's a terrible argument. If digital technology had existed in 1934 then surely King Kong would have been done digitally. Therefore we should edit King Kong and replace it with the digital version from Peter Jackson's new version....
As cliche as this sounds, that is the exact reason Lucas gave for his 1997 SE's.