I went to a relative’s house tonight for a family get-together because my cousin was in town. My cousin works at Disney, on the software for Disney Movies Anywhere.
I was talking to him about Star Wars, and he told me about how, a week before TFA came out, people in his office there at Disney dragged a bunch of chairs and couches from various conference rooms into one large room and watched all 6 Star Wars movies on a projector.
And when they watched the Original Trilogy, they watched Harmy’s Despecialized Editions. In an office at Disney.
No joke.
He also said that it was his understanding that an 8k scan had been done of the OUT. I asked if it was from the original negative, and he said he didn’t know if it was from the actual original negative, but at the very least it would only have been within a couple generations from the o-neg, which is certainly closer than the prints our community have been using.
He did agree that a major sticking point is the fact that Fox owns eternal distribution rights to Star Wars (aka. A New Hope), and it was for that same reason that Disney Movies Anywhere (the software he develops) does not include that particular movie in its catalogue.
But, and I reiterate this, he already knew about Harmy’s Despecialized Editions before I said anything. I gave Q2s Prequels and Harmy’s DE to a relative for his birthday on that day (whose 14yo daughter said she had never seen any SW movies), and when I explained the OT was the original versions, my cousin asked if they were Harmy’s.
This totally lines up with what I’ve heard from my people within Disney. Except I haven’t heard that the scans were 8K, but then again I wasn’t told what resolution they were in.
As always take all of this with a grain of salt, but having multiple people hearing similar things from different people within Disney certainly does a lot to boost my confidence.
As for them having watched the despecialized editions, that’s hardly surprising to me. Everyone I’ve ever met within lucasfilm, Disney, etc. all love the original versions as much as any of us. We gotta remember, it was George who refused to release the originals, not anyone within lucasfilm or Disney.