Maybe it didn’t happen, but people are discrediting what are now many, many people who remember this scene rather than suspecting…the master tinkerer GL who is recorded as having altered both ESB and TPM very soon after release.
GL tinkered with TESB between the 70 mm interpositives and the 35 mm interpositives. Likely they needed the 70 mm before he was truly done with the film and he had some additional time to fine tune (like virtually all movies go through before release). There is no evidence he touched either version after it was in release. And what edits to TPM are you speaking of? I’m aware of some edits to ATOC between the 35 mm distribution and the digital distribution (the digital one is basicly the DVD).
No, the evidence for the missing grappling hook miss shows that it was cut before filming (positively before editing or when Williams recorded the score). What got filmed is in the published script and that event isn’t in that script. It is in the novel. I’m one who vividly remembers that scene, but I have been forced to admit that it never happened. I also vividly remember scenes from a great many books I’ve read that have never been filmed. The human mind is great at taking the words of a story and making a picture in our mind. Much more easy when we have a film to draw from.
When GL tinkers, he usually leaves some evidence behind. There is none. I looked long and hard before I came to the conclusion that I remembered Luke missing because I had read the book enough times. What I remember seeing is just my imagination putting pictures to the words of the book. It was never filmed, edited, scored, or released in the theaters that way.