The Theatrical Version Of “Star Wars” Is Available Again Online

People talk about George Lucas being an evil bastard for having effed up the prequels so egregiously. That to me is not his worst sin. The most terrible thing that George Lucas ever did was the Special Edition versions of the original trilogy. He really messed them up. Not only did he add a bunch of CGI garbage that looks like crap, but he also did things that change the characters at their core (Greedo shooting first) or have nasty philosophical implications (Hayden Christiansen as a Force ghost). But good look finding the original theatrical versions of the films. I bought a DVD set that came out in 2006 of the original theatrical versions that was ripped from an old laserdisk edition. It leaves much to be desired. Lucas says that he can't recreate the original versions because they no longer exist. That's clearly BS. a group called Team Negative One got a hold of an old print of Star Wars: A New Hope and spent three years restoring it. Now it is online for everyone to enjoy for free.

My only hope is that Disney, being much smarter and less curmudgeony than Lucas, will release a good clean HD copy of the films now that they own it. They will make a fortune and it's the right thing to do.