These Aren’t the Star Wars Editions You Are Looking For

Drew Stewart, for Wired:

Nearly eight years ago, Disney gave George Lucas $4 billion for what is arguably the biggest film franchise in the world. Since then, Disney has released an additional five Star Wars films, raking in almost $6 billion worldwide at the box office. In those intervening years, the Mouse House also launched its own streaming service, Disney+, which now offers fans new 4K restorations of the original Star Wars trilogy and its prequels. Having those films all in one place, a place where the new films will also one day live, is a huge selling point for the streaming service—but it could be so much more massive […]

These aren’t the versions that were nominated for 17 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. These movies didn’t change the world. They’re not the phenomena that upended the way movies were made from that moment on. Moreover, these aren’t the movies that fans want to see. Look at the comments on any article about the aforementioned Skywalker box set. Half of them are people asking if they’re going to include the theatrical cuts, and the other half are people saying how they’re not going to buy the sets because they already downloaded a fan restoration of those original movies.

Amazing comparison of all the changed and added scenes in the Original Trilogy, including an explanation of how and why they came to be.

I recently rewatched all the Star Wars movies, including Harmy’s Despecialized Editions, and Episodes IV, V, and VI are just so much better without the subsequent changes. If you’re a fan of Star Wars, search the internets for them — they’re a must-see.