[anjbe]

Star Wars is a particularly salient example because the original cuts that made the films such cultural icons are completely unavailable from anyone other than third‐party sellers, due to the wishes of the (former) rights holder. After the Special Editions were released, the theatrical editions made it onto DVD one time, and never did again. J.J. Abrams has indicated that there are difficulties behind the scenes (perhaps some clause in the Disney purchase) that prevent the originals from being made available for sale. So people who want to avoid the CGI and bad redubs of the Special Editions are stuck scrounging eBay, or more likely, grabbing an “unofficial” scan of the theatrical editions.

[gibspaulding]

You may have avoided mentioning this on purpose, but I'll go for it. The "Despecialized Editions" [1] of the original Star Wars trilogy are an amazing project to take the HD special editions and edit out all of the changes to match the theatrical edition. They look a lot better than the scans I've seen, but still match the old VHS box set I grew up watching.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy's_Despecialized_Edition

[FlingPoo]

Another project to fully restore the original Star Wars trilogy is 4K77/4K80/4K83 [1]

[1] https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/

[thefringthing]

> the theatrical editions made it onto DVD one time

Even then, it wasn't really what was being asked for by fans. The goal at that time was to get LucasFilm to release the pre-Special Edition versions of the movies, which were available on VHS and Laserdisc, on DVD at DVD resolution.

LucasFilm insisted that it was impossible to reassemble the negatives and that they had no suitable print from which to produce a new digital scan. Instead, they released digitized copies of the Laserdiscs on DVD bonus discs.

Since then, enthusiasts have managed to produce Blu-ray resolution versions of the original movies first by piecing together a variety of sources and later by acquiring and scanning surviving prints.