[haunter]

> You can’t even buy or screen the original theatrical release of Star Wars

You can actually, the 2006 Limited Edition DVD is a double disc version one being the original version.

However they are not DVD quality because they were transferred from LaserDisc and not the original film stock

[phantasmish]

Even those aren’t accurate to the 1977 film.

To pick an arguably-minor but very easy to see point: the title’s different.

[phantasmish]

Self-reply because I’m outside the edit window: the dvd “original” releases are based on the laserdisc, but supposedly they modify it to restore the pre-1981-re-release title, so I’m actually wrong!

I can’t find out if they fix the 3% speed-up from the laser disc. The audio mix, at any rate, will be a combination of the three (stereo, mono, 70mm) original mixes, like on the laser disc, so identical to none of them. The source should predate the replacement of Latin script with made-up letters (not conceived until ROTJ then retrofitted on some releases of SW and Empire) so that’ll be intact unless they “fixed” it.

Still stuck with sub-ordinary-dvd-quality picture, as far as official releases go, so that’s too bad. Oh well, fan 35mm scan projects solved that problem.

[haunter]

I have these DVDs and you are right. But still the closest thing to the OG theatrical version officially available.