The truth is, no one was really happy when George Lucas released his updated versions of the original trilogy. Suddenly, Jabba the Hut had a completely different design, Han Solo had learned to sit-jump to avoid blaster shots, and Mos Eisley looked like an America's Got Talent show.
The new special effects he added also clashed badly with the original films. Fans begged and pleaded for him to restore the films to their original state, but Lucas refused and arrogantly said the following in an interview on the subject:
"So what ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years.
"A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition]."
But it seems that Lucas won't have the last word here. Kotaku reports that several leaks of video and images have found their way onto the internet from a heavily refreshed version of the 1977 original Star Wars: A New Hope. In addition, there are plenty of rumours that just such a version is on the way. And it gets even better:
"The leaked information claims that these restorations are being done properly, using original film negatives and with an effort to preserve grain and color grading. This doesn't appear to be a quick 4K AI upscale like we've seen in recent years."
Apart from a sloppy release in 2006, these versions have been unavailable since the mid-1990s, and we would think that many Star Wars fans would be grateful to Disney if they reintroduced the films - even if only A New Hope - as they should be (according to the fans, that is... Lucas, as we know, thinks that musical numbers in Jabba's palace and a screaming Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi are what really lift the films).
Although this is unconfirmed information, we do know that Star Wars will be released in theatres again in time for the movie's 50th anniversary in 1977, and it seems that we will be seeing the original version.
What do you think about this and about Lucas' changes possible getting reversed?