I think internally at LucasFilm there are a great many OT kids who now rule the roost and would love to see the original version of the film we saw in 1977. But those same people are very loyal to GL and his creative choices and right to present his film in the manner he intended and would honor his desire for the SE to be the definitive presentation of the films. Disney as the corporate parent has likely little interest in spending a great deal of financial and manpower resources to try and accommodate the small addressable market for this kind of product. As a publicly traded company they need to justify any capital expenditures to their shareholders and can't engage in what is really a vanity project. GL could have when he owned the company but clearly he never did and there is a good chance he is adverse to the idea. I have heard the Harmy's edits are well known within LucasFilm and well regarded but they wouldn't admit to it. So there is a knowledge of these efforts and there hasn't been an effort by LF or Disney to shut him down as of yet. Based on that, I think we can glean that they don't consider it a sizable market and not worth the effort to police or provide a liscenced version. At least based on the current distribution agreements with Fox still in place.
Interesting. I tend to agree that there's probably not much of a market for it, at least by Disney's estimation. My theory on why this might happen has always been related to the nature of the digital content created for the SE, and the fact that you probably can't upscale it too far. So, you'd probably need to rescan the old negatives (or interpositives, or some older version of the film) in its original form, after which you digitally cut, prune, and edit. So, if you're doing a 4K or 8K version of the SEs, your starting point is the OOT, at which point you've already spent the manhours/money, so why not release it and make a few extra bucks? It's just a theory, though.
Having said that, I'm not a fan of these edits of any film and the subsequent file sharing. I do think it's wrong. And I think pointing that out is fair game as part of the discussion. I realize others see it differently but to me it's simply equivocation.
Pointing out one's own opinion of the wrongness of the act is, I think, fair game as well. We can debate the morality
of the act, and I think that can be useful (up to a point). Where I draw the line, though, is in denigrating
the people engaged in the act. I mean, if you want to call them scofflaws, ok, that's legit. That's just strictly factual. Claiming otherwise is absurd, and claiming justification doesn't really eliminate the fact itself. Like, if you're speeding to get your wife to the hospital...you're still speeding. There's no disputing the fact that you were speeding. Just like there's no disputing the fact that if you're downloading a copy of this, it's infringement. There's no getting around that part. (Note: as far as I know, no court has addressed the issue of downloading a copy of a film or song you already own in another format, but absent any court ruling to the contrary, that's still infringement, even if one feels morally justified in doing so.)
[/quote]Also I wish they never created the IGNORE feature' I think that's the dumbest thing on a discussion forum I have ever seen. It's like self selecting social media content where we create little bubbles for ourselves.[/QUOTE]
It's entirely OT and perhaps worthy of a separate discussion but I would say a forum is like being in a room of people all having conversations. You can choose to ignore people's comments but you have no choice to hear them and I think that's for the best. It's good to be challenged by people you disagree with and can chose to ignore or confront, but al least you have that choice. I think that's important.
In general, I agree. And in practice, even with people I put on ignore, I still read posts from time to time. But for me, at least, it helps to filter out folks with whom I either so strongly disagree or am so annoyed by that I just really don't want to hear what they have to say, even if I still want to come here. I would say it's the equivalent of walking very far to the other side of the room, to the point that I can't hear 'em at all above the din and closer conversation. I know they're there. I know I can listen if I want. If I choose not to, though, that's sometimes for the best.
If you've never used it, you may not know that the "ignore" feature allows you to still see that someone posted, and click on that post to read what they had to say, if you choose to. It just flips the choice around from "You can't avoid seeing this, but you can choose to ignore it," to "You can choose to read this, but if you don't do anything, you aren't going to see the content of the post." So, as ignore features go, I'd say that's probably more in keeping with the kind of environment you're describing.
