It’s been a big week for Star Wars fans, what with alleged Star Wars: Episode VII concept art for the new-look Stormtroopers, Han Solo and the new villain, and now we have another rumour for you, with ComicBook claiming that plans are afoot for Disney to release the original, unaltered theatrical cuts of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to Blu-ray.
According to the site, work on restoring the original negatives has been going on for some time now, and the plan is to issue the original three films in their complete, unaltered and original pre-Special Edition, pre-George Lucas tinkering forms before to the release of Star Wars: Episode VII in December 2015.
However, it has to be mentioned that the “source” of this rumour makes no reference of the fact that Fox holds distribution rights on all six Star Wars movies until 2020, and A New Hope in perpetuity. Not only would this prevent Disney from re-releasing any of the films (without purchasing the distribution rights from Fox, or partnering up with the studio – which would surely have made headlines before now), and certainly raises questions about the authenticity of this report.
In other words, I’d take it with a pinch of salt…
Originally published August 17, 2014. Updated January 18, 2020.
