Star Wars: Why George Lucas Will Never Approve A 4K Restoration Of A New Hope

Before painfully selling "Star Wars" and the entirety of Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, George Lucas constantly fiddled with his original three "Star Wars" films. Little CGI additions here, recoloring there, and even full-on additional scenes not included in the original releases came directly from Lucas himself. Therefore, the version of "A New Hope" now on Blu-ray and streaming on Disney+ is far from the theatrical cut. For those hoping to see the original, unaltered version restored in 4K, even without the changes that made :Star Wars" so much better, don't expect Lucas to give such an endeavor the green light.

"I'm a firm believer that the director, or the writer, or the filmmaker should have a right to have his movie be the way he wants it," Lucas said at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, coming to the defense of the many retouched versions of his "Star Wars" films. He recalled when the original "A New Hope" cut was released on LaserDisc, the reaction was less than stellar. "They said, 'It looks terrible.' And I said, 'Yeah, I know it did,'" the director added (via The Hollywood Reporter). With that, it seems that watching the best version of 1977's "Star Wars" will remain illegal for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, not even previous home media releases can provide an entirely unaltered "Star Wars" trilogy viewing experience.

George Lucas' history of making changes to his "Star Wars" trilogy dates back to the 1990s with the release of "The Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition." This commemorative rerelease hit theaters 1997, featuring cleaner visuals with more vibrant colors, improved audio, editing changes, and more, marking a drastic departure from the films' theatrical editions. Lucas continued tweaking his movies over the next decade-plus, straying further from the original versions in ways subtle and glaringly obvious. All the while, fans have yearned for the originals to be rereleased in some form, but, evidently, Lucas remains committed to his edits.

Aside from the aforementioned LaserDisc and the even more niche Capacitance Electronic Disc, if you want to legally see the closest thing to the original "Star Wars" trilogy as it was upon release, you have one rather dated option to try out. All you have to do is hunt down VHS copies of the films released prior to 1997, as well as a working VCR if you don't have one already. These are the closest we have to wide releases of the original cuts of Lucas' first three "Star Wars" movies one can find. While they're not in the highest of quality, and there are some minor edits made to them, they'll do in a pinch.

At the end of the day, George Lucas has gone out of his way to make his original "Star Wars" trilogy more closely resemble his initial vision. His dedication is commendable, but at the same time, it would be nice to see the first pass of these films restored and released to the public. One can only hope Disney and Lucasfilm will do so down the road.