Original Star Wars Trilogy Theatrical Cuts Could Be Coming Back

If you’re a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, but not a fan of the way George Lucas went in and mucked about with them, we may have some good news for you. It’s been rumored and reported before, but apparently Disney may release the theatrical cuts of all three films.

Be sure to take this with a huge grain of salt, we’ve been burned before, but according to Empire Magazine’s Twitter feed, at a Halloween Horror Nights Q&A, Animal House director John Landis dropped this little tidbit that will make Star Wars fans across the world squeal with glee.

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According to the follow up Tweet, Landis came across this bit of information the last time he spoke to his dear old friend, George Lucas. And sure, Lucas may have sold Lucasfilm to Disney and be sleeping on a bed made out of billions of dollars, but he’s still in a position to know this sort of thing.

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Right now, if this turns out to be legit (a big if), all we know is that we will eventually be able to get our grubby little fanboy mitts on our very own copies of the original theatrical cut of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi at some point. The assumption is that this means they will finally be getting a proper Blu-ray release, but who the hell knows, he wasn't specific, so Lucasl could have been talking about a theatrical re-release.

But who the hell cares, either way, the prospect of these hitting the market again is totally worth getting excited about. This means none of those janky CGI additions that never meshed with what was already there, and, most exciting to the bulk of fans, no more Greedo shooting first. We can finally watch Han shoot first, not in self-defense, in glorious high definition, and breathe a collective sigh of relief. I’m just going to rewind that moment and watch it over and over again. There was a rumor going around that the recent digital editions were going to restore this scene, but that never panned out.

Maybe we’re jumping the gun a bit and getting over excited. This is, after all, based on a second hand tweet from someone who heard this from someone else. Believe it or don’t as you see fit, it is, admittedly, not the most concrete information. We’ve got this pumped before and been let down, but as we’re still hopeful that this would happen eventually, there’s no harm in getting our hopes up. And even if it does happen, we still have no idea when.

At least until this happens, if it happens, we'll have Star Wars: The Force Awakens in a few months to keep us occupied.

Brent McKnight