The Original Star Wars Is Stuck on VHS and DVD, and That Is the Real Danger of a Bad Remaster

The original cuts of Star Wars are becoming impossible to watch in modern quality, because George Lucas refused to release them on Blu-ray or streaming. That, to me, is the biggest problem with a bad remaster: it isn't simply that the studio or director changed the movie. It's that eventually the changed version can become the movie.

George Lucas left the original Star Wars on lower resolution formats

If you want to watch the original Star Wars the way you remember it, your only choice is a lower resolution format like VHS or DVD. This is where I think remastering crosses a much more serious line.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a filmmaker creating a new version of their movie. They made it. "It's theirs." They can experiment with it however they want. But "that new version shouldn't erase the original one that audiences originally saw and fell in love with." Both versions should be available.

Steven Spielberg regretted changing E.T. and brought back the 1982 cut

Steven Spielberg learned this lesson with the E.T. remaster. He digitally altered several scenes, used CGI to update E.T.'s facial expressions to be more emotive, and famously replaced the firearms carried by government agents with walkie talkies.

Unlike Lucas, Spielberg eventually admitted that he regretted changing the movie, saying that movies are products of their time and that no film should be revised based on where we are now. As a result, the later 4K remaster of E.T. returned to the original 1982 theatrical version instead of allowing the revised edition to permanently replace it.

A pristine restoration of the original should be the standard

"And that should be the standard." Give audiences a pristine restoration of the movie as it originally appeared, and then include a revised version as an optional alternative.

The problem isn't that Lucas wanted to fill Mos Eisley with CGI creatures, or that Peter Jackson wanted all six Middle-earth films to visually match. The problem is when those revisions replace the originals and erase the visual and sonic fingerprints of the era they were created in.

Should studios be required to keep original theatrical cuts available alongside any revised version?