10 Things Disney Could Do Now They Own Fox
5. Release The Theatrical Editions Of Star Wars
Its incredible to think that the original, unaltered theatrical editions of Star Wars have never been released in high-definition. From the Special Editions onwards, each home video release of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi have been subject to the meddling hands of George Lucas.
The closest we got was in 2006, where the theatrical cuts came as bonus content on yet another heavily-edited release of the original trilogy, and were of exactly the same transfers as the low-quality LaserDisc collection that hit home video thirteen years previously.
The major snag was that 20th Century Fox owned the theatrical and home video distribution rights to the original trilogy. The options for Empire and Jedi were set to expire in 2020, but as per Fox's original deal with Lucas back in the 1970's, they literally owned A New Hope forever.
With Star Wars back in a big way, and arguably as popular as it has ever been, the timing of Disney's purchase of Fox seems to be very fortunate for die-hard fans of the original trilogy. Not exactly shy about squeezing every last penny out of a lucrative property, it seems increasingly likely now they have the rights that Disney will cave in to fan demand and release the theatrical editions of Episodes IV, V and VI in all of their Han-shooting-first glory sometime in the near future.