CT Original trilogy theatrical version

I think the reason it hasn't been released mostly comes down to "why bother?" with a touch of "even the guy who made this doesn't seem so high on doing it".

Though if we do see a release one day, I wouldn't be surprised if it's somewhat modernized with the usual de-graining (then re-graining) and sharpening. I say this because if they want to go the lazy route, they'd realize that the unaltered portions of their 4k versions can be used for a "theatrical cut"; they'd only have to run the same restoration on the segments of the negative that were spliced out, and then they'd likely try to make those segments match the surrounding footage so they'd use their degrain/regrain/sharpen techniques. I'd personally prefer if they respected the original grain and unevenness in sharpness, but who knows if they'd have the same purist mindset.

 

All the above is meaningless to me if the OOT isn’t part of the set.

 

If the unaltered versions are released, I think they’ll probably do what you suggested, rather than going back the original negatives and starting from scratch.

 

That certainly makes sense, when they have 90% of the product ready to go in 4k, all they need do is restore the deleted / altered material to the same quality. I'd certainly think the cost of doing that would be well below the profit they'd pull if they released the OOT separately instead of as a bonus feature. They'd charge probably $60 for the set, and the generation that grew up on the OT would scoop them up - nostalgia is all the rage, even amongst the younger generations that took no part in it. I'm sure younger fans would also be interested in experiencing the originals, many of which likely have no idea they even exist...