For some odd reason, George Lucas had the intention to never re-release the original print of Star Wars, as he felt that his following 1990's CGI'd version was the masterpiece that the world should remember him for.
"The Special Edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it," he told the Associated Prsss. "I'm not going to spend the — we're talking millions of dollars here — the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw a half-completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be. I'm the one who has to take responsibility for it. I'm the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they're going to throw rocks at me, they're going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished."
I'm sorry but the Star Wars I most fondly remember was released in 1977 and the 1990's release with some laughable now dated CGI intersections just doesn't capture the awe that inspired me to go out into my back garden and shoot Womp Rats.
Getting to the main point, the BFI Film Festival will for the first time, since December 1978, be showing an original print of the orginal Star Wars, stored for the last four decades, the print has sat at a temperature of -5 degrees in the BFI's Master Film Store near Gaydon in Warwickshire.
In June, the British Film Institute's Film on Film Festival will show one of the last preserved Technicolor prints of the original film. BFI Film Festivals