Such an inspiring project! Having been born well after George decided to make his original work completely unavailable, the janky early-2000s DVD was what I grew up on. I've never even seen the real original Star Wars, so I'm looking forward to sitting down and watching this sometime!
If you'd held out until 2006, there was a DVD release containing the unaltered versions of the films- referred to as GOUT (George's Original Unaltered Trilogy). As far as I know this was the last time the unaltered versions were released.
GOUT was my go-to for when I wanted to watch Star Wars, until 4k77 came along :) Can't wait for them to finish 4k80, as DVD resolution is pretty garbage.
Having watched 4k77 and 4k83 as well as Harmy's ESB I have to say I prefer the 4kxx versions and am eagerly awaiting 4k80. Harmy is amazing for doing what he did. However even besides the obvious issues inherent in stitching different sources together, I find the color palette of Harmy's a bit unnatural in places.
I too consider the 4kxx releases to be the “canonical” OT now, but there’s such a huge gulf between Harmy’s and GOUT and whatever the f**k Lucasfilm did to the colors for the DVD that I’m willing to forgive its shortcomings.
