Or even spell words correctly...got you pretty riled there, haven't we?
Okay...as *someone who has been involved with LucasFilm* (!), I will say again that Fox own the neg, the copyright and the distribution rights to the original 1977 edition of Star Wars. This is irrefutable. They made it, they paid for it, it is one of their films as much as The Sound Of Music and Die Hard are. George Lucas was practically a nobody when SW was made and although he got good terms, he was just a filmmaker for hire on a studio produced film.
He got the rights to make sequels, prequels, mid-quels, side-quels, TV shows, TV movies, merchandise...the whole shebang, to which he often (but not always) gave Fox first refusal on distribution rights. This is again irrefutable.
When the 1997 Special Editions came along, Fox were falling over themselves to get the distribution rights to them (even accepting an unfavorable cut to do so), and granted Lucas the *control* to the 1997 Special Edition version of Star Wars: A New Hope. It is this bastardized negative (in which the new special effects were placed) that Lucas has much more say over. Even here, since Fox financed the original film on which this edition is based, they get a bigger cut of any proceeds over the other films, since Star Wars 77 was and remains *their movie*.
What Disney want to do is reissue the original 1977 Star Wars, which is Fox's film. They can, with Fox's co-operation, put out the SE editions of Star Wars: A New Hope and any of the other films, but they can not - even after 2020 - put out the original, untouched, 1977 Star Wars...BECAUSE FOX OWNS IT.
Now...*I* can't put things any more simpler than that. If you want to believe what you've read online as opposed to someone who actually knows and understands, then fine...but more fool you. Whatever the fanboys want to think so they can fantasize about their perfect boxsets is great, because it puts the rumors out there and then the studios can work to try and make those a reality.
But...and it's as simple as this...if Disney want to put out ANY 1977-2006 SW film before 2020 then they have to talk to Fox, who have distribution rights. If Disney want to put out any 1980-2006 SW film AFTER 2020, then they can...but if they want to do ANYTHING with the 1977 original Star Wars
release, then they need to talk to Fox, even after 2020.
No doubt both studios know money can be made from having Disney buy SW outright (as per the other arrangements I have mentioned in previous posts), but it's still a deal that needs to happen. Pure and simple: Fox owns the 1977 Star Wars and has *never* sold or given off any rights to it. They only gave Lucas sequel, etc, rights because they thought the film wouldn't ever lead to that: that it did is a continual kick to them knowing that they could have owned it all outright and even fired Lucas off further films as they could have brought anyone in that they wanted to make more of them (as Disney is doing now).
If you can prove that George Lucas bought the SW rights back from Fox at any point, then I'd love to see that...other than a paragraph from some fansite...