Even the most casual Star Wars fans knows that Lucasfilm has tinkered with the original trilogy a few too many times, but it turns out the company has also commissioned a definitive restoration of the movie that started it all. And now, it’s finished.

In an interview with Little White Lies, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards lets slip that he got to check out the 4K restoration of A New Hope while hanging out at Lucasfilm HQ. So yeah, put simply: There’s a completed 4K restoration of A New Hope just sitting around on a shelf somewhere. The restoration was reportedly handled by Reliance Media Works, and the process actually began more than a year ago.

Here’s the choice excerpt from his comments:

“On day one, we were in Lucasfilm in San Francisco with Industrial Light and Magic and John Knowles, our supervisor, he said that they’ve got a brand new 4K restoration print of A New Hope – it had literally just been finished. He suggested we sit and watch it. Obviously, I was up for that. Me, the writer, lots of the story people and John all sat down, we all had our little notepads, we were all ready for this. I’ll add that I’ve seen A New Hope hundreds of times.

So I was sat there, ready to take notes and really delve under the surface of the film. You have the Fox fanfare, then scrolling text with ‘A long time ago…’, and then the main music begins. Next thing we knew it had ended, and we looked around to one another and just thought – shit, we didn’t take any notes. You can’t watch it without getting carried away. It’s really hard to get into an analytical filmmaker headspace with this film. It just turns you into a child.”

So, what the heck is Lucasfilm planning to do with this restored cut? Giving it a theatrical run around Rogue One would’ve made a lot of sense, considering how closely the two films are connected, though that window is apparently closing. So, best guess is that the studio is cooking something else up.

Do you want to see a 4K restoration of A New Hope?

(Via Little White Lies)