>>212819586
It was true in the sense that when George Lucas has his initial editor, John Jympson make the first assembly, the result was a disaster. The movie sucked in that form, and the special effects were sub-par.
Lucas asked Jympson to redo it. Jympson said "No." So Lucas fired him and hired himself, his wife Marcia, Richard Chew, and Paul Hirsch to reedit it, so then it was "saved in the edit."