I have never been able to see anything wrong with the GOUT. Could somebody tell me what the big deal is?
Although DVD features had made the transition to anamorphic years prior, the GOUT was still non-anamorphic, which was galling. Those who watched it on an SD-CRT might not have noticed the difference, but others would either get the “tiny window in the middle of the screen” effect, or they’d zoom in to see it nice and big… and blurry. Basically if the reason you bought the GOUT in the first place was specifically for the GOUT, and it got treated like some unfinished deleted scene (which was the only time non-anamorphic video was on DVD at that time anymore), you’d be pretty pissed. And considering it was presented side-by-side with another release clearly demonstrating that better source material existed (and wasn’t used), that was another kick in the teeth. Then, if you decided to get beyond the size and blurriness of the film, you’d start seeings things like the colors and DVNR, neither of which were out of place or particularly bad… for an early-nineties Laserdisc release. But for a contemporary DVD, they kinda sucked. And compared to HD, well, ick.
And then there’s the audio. This was the release that was being billed to be “just like it was in theatres”. Well, actually no, it wasn’t. The audio is the 93 mix, which was never in the theatres, and had lots of issues people complained about (nineties effects mixed into seventies audio, effects simply being left out). And lossy, so it actually managed to fare worse than Laserdisc in this respect.
Basically if you just want to re-create the feeling of watching Star Wars on television in the 80’s, the GOUT does a competent job of that. Minor issues, yeah, but it’s not too far off the mark. But if you want to re-create the feeling of watching it in the theatre? No, not one bit.