Ryan-SWI said:
I was mainly referring to Coruscant, which is debatable, and CGI Jabba, which I believe was a test for CG Jabba in TPM (I’m sure I remember seeing a quote from Lucas about it, I could be mistaken though). They’re not direct PT links but I suppose you could make a case for some of the changes only being there because of the PT. It doesn’t really matter though, PT or not most of the stand-out visual changes are garbage.
Unless I’m mistaken, the entire 1997 SE was a test for the prequel trilogy.
Ah, yes…here it is (via Rick McCallum’s page on Wikipedia, emphasis mine):
“When Young Indiana Jones ended, McCallum produced Radioland Murders (1994), for which Lucas served as executive producer. During its production, Lucas confided to McCallum the plans for three new Star Wars movies. To TEST the nascent digital technology just then becoming available, McCallum produced revised versions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi – released in 1997 as the Special Editions.”
The SE looks like people messing around with CGI because it WAS people messing around with CGI. Once they saw it, they just probably said, “oh hey, we’ve put 1990s special effects in these 80s movies! Why not release it, and claim it’s some sort of ‘modernized’ version?”
The goal was never to ‘update’ the films. The goal was to have a sandbox for the Prequel Trilogy.