Oh, yeah I forgot about this thread. Maybe it would have been a more appropriate place for my rant in the ESB/ROTJ Wishlist thread. What was the rant? Oh, just that I don't think we should "preserve the twist" so to speak. I gave quite a bit of reasons there, but I'll try to summarize here:
1. I know the twist. You know the twist. We all know the twist. You aren't fooling me by killing Anakin in ROTS.
2. Yeah, but so what right? Well, know. The prequels were made to show us how Anakin became Vader. When I watch the prequels I want to see how Anakin became Vader.
3. Yeah but what about the people who don't know the twist? Who? Kidding. No, I think for people who honestly don't know the twist, showing them a version of the PT that "preserves the twist" before the OT is a mistake. WHY? Because the twist is diluted. HOW? Well, let's see
a. Obi-Wan lied! Oh wait, we already knew that.
b. Anakin turned to the dark side! Oh wait, we already knew that. A significant amount of the twist's shock comes from realizing that Luke's father (that great jedi that Luke is trying so hard to follow) became a sith. Really, without this, you're left with this: Anakin is still alive! And he's this guy in the black suit who showed up and has been in the past two episodes! Yeah, not too shocking.
4. You should really watch the OT first. Or at least make it 4-5-1-2-3-6. Contrary to what Lucas says, the PT was not made to be watched before the OT. The PT would have made very little money if no OT fans saw it. The PT was made with the mindset that "people have seen the OT." I realize this isn't much of a reason, because this is one of the things that people try to fix with fan edits, but I'm just saying I would never show someone the PT before the OT. Even if it was fan edited.
Now I'm going to ease back and say that I don't necessarily mind an edit that tries to "preserve the twist" (it would be interesting to watch [and, by the way, the way to do it is to remove Skywalker from Anakin's name. So we know he's Vader, but we just don't know he's Luke's father]), but if I want to watch a definitive ROTS/PT edit/s, I want to see how Anakin became Vader. Not even if I'm watching 4-5-6-1-2-3 or 4-5-1-2-3-6, but even if I'm watching chronological, I know the twist, so I want to see everything that happens. I don't want to miss out on seeing something just because a twist that I already know is being "preserved."
My two cents.