Man that’s tough. There are a few that if they were removed, I would consider the SEs tolerable. Probably tolerable enough to not even bother with Despecialized and the like. I’d still prefer the theatrical editions, particularly since I grew up with them, but I could live with the SEs if just these things were removed:
- Greedo shooting first.
- “Alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival.”
- Jedi Rocks
- Nooooooooooo!!!
- Hayden Ghost/stupid new song (screw you all, I love “Yub Nub” and don’t care what you say)/entire change to the closing sequence of ROTJ.
There are a few others I would really like gone and would annoy me but wouldn’t be dealbreakers. The Jabba scene, for one, but I give that one a little leeway since at least it was originally intended to be in there from the start. Unlike many of the “original vision” changes that very obviously were not.
The rest I’m either indifferent toward or actually like. (Particularly Ian McDiarmid in Empire, which would be the one change I would most like to keep.)
If I had to choose just one of the above, it would have to be Greedo shooting. It’s just so, so, so, so dumb on so many levels and, other than the “Noooooo” maybe, is the only one that fundamentally alters the story and the characterization of a character. George’s “rationale” makes zero sense considering Greedo didn’t have to shoot to make it self-defense; all he had to do was point a gun at Han. Let alone threaten to kill him, which he also did. Han was totally justified. I guess George just had to assume his audience/children were too dumb to figure that one out for themselves. Not to mention it makes Greedo look pathetic and the editing is just atrocious. I know this has all been said before, but really it is an absolute travesty that this shit is still in the official version of the film. Literally no one except George Lucas likes it.