Density said:
I just can’t understand the mentality behind making that kind of change. George really thought it was worth changing a wipe to a cut for the DVD, and then changed it back for the Blu-ray. What the actual fuck? Did he honestly think that there is anyone, anywhere on the face of the entire planet who would care about this? Did he really think it added to or took away anything from the film at all? True insanity. I honestly believe he has a legitimate obsessive-compulsive disorder or something, there is no other explanation.
Uhg, there is another explanation, believe it or not George isn’t some big old crazed meanie out to get you.
This was covered around the time the BD was released in 2011; the removal of the wipe was most likely an accident, minor things like this happen extremely often when prepping a film for home video release. Believe it or not Star Wars isn’t some special case for films not getting proper theatrical releases on home video, most films have very minor altercations before releases either intentionally or accidentally, Star Wars just gets more heat for it because of the history it has with the extensive changes.
I’ve worked on several films that have had minor edits done to them between screenings and release, and it’s usually just small tweaks to certain technical aspects or something might just go weird in the rendering and exporting process and nobody picks up on it. Obviously it’s nice to have something as big as Star Wars have an actual theatrical release and I understand that as well as anyone else around here, but minor things like the wipe removal in ROTS are actually very common practice for just about every film when making the transition between theatres and home video.
I’m not trying to excuse George’s weird behaviour when it comes to altering his films, but putting him on blast for something that was more than likely a simple mistake or in his/the editor’s mind a minor “fix”, is just silly.