I’ll take either of the ones with Ian McDiarmid over the original. This is the one thing in the entire trilogy I think was in genuine need of a change. Not so much that the original should be buried, but enough that it should have been done. It could have been executed better in the official version, but I’ll still take that over what we had. It’s still more consistent because at least it’s the same actor. The original voice actor was awful and the hologram–setting aside it’s a hybrid of an old woman and a chimpanzee–looked absolutely nothing like the Emperor in ROTJ, even less like him than ROTS McDiarmid does. I can’t shake the feeling that those who argue that the original is genuinely better in this case are being disingenuous and arguing purely from a place of nostalgia alone. Is it not enough to say that you think the unaltered originals should be released, while still conceding that they were not perfect and that not all changes made to them are intrinsically bad? I mean, be honest: If McDiarmid was there from the start, and then for some reason in the SE George changed it to an old woman/chimpanzee hybrid, would you still say it was better? Of course not. So are you really saying you think it’s better in its own right, or are you just saying it’s better because it’s the original? There is a distinction, and there’s nothing wrong with the latter. But let’s be honest here.