Either you fully understand the change and feel it was justified, you’re slightly confused by it but sorta get what they were doing, or you can tell George did the change just to do it. I think this one falls somewhere between the last two with it reaching pretty close to the third.
This is spot on. What further confuses and upsets me about the butchering of the scene is I cannot understand Lucas’ motivation behind it. Generally speaking the changes Lucas made fell into one of two categories.
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He wanted to add in something that he didn’t have the technological/resources to do originally, like the Mos Eisely additions or the mouth on the Sarlacc.
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He wanted to make the OT more consistent with the prequels with things like adding in the spirit of young Anakin (gag) or changing Boba Fett’s voice (double gag).
Nothing in the changes of the Bespin scene fits into either category. Clearly nothing in it had no relation to anything in the prequels. Also there was nothing visually scene that would have been beyond the technology of the time. Vader actually walking to the shuttle could have been done with a matte painting just like all the scenes on Cloud City landing platforms were done. The shot of the shuttle flying to the Executor was almost identical to the sequence of the Falcon fleeing Bespin and a simple close shot of Vader walking down a ramp on a small hangar set would have sufficed for that element. If Lucas wanted a shuttle scene so badly, why not just do it in 1979 while making the film?
So again, what was the motivation? Was Lucas jealous Kershner got so much credit for ESB and he wanted to stick his own contribution into the climax? Did he really have a lot of people tell him “Great film George, but how the hell did Vader actually get to his ship?”
It’s one of those things that really make me wonder what goes through his head and what changed between 1983 and 1997.