This is simply a theory for the differences in the images of the original message. Nowhere on the box does the widescreen version of the DVDs claim to be the original aspect ratio. According to DVD Empire, these are supposed to be the original aspect ratio, but I didn't see this on the box I saw at Best Buy. I admit I may have overlooked it. Since I have no plans to purchase it, I don't know what's stated inside.
I'm always annoyed when I see movies being altered - everything from the original Star Wars Trilogy to the censorship of Terror of Mechagodzilla (both TV and video editions). I can't tell from the images posted here whether the aspect ratio has been tampered with. ...but any form of full screen (pan/scan) bugs me, knowing that part of the image is missing. Unfortunately, I'm finding some DVDs to be inferior to the LaserDisc. Some anime DVDs are missing subtitles that exist on the LaserDisc.
Before I drift too far off topic, I've already purchased two different copies of the Star Wars trilogy on LaserDisc (original full screen editions from CBS/Fox - Hope and Empire in CAV, Jedi was CLV, and the THX LBX CLV - I guess they're the faces edition I hear people mention). I have not been given a reason to buy the DVDs yet. I still don't understand why Lucas can't do what his friend Speilberg did with E.T. - except now Lucas has three different editions of each movie and a possible fourth planned.
I probably wouldn't have minded things as much if Lucas had done what Robert Wise did with Star Trek The Motion Picture DVD. He did re-edit and add CGI because he didn't have the time to edit the movie the way he originally wanted to. (The film was so rushed that prints were shipped while still wet with developing fluids - according to extras on the DVD) However, he limited the CGI effects to what may have been possible in 1979. It not like watching CGI added to the original Flash Gordon serial which is how I feel about what Lucas has done. The original trilogy effects were better than those old serials, but things just don't look right.
Plus, one more note, we can no longer see the effects that caused Star Wars to win an Academy Award. All records of how good the original effects were for their time are now being destroyed and lost. Lucas is destroying the records of the achievements of his production crews. We can't see what John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune, and Robert Blalack achieved on A New Hope. You can do a search at http://www.oscars.org/awardsdatabase/index.html and see whose work is lost to the public now.
Hmmm... I guess I said more than I had planned for this topic. Sorry if I drifted too far. I can get carried away at times.
