I'm all for their removal. That's what the (goddamn) special editions should have been in the first place. When I first went to those 1997 screenings I thought I was going to be getting the ultimate "cleaned up" Star Wars (no garbage mattes, no lousy jump cuts, corrected lightsabers) with some cool deleted scenes added back in.

What we got was Lucas's scratch pad for the prequels. Spastic stormtroopers scouring the sands, a cartoon Jabba that's just a rough draft for Jar-Jar "I stepped in shit" Binks, and Greedo getting off a shot at Han (yes, we booed in the theater too) along with a ton of other random and utterly pointless alterations.

Steve

PS. Actually ADM, the more I think about it the angrier I get. I've finally had a chance (just this week!) to sit down and watch your Episode III and I feel more betrayed by Lucas than I have since the release of Episode II. (Great edit btw, it was awesome to see the Mon Mothma scenes in the flick. Not too keen on Qui-Gonn's speech to Yoda though).