Here here, Bomma. I'm shocked at a lot of the people here. As a writer, I know how Lucas claims to have felt. You look at the orange blob under the Landspeeder in Mos Eisley in ANH and I can totally understand why the idea of redoing effects would itch in the back of his mind for so many years until he just did it. I don't agree with all of his changes to the films, but I find a great majority of them to be fairly unobtrusive. But that was on the assumtpion that the original cuts wouldn't be "erased from existance", so to speak. And now that the original cuts are getting the preservation they deserve, I honestly don't mind anything else he does. For what it's worth, I enjoyed the prequel films as he wanted me to. Escapism and some nice backstory. I'm not as critical of them as everyone else because.... they're the stories he wanted to tell. It not that he messed up when making them, maybe it's just that the stories he told with the prequels were always less than steller? The prequels don't hold a candle to the original trilogy, but honestly, would anything ever manage to do that?

Ever since I was six or so, I wanted to see that battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin that made him into Darth Vader. I'm a lot younger than all of you here, just barely 19 and a half.... and I didn't grow up on the SEs, I grew up primarily with the original cuts too. I was 10 during the SE re-releases and though I'd seen the films plenty of times, it was those theatrical experiences that MADE me a bona-fide fan. And some of you never thought the SEs could have a positive effect?

What am I trying to say? I don't really know. I've never hated Lucas for anything he's done. When you create something, you have the right to revise it as you see fit, as long as you play fair and have a contingency, ie: keep the original cuts alive for those who prefur them. I never understood why he would refuse to do such a thing. If it were me, I'd do as I've said here, but note that "the SEs are in continuity, the OOT isn't" and leave it at that. Now that he's doing right by the OOT diehards, give him a rest. Even if the new releases are shoddy, it's still a supreme victory; you got him to change his mind, you got the artist to look at the work that make him embarrassed again. It's the principal of the thing, this whole argument always has been.