I happened upon the new DVD at a retailer who put it out too soon.
The 1st disc is the exact same disc that came with the trilogy box set released in 2004, so nothing to report there.
The 2nd disc is the reason anyone is buying: to see the original version of the film that won over the world in 1977, before an insecure George went back and mucked it all up with visions of CG bouncing in his head.
THE NEGATIVE: It is not an animorphic transfer, and the print on this disc did not benefit from any of the restoration performed in the mid 1990s. You'll see film-grain, some edge-aliasing, specs of dust, and a scratch or two. The audio is in plain old Dolby 2.0.
THE POSITIVE: Dinosaurs are not roaming the streets of Tatooine. Greedo never shoots. One of the aliens in the catina has glowing eyes.Alderaan and the Death Star don't look like Saturn while they are exploding. Jabba and Boba Fett will have to wait a film or two to make their appearance. And the John Williams' amazing score during the Death Star battle, which was drowned out in the new mix for the Special Edition DVD, is right back where its supposed to be.
In other words, everything you loved about Star Wars is back even if it doesn't look and sound as good as it could, it is still a damn fine presentation, and I for one will not bother watching the Special Edition version again.
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I just finished watching the original version DVD's of the first STAR WARS film (and about half of EMPIRE), and I have to say that it looks better then any of the bootlegs that I've collected over the years of the original cut of STAR WARS, but unfortunately, it still doesn't hold a tea cup to the picture quality of the newly remastered mess of a revisionist version that Lucas keeps trying to shove down our throats (coincidence, I think not...)
The picture, for the original version, has a slight, but almost ever present, veil of grain to it (probably the result of trying to up convert the Laserdisc masters, that is supposedly the source being used, to the DVD format) as well, the colour balance is tilted slightly to the red spectrum, making people look like they have bad sunburns at times.
Also, STAR WARS and EMPIRE original version disc's cover art seem to have been conceived by a different person then that of JEDI, because you get these crappy art montages for STAR WARS and EMPIRE, but for JEDI, they use an alternate poster art, which is what they should have done with all of the discs, seeing as the original poster art is saved for the newer recut version discs (which is the same tired disc that Lucas has been trying to cram down our throats for years now, ever since his newer trilogy made it necessary to go back to the original films, and change things to reflect his newer version of events from the past... Confused yet?)
Is it worth the money to buy these new discs, well that depends on just what kind of STAR WARS fan you are, if you can stomach the changes to the films that Lucas has made, and already own the first incarnate of the DVD's, then probably not, but if you're tired of bootlegs with questionable picture quality, and can get past the grainy picture of the new, original version DVD's, then it's a no brainer...
They both still gave it 4 stars, though LOL