As a long-time lurker, I just want to say that I love the discussion in this thread - Vaderios's wonderful colour corrections specifically.

For me, film is first and foremost a visual medium. My favourite films have - for very different reasons - memorable visuals. A quick top five to illustrate: "Il deserto rosso" (Antonioni); "2001" (Kubrick); Fire Walk with Me (Lynch); Sunrise (Murnau); and "Vertigo" (Hitchcock).

The point to all this: I could have tolerated the wretchedness of the prequel stories had they had the strange sense of both wonder and junkyard aesthetics (a beautiful and weirdly potent brew) of the OT. But even the good parts - the Easter Island-ness of the Naboo forests; the late Renaissance building parts from AOTC - get bogged down in terrible and inconsistent colouring.

There is no doubt in my mind that had someone less rich and less famous than Lucas made these films, no studio would have released the films in the states they're in. They would have been colour corrected - heavily! - before release. The finished films (possible exception of ROTS) are not even release candidates - they're in workprint shape.

As much as I love the story changes in some prequel edits - my favourites are probably MagnoliaFan's - I think I would actually probably prefer a colour corrected fanedit with no story changes. Even keeping the Midichlorians. That's how important the colours are to Star Wars, in my opinion. If someone could just make a good and consistent colour correction of the PT - Vaderios, I'm looking at you :) - I would be really grateful.

Sorry if this is (vaguely) off-topic! (Back to lurk mode...)