C3PX, I appreciate your balanced response greatly. I will always be as balanced as I can, and make no apology for expressing an opinion which others may feel isn't positive enough. Bingowings, I have no intention of justifying further any "negative" criticisms I have made because I don't have to. I'm as entitled to criticise a fan editor's work as I am the work of professionals, as are we all.
Going back to the "big TIE reveal" and why I don't think it's very good... As I said previously, there is no disputing the work put in, the technical proficiency etc. My criticism was not with the realism of the image - far from it, I thought the model work and lighting was excellent. But the actual framing was dreadful. When ANH:R cuts to the money shot, there are TIE fighters bunched into the frame all over the place; it appears there was little consideration given to the spacial relations of the models. If there was, then it's just poorly design. Yes, the rendering is lovely, I agree, but they just look messy. The pan as the nearest TIE goes by and the rest of the shot are great, but the initial reveal, the key moment of that new shot, is ugly. FX shots can be crammed, they can be chaotic, but they still need to look right in the frame. I don't think the big reveal does. Now, Bingowings, you may consider this opinion to be out of order. Well, I'm sorry if that's how you feel, but I'm entitled to express it.
As for the other things, like the added score. Why add it? First of all, Williams' score for A New Hope is very, very different stylistically to the scores for all the other Star Wars movies, just as Empire's is. Outside of the main theme, the scores for Empire and Jedi are really not compatible with ANH. So putting Duel of the Fates or any other cue behind Ben and Vader's duel just doesn't work. That music doesn't sound anything like the original score for A New Hope. Just as the brooding Emperor theme from Jedi doesn't. I remember many people cursing Lucas for blurring the identities of the original movies with little things like putting the shuttle in Empire, putting Jabba into A New Hope when he doesn't belong there etc. Well, to me, putting the music from other movies into A New Hope is just the same thing. Leave each movie to be its own thing. They were that way for a very long time, and we didn't complain then.
I have nothing against fan edits at all; in fact I find them intriguing. But when I've heard a decade and more of Lucas-bashing for his "meddling", I'd like to think we can avoid making similar (or the same) mistakes in our own work. Some of the responses to my comments seem to imply that I have called Adywan a talentless hack and everything he's done is garbage. Well, I didn't, and it isn't. His colour correction is incredibly good, and yes, a hell of a lot better than the DVDs. Many of his little tweaks - Greedo blinking, Yavin in the background of the battle, cleaned up lasers and sabres, lots of stuff - is brilliant. But is it all good? No. Should we pretend it is?