Bingowings:
That is either a really bad kludge of a shot or that IS the way the weapon works (which allows anyone reworking ANH to make it fire anyway they want).

Well, there you go. So I'll have my Death Star firing the same way. And besides, seeing the Death Star off-axis to fire at Alderaan looks stupid. Yes, in space there is no real up or down, but on film, seeing the Death Star off axis next to Alderaan just doesn't work. So for me, it can fire at an angle.

I'm not sure we should assume it's a bad FX shot just because we'd like to think it works a different way. The movies are canon, our personal taste isn't.

And not wanting to start an argument, but calling the FX work in much of the film lazy is sweeping away a massive amount of work done by very talented artists. Pre-digital, there was so much more work involved and the space battles seen in Jedi were VERY ambitious for that time.