zombie84 said:

Here is my rationale to reconcile this: the ANH sabers were largely in-camera. Unlike ESB and ROTJ, the sabers in the first film used reflective blue-screen-like material to produce the glow in-camera. In post, they realised it wasn't enough so they added the coloured feather-glow. So, the glowing cores aren't an effect--they are right on the original raw camera negative. So when you start layering on other elements and re-rotoscoping them, you still have the same flickering cores, because that was actually photographed in real life. My 2 cents.

That is exactly what's going on. You actually see the rotating material underneath in many scenes, more so in the SE.

I know the Falcon saber and battle saber was photographed that way, but what about the cantina saber and Ben's hut?

zombie84 said:

And Msycamore, I have never noticed those colour inconsistencies (but maybe because the only time I watch the 2004 SE is to take frame grabs to show how shitty it is).

That's what I did. ;) But seriously, those are everywhere. They really had fun when they did this DVD set.