When suggesting that the colors in the 97 version were improvements over the original, remember that you're comparing 1997 video against older video versions. There has never been a decent video transfer of the original FILM using today's video technology. To me, the 97 version isn't an improvement on the original, it is just a better quality copy of the original, with some unfortunate changes. In fact, watching the 1997 version in the theater was the closest I ever saw to what I saw in 1977 in the theaters, because everything I saw between 1978 and 1996 had degraded.
The ideal version would be a modern high quality copy of the original film, which in my opinion would look better than every version out there today, including the 1997 SE and every fan version.