The full wide theatrical release of all three films.
The good remixed 5.1 sound.
The YCM labs full on physical restoration of all three films from o-negs and color timing ANH to the Tech IB print.
The trailers.
ANH:Some of the Mos Eisley extension, the DS dogfight looked nice in the new shots, the Praxis rings were interesting sort of, the Jabba scene was an interesting alternate bit, the extended Falcon leaving Tatooine and the added elements from the mono mix to make a close to definitive mix.
ESB: I hate the added ROTJ shot of Vader's shuttle arriving. Ruins the pacing, is completely unnecessary and is from freaking ROTJ!! "Alert my Star Destroyer..." is not anywhere near as effective or good as "Bring my shuttle.", the scream isn't terrible, but any discerning ear can tell it's Palpy's death scream, the visible Wampa works.
ROTJ: Definitely the ending music, Yub Nub never fit well to me. I don't have many problems on this one, but Jedi Rocks is way too overdone.
The little things are done well and are very seamless but can be completely different from the original film. The redone shots with CGI are not the original models and live SFX that composed the original films. It really bothers me that people tend to view the SEs and deriatives as the actual films and that the CGI has replaced the original workmanship.
And I like the SE. That said, what I have noticed is what some claimed in 97: that overall the SE trilogy had a flat and very grainy look to it, that it had none of the sharpness of the original issues and that the sound mix seemed flat and with little to no punch in the high and low ends. According to some of these quotes, the originals had been screened here and there (even in 70mm) up to 1993. So they weren't basing their opinions on distant memories but rather recent ones. Maybe an actual well done transfer can reveal the limitations of the 97's but judging from memory and the available editions, ANH is softer, grainier, and soundwise centered in the midrange.
Theatrically it looked brilliant. The broadcast versions look closer to my theatrical memories. The LDs are great for the format, but don't really stack up to the theatrical presentation.
It seems that every version of Star Wars must be viewed on a copy of a master of an IP, which causes untold amounts of problems. I think that the image issues on the 97s might have been behind the beginnings of the image tweaks that occurred on the 04 master since they were derived from the 97 restoration.
To LFL: Just freaking take a 35mm print of each 97 SE and run it through a Spirit Datacine or any telecine for that matter at 2K (because you're really too cheap). Fix any tears, splices, hairs etc. and release with the optical Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1. It'll be 2.35, anamorphic, 1080p, DTS-HD MA, Dolby HD. Perfect simple Blu-ray. Was that too hard? No color problems, no bad sound mix, no further changes necessary, no outside fees, cheap and easy to do, and George will still have his SE out there. Then you can do the same with the OOT. It will cost next to nothing-you can do it in house! Criterion does this stuff everyday.