This has really made me realize something that maybe you guys already knew: It's not so much George screwing this up, but George letting a bunch of over-excited amateurs have at his movies. Clearly most of these changes were simply ego trips for visual effects and audio editors to put their mark on the films.
I know George probably gives final approval, but I bet he doesn't even watch the whole films, they just show him a few clips and he okays them probably.
That being said, I'm no purist. I enjoyed the changes to the trilogy so far, except for the addition of Jedi Rocks, the Jabba scene in '97, and the burping frog in ROTJ. So I'm not the type of fan to get upset over coloring or audio flipping or obscure things like that.
But I went from being excited to buy this yesterday to not buying it now. I could handle the Ewok changes. Sebulba in ROTJ? No problem, unless in motion it looks terrible. Anakin at the end of ROTJ? A little strange, could have used a better clip of him, but whatever.
But the Krayt dragon and Vader scenes are so beyond terrible I can't believe they ever got the green light. Not only are they unnecessary but they simply sound bad. They sound amateurish. How could professionals, even if they thought the sounds needed to be changed, approve of these new sounds? They don't even sound like they belong in the clips.
And the Vader scene was the final straw. Coolest, most powerful moment of the sage ruined? It's not like ignoring Greedo shoots first, or the burping frog, non-essential parts of a story that you can move on from. The Vader scene is the emotional culmination of the entire saga.
I think I'll wait 6 months for the unaltered originals to be released.
But has anyone watched the prequels yet? I had held out hope that they would be changed for the better. Clips of dialogue and audio here, fixed effects here, reduced backflipping there, eliminating some of the awkward pauses between line delivery...but judging from the OT changes it looks extremely unlikely. Can anyone talk about changes to AOTC and ROTS?
This makes me so mad, because with my discount I could have gotten the complete set for 60 bucks. And now I won't get to see Star Wars on blu ray.