It's funny I actually wrote a letter to Jimmy Mac of the Forcecast just last week that mentioned how I felt that the SE's aren't the real films. Here it is if you're curious:
Hey Jimmy, just wanted to say first of all that I've been a big fan of the Forcecast for a few years now but I have to say I'm really disappointed in your coverage of the blu-rays.
I'm listening to the latest Forcecast right now and there are just some things that are bothering me. First of all, you keep saying that forcecast fans are the kind of fans that freeze frame every scene and study them looking at every minute detail but then you have Jason who's never noticed Han's neck jerk during the Greedo scene.
I'm a part of a community that actually does study these films frame by frame looking for changes and documenting them. It was one of us that called out the "humdinger glitch" that they managed to fix at the last second for this release and there are still a lot of errors left in the films.
Second is your depiction of the fans who are boycotting this release. Are there people out there who claim that George Lucas raped their childhood? Yes there are but they're in the extreme minority and most of us like you find that highly inappropriate language. Also, we're not boycotting this release because we don't want George changing the special editions. We're boycotting because we want the release of the original theatrical editions alongside the special editions. And no, the 2006 bonus disc release does not count. Those were laserdisc masters from 1993 that are absolutely riddled with DVNR artifacting, stabilization and aliasing issues. I'd go into that more but I know you and Jason both agree that you'd like to see the theatrical editions released as well.
Third is your claim that the boycott didn't do anything. To that I disagree, the main purpose of the boycott was to raise awareness and in that I think it did a great job. A lot of sites ended up writing articles about this and discussing the issues. Articles that I have to note were not covered on the Forcecast or TFN but they were out there and people did read them.
Lastly is your claim that we're cheating ourselves by not buying this release of the films. I don't feel cheated at all because I don't consider the special editions to be the real films. Now don't get me wrong, I think George has every right to keep tweaking the special editions as much as he wants, let him have at it.
But I do draw the line at his active suppression of the original theatrical versions. Don't forget he once said and I quote, "There will only be one. And it won't be what I would call the 'rough cut', it'll be the 'final cut'. The other one will be some sort of interesting artifact that people will look at and say, 'There was an earlier draft of this...' what ends up being important in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that's what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won't last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition]"
This is absolutely incredible to hear coming from a man who sits on the board of The Film Foundation (http://www.film-foundation.org/) whose stated goal is, "dedicated to protecting and preserving motion picture history by providing annual support for preservation and restoration projects" Doubly so because he was also once quoted as saying the following in regards to film preservation, "in the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be 'replaced' by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten....Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself." Can you not start to see where we're coming from now?
He never replied. =(