SilverWook said:

What's equally amazing is how little publicity the changes got compared to the Special Editions. ... This also seems to be the beginning of the trend to not even credit the people who worked on the new shots.

msycamore said:

... What surprises me the most, is the extreme re-editing that took place, I simply cannot understand the reason for it other than it was done just for the sake of re-doing it.

Unfortunately, the reason is ... who George Lucas is. Once you know -- "I'm a '60s, West Coast, liberal, radical, artsy, dyed-in-the-wool 99 percenter before there was such a thing" [George Lucas, 1/18/2012] -- his being a 1984-ish communist-party-faithful explains it all (see http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/My-STAR-WARS-Thesis-I-need-help/post/569749/#TopicPost569749 ).

"Nikolai Yezhov, walking with Stalin in the top photo from the 1930s. Following his execution, Yezhov was edited out of the photo by Soviet censors. Yezhov became an 'unperson'." - Wikipedia: Nineteen Eighty-Four . No mention of there being an "edit"; no credit to the "editor", either.

And so ... the original THX 1138 has become an "unmovie". :)

To paraphrase Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake (Dr. Strangelove): "It was just Lucas's way of having a bit of fun, the swine. Strange thing is he makes such bloody good movies."