the first time I watched Star Wars in its entirety was in 2004 on a dormmates full screen Special Edition vhs set.
Watching the special edition documentary before, I was thinking to myself "wait, Han steps on Jabba's tail? Isn't Jabba a scary guy that Han would get in a lot of trouble for doing that?"
Overall the movie seemed very cliche, like I had read it a thousand times before. Well, I had just read Eragon and yeah, that was the story with the cliche and unoriginal plot.
I thought the landscapes looked dull and dreary, I was mad that the Death Star blew up Alderaan because it looked like it would have made a very scenic location.
I had heard that the stormtroopers were notorious for missing. However, when it got to the Greedo scene, I first was confused. It happened so fast that I couldn't tell who shot what and which one hit. When Greedo fell over dead, I thought "that's so cheap, two guys are sitting at a table and the good guy hits while the bad guy misses. Did Han Solo have invincibility turned on like in a video game? Cliche and lame." Because it happened so fast, I wasn't even sure if Han hit his target and Greedo missed or it was just a case of the dead guy falling down, regardless of whether the scene showed the hit connecting.
A few days later, someone was watching the movie at our school library and it was at that scene. I watched it again to get another look but it confused me further because it didn't have the same shot.
Later after getting the 2004 dvd set for Christmas and watching Empire of Dreams, I became really curious about seeing what was different in the original version. So I found an online website that listed the major differences. Then seeing that the VHS from the library were from 1995 with Vader's face, I decided to borrow those and watch it in a friends dorm room who had a vcr. After seeing the original Greedo scene and knowing that it was later changed, I was amazed at how good the scene looked.
You see a close up of Han and then hear a blaster fire that you didn't see. Only when Greedo falls over dead in the wide shot do you realize Han must have shot Greedo from under the table. It just is more suspenseful this way and it makes us feel that the main characters are vulnerable. A lot of people point out that it changes Han's character. What I haven't seen people say nearly is much is that by having Greedo miss from that close, it cheapens not just the threat of Greedo but any bad guy in the movie. We don't feel like the main characters are in as much danger and thus there is less dramatic tension.
Same thing with the Jabba scene. If Han can just brazenly talk back to his gang leader like that, why should we be worried about when they all get captured in Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi? But I'll save the rest for the Jabba thread.