I totally agree with you, man. Seriously, fans of the "Special Editions" really need to be asked the following question: at what point, at what degree of "change" in a film, do you consider the changed film to BE the original film only in name? In other words (this is hypothetical to make a point), if Lucas went in and replaced Obi-Wan a few years from now with Ewan McGregor in all 3 original films, completely changed Darth Vader's voice for some reason, and completely re-filmed entire portions of the movies, like the dogfights, to "update them" with newer technology, would they still consider the films to be Star Wars, ESB, and RoTJ? At what point, I'm asking, will one consider a changed movie to NOT be the original? For many, particularly film "purists," the slightest change denotes a new film.

For example, and this is also an example of a director LISTENING to his fanbase, anyone remember the re-release of E.T. a year or 2 ago? That's right, where they replaced the guns with walkie-talkies, added ass-bad CGI E.T., and took out "insensitive" lines? Many, MANY folks considered the revamped version to NOT be the original film, for good reason. My other point is that, originally, Spielberg planned to release ONLY the new version of E.T. in DVD form, but after much protest from the movie-going public, particularly fans, he changed his mind and released both versions in one set.