I think about this subject quite a bit when it comes to what I expect from a special edition.
Most special editions restore original intent that was left on the cutting room floor
deleted scenes / sub-plots that were cut due to keeping the theatrical cut down
Basically either an alternative or an extended cut.
Although the special editions of the Star Wars Original Trilogy does this in some respects they often seem to change the original intent and continually keep changing and retro fitting things that do nothing to restore some of the much more important deleted or alternative scenes that could of been added.
Or shots for whatever reason that could not be finished before release are totally dis-regarded in favour of a new vision or a new scene that was never intended originally rather than what was the goal at the time when they were making the film. I don't mind new ideas far from it but I think that not enough care and attention was taken to restore rather than make new.
Not fixing problems that already existed and creating new ones.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder why it is the way it is the special editions.
Something I have been concentrating on recently is if you hire a composer like john williams and the whole London Sympjony Orchestra to make music for the film but then you wait until after they did the music and start chopping the film about, so the music can no longer be used. Cutting bit's of music in the middle because you don't have special effects shots finished or simply hard cutting the soundtrack out or using music from a totally different part of the film. A proper special edition would have sorted this out I think but it actually makes it worse.
It even goes as far to add special effects shots to the movie without sound but yet include the intended sound effects in the DVD menu.
I like some of it but the quality was really overall sub-par. Not enough thought went into It was more a platform for showing off better visual effects which although nice in some respects does nothing to really improve plot or timing or more story. There is plenty of footage that we have not seen that could have been restored or re-worked. And some is still be kept secret because it was not the film Lucus wanted to make which is fine but he did not direct Empire or Jedi so more focus on their original intent should have been made.