SilverWook said:
Were the SE's rushed a bit to make the release date? Restoration aside, there were enough new shots across the OT to be equivalent to doing a entire new movie.
There must have been some pre-production work ongoing for TPM at the same time.
The Star Wars SE was not rushed. It was in the can by late '95-early '96. They worked on it for nearly two years plus. The other SEs were ordered once the SW SE trailer drew such a positive reaction.
Dennis Muren wasn't as heavily involved with the vfx regarding the SEs. He wasn't involved at all on the ESB and ROTJ ones(being involved instead with The Lost World) and he was a creative advisor on the SW one for the restoration and original fx elements. John Knoll, Joe Letteri, and Steve Williams were the main supervisors over the Yavin battle, Mos Eisley and Jabba scenes respectively.
Joe and Steve teamed up on the Mos Eisley and Jabba scenes, with Steve Willaims animating Jabba himself.
In fact, Steve Williams finished animating Jabba in late '95. After ILM developed better mouth syncing software for the film Dragonheart(came out in summer '96) Williams begged Lucas to allow him to go back and use that new software to improve the Jabba shots, but Lucas said it was "good enough".
Main problem with that scene is not its execution. It's that its wholly unnecessary. Greedo gives us the same amount of information as Jabba. Lucas cut it originally for good reason. That editing won an Oscar.
The SE was really Lucas' excuse to experiment with some of the new digital technology as he prepared for the prequels.