slask said:

In cases like these we're not talking about simple upgrades, we're talking about director's cut. Lucas and Scott couldn't achieve what they wanted back when they shot those movies; producers interference, budget limitations, underdeveloped technology, these are some of the reasons.

If you complain about SW SE, you should hate every director's cut done. The principle at the base of the SE is the same.

The big problem with that though, is that Lucas only direct one of the three. You can't call ESB & ROTJ "directors cuts". Those films were complete how the director wanted them (although Lucas threw out Marquands cut and recut it himself). It's pure bull that the additions were part of Lucas' original vision and that technical limitations at the time stopped him from doing the thing he wanted. You only have to look at most of the additions/ alterations to see that this isn't true

And to say that if you complain about the SE then you should also hate every directors cut is ridiculous. For one the SE's stopped being called that and replaced the originals as the only version. With directors cuts you usually get the original along with it or available as a separate release. Not so with the OT. If Lucas had just kept them as special editions and not tried to bury the originals, then you can bet the hatred towards those films wouldn't be half as bad as it is now. You could just ignore them. As it stands now you are either stuck with crappy DVDs of a non-anamorphic laserdisc master or fan made preservations/ recreations . The more Lucas refused to release the originals, restored in HD, the more the hatred towards the SE's grew