Lord Starfish said:
This is true… but then the original Emperor in that shot was an old woman with the eyes of a chimpanzee, dubbed over by someone who didn’t sound even remotely like Ian McDiarmid. The change could certainly have been executed better, but I think I prefer the new version to the old here (minus the afforementioned stupid dialogue change).

Yeah. I mean, come on, defending the original Emperor hologram is just dumb. It makes you look like a fanatical purist and it almost undermines our entire argument for the originals being better as it gives Lucas apologists plenty of ammo to say we’re blinded by nostalgia goggles and would literally say anything different is worse, even if it is clearly better. OK, the changed hologram could maybe have been done a little better, but Lucas worked with what he had; he already had Ian on set in Emperor makeup for ROTS. But for any flaws the new scene may have, they pale in comparison to, as you said, literally an old woman with chimp eyes and a strange voice. It’s laughably out of sync with every other appearance of Palpatine’s character and just takes you out of the movie unless you’re watching ESB as a standalone for some reason. And if it’s your first time watching it before seeing ROTJ or the prequels then, well, OK, maybe it won’t take you out of the movie, but it will set you up to be taken out of ROTJ when you watch it and it will probably still seem “off” to you because the whole scene is just wrong.

And to be clear, I certainly believe that the original cut of ESB should be preserved and given an official release with all the works, chimp eyes and all. But I’m also fair enough to recognize what is clearly an improvement when I see it.