pittrek said:
What about the "R2D2 in the canyon" scene ? Or the "binary sunset" scene ?
It's true that those weren't presented as seen on theatrical prints on early home video versions. But how many home video versions of other films in the 80's and 90's were? We have come a long way since those days when compromises were made due to the medium and the equipment of the day the average person viewed them on. Scenes shot day-for-night were notorious for being presented inaccurately, examples of this are the shark attack in the beginning of Jaws or the Rushmore monument scenes in North By Northwest to just name a few.
pittrek said:
Or the "fighters leaving Yavin 4" scene ? Or of course the closing credits ?
These two subtle tweaks were most likely done for the new batch of prints that was ordered in June '77, that's also when the third audio mix (Academy Mono) first appeared on many prints. Tweaks done early in the films run is not that uncommon. A similar thing happened with ESB, in the first month of its release only the 70mm version with its slightly different editing was the only version that could be seen.
pittrek said:
And you of course forgot the 1985 audio remix, all the colour variations (every release had different colour scheme),all the different cropping ...
Again this is standard home video variations you describe, it's simply up to the telecine operator to decide how to best present the sources given to him, sometimes with the producer. I don't get what you're trying to argue but different cropping and timing of any film that gets a video release are never exactly the same twice, unless they reuse the exact same video master.
If you describe these things as constant tinkering... well, then you can describe every single little variations in cinema presentations as constant tinkering as well. Personally I wouldn't say every release of SW had a different color scheme, every release that came from the same source material had overall the same color scheme with the exception of the Technidisc telecine, they only differ in some cases due to different mastering, nothing too extensive IMO.
NTSC '82 - 92 - same source material, slight variations are seen between releases due to being either from a different telecine or mastering but overall still the same color scheme.
NTSC '92 - 94 - different source material, different color scheme.
NTSC '93 - 95 - same source material as above, a different color scheme.
I'm not saying that there hasn't been a lot of variations over the years but you have to put it in perspective, especially in comparison to how every other film has been or is treated on video. These things shouldn't be confused with the Lucas tinkering '97 and onward.
