Hey zombie, I totally get what you're saying, and your response was not rude at all. I realize that there almost certainly is no alternate cut of this scene, for many reasons- especially because there's so much work involved in altering a negative/tape master, like you said.
The only thing I will say that makes this case slightly different from false memories (situations like people remembering the Biggs scene) is that I actually remember comparing the tapes at home.
The whole thing is unusual for me because the first time I watched the THX widescreen ROTJ, I thought, "huh, those angles are different." I immediately popped in the P&S TV tape and saw that the angles were in fact different (or at least I thought they were different). I was a member of the AOL Star Wars forum at the time; there was a guy on there who was compiling a list of alternate and deleted scenes- I remember I emailed him immediately about this, and his response was, "well, that scene was hacked up a lot in editing, it wouldn't surprise me if there were differences" or something. And I basically left it at that, and never followed through in any other way.
I can assure you, those memories are not false. :) I know I compared the tapes. I know for a fact that I thought I saw different angles. So, looking back, what must have happened is that the P&S cropping looked different enough from the widescreen that I thought there was a difference, when in fact there was not. I was a stupid teenager with a very short attention span at the time, watching on a 19" CRT, and only compared the tapes once. I definitely didn't do a careful comparison, and only had one TV, so I of course couldn't compare the taoes side by side.
Well, that was an unnecessarily long reply to make a very small distinction that is moot anyway! I know I compared the tapes, but now I'm certain my interpretation of said comparison must have been wrong. The memory is real- but it's a memory of a mistake I made.
