Some of the changes make sense. Taking all the dirt off the film stock, for instance, made the picture much nicer. I liked the improved wampa sequence and the windows on Cloud City, too. But some changes really bothered me.

The dance number in Jabba's palace is cool. I would enjoy watching it as a music video. But it slows down the whole Jabba sequence of the movie and undercuts the threat of the palace and, by extension, Jabba.

In the original version, the focus was on poor Oola, who was fed to the rancor for refusing Jabba's advances. This showed us how gross and scary Jabba was and set things up nicely for an even scarier scene when Luke is standing right on the trapdoor... Not to mention giving us a very good idea what sort of horrors Leia might be in for when Jabba makes her his new eye candy. Everything works to build tension and increase the threat to the heroes.

But in the Special and DVD Editions, the focus is on the band and the backup dancers. Instead of the rough, can't-get-a-gig-anywhere-else-because-we-suck song in the original, which emphasized how far away from civilization the palace is and how desperate anyone has to be to work for Jabba, we have a slick, professional number. This is supposed to be a den of infamy, not the set of Tatooine Idol! Despite a tiny bit of extended footage of her in the rancor pit, Oola is a side issue, almost a distraction. Instead of threatening and barbarous, Jabba's palace comes across as a pretty cool place. Bye-bye, tension. A huge chunk of the movie becomes slightly boring because of the Space Girls Singing Sensations.

Of course I have to mention the changes to the Greedo scene. In the original, Greedo threatens Han's life ("Over my dead body." "That's the idea."), so Han sneakily raises his blaster and blows Greedo away as soon as he gets a clear shot. Han showed he could not just react to situations, but plan ahead and act as well. As far as ethics--well, I think Greedo's threat made it self-defense, not murder, and shows that Han can stand up to criminals and tyrants and is already a Rebel at heart despite all his talk. But if you think it was murder, then it means that Han has an even greater change of heart when he joins the Rebellion. Either way, it makes him a strong, active character.

In the Special Edition, Greedo shoots first but misses, and then Han shoots Greedo. This is a HUGE difference. First of all, it makes Greedo less of a threat. Before, Greedo wasn't the quickest or the smartest bounty hunter, but he was a threat--he could have gotten trigger-happy and killed Han at any moment. But in the new version, he does his worst, and his worst is pathetic. Come on--he missed at that range? He's so lame that shooting back seems almost cruel. Second of all, it weakens Han's character. He doesn't act, he reacts. (And if you take the "murder" reading, it makes Han's change of heart later much smaller.) He has to wait until the guy has tried to kill him and failed? By that logic, Rebels shouldn't attack stormtroopers who haven't tried to kill them yet! Finally, it's just confusing to watch. I actually didn't realize Greedo shot first until I had seen the new scene several times.

The DVD Edition changes this scene yet again. Now Han and Greedo shoot at about the same time and Han's head does a sort of snakey-thing to dodge the blaster bolt. As far as characterization goes, this is an improvement over the SE. Han acts instead of reacts, sort of. But he doesn't act in time, so he doesn't look as smart, and that dodge just looks unnatural. What is he, a Jedi? Once again, Greedo looks less threatening than when he didn't shoot. And this version is even more confusing to watch than the SE. It's a mess of blaster bolts flying from who-knows-where, and even after I had read online exactly who shot when (courtesy of people who bothered to watch it frame by frame) and rewatched it several times, I could not see what was happening.

Just as annoying is the reinsertion of the ANH Jabba scene. In the original version, Jabba was an ominous name looming over two whole movies before he appeared, steadily increasing the threat to Han and the other characters. When he finally appeared, it was as a powerful crime lord ensconsed in his palace. But in the new version, he crawls out to a scuzzy little spaceport himself like he's the underling instead of the boss. Han knows he can step on Jabba's tail and get away without even a slap on the hand, which just ruins Jabba's ominousness. This means that Han leaving in ESB to pay back Jabba so he won't be "a dead man" is far from convincing. Instead of a real conflict between trying to clear up a really life-threatening problem and staying with his friends and the Rebellion, it looks like Han is just trying to find an excuse to run off. That means he has hardly changed at all in the three years he's been with the Rebellion, and makes it seem strange that he's been with them that long. Furthermore, it makes it highly unlikely that Leia would fall in love with him. In the old version, we could fill inthe blanks that he had changed some, they had gotten friendly, and then Leia turned frigid when he decided to leave but really understood why he wanted to. We could see why she would love him: he's on his way to being just the kind of guy for her. For his part, it seemed like he really did care about her and was torn between leaving and staying. Not so with the SE/DVD Han--he really is a scoundrel, and not in a good way. It looks more like he's trying to have a last bit of fun before he takes off. Yuck.

The scene is redundant, too. We already got all that information from Han and Greedo's conversation. Han even repeats some lines from that conversation in this one. It slows the movie way down. Plus, it makes the conversation between Threepio and Artoo at the beginning of ROTJ seem weird--Threepio's heard stories about a guy who lets people step on his tail that would make Artoo short-circuit? I don't think so! We've seen Jabba; he's a doofus. No need for even Mr. Worrywart to worry.

There's a lot of little things too. Adding random falling Jawas and cutesy things in Mos Eisley makes the city less like a wretched hive of scum and villainy and more like Disney World. And a ronto walking in front of the screen while we're trying to watch Luke get pulled over? What is the point of that, exactly? The new ending theme of ROTJ hardly sounds celebratory (as the original does--bring back the Yub!Yub! song! or at least have a bit of it before the "woo, destiny and closure and all that" music).

It's too bad that George won't release the original versions on DVD (cleaned up) for historical reasons. He's the guy who doesn't like people colorizing old movies, and he won't release the version that made history anymore? It ain't right. I'd buy the new versions too, to have a complete set, and I know I'm far from the only one!