To say that George Lucas has tinkered with his original "Star Wars" trilogy since they were first released would be an understatement. As this extensive and slightly mind-boggling Wikipedia entry details, even as far back as 1977, when different film print versions of "Star Wars" were going to theaters, Lucas started making changes to his film. From there, his constant tweaking continued with each new home video release, from VHS to LaserDisc to DVD and more recently, to Blu-ray, where we catch up with this series of videos.
Marcelo Zuniga has put together a visual guide to all of the changes Lucas has made to the original "Star Wars" trilogy, from their initial theatrical release to the most recent Blu-ray edition that arrived in 2011. The snips-and-cuts additions range from adding rocks in a scene, to extensive CGI to, most controversially of all––Greedo shooting first. While fans continue to clamor for the (unlikely) home video release of the original theatrical cuts, you can see how the movies evolved over the years below.
Had to stop watching around the Mos Eisley section of the Episode IV video. The changes are increasingly awful, and even the small ones add to a cumulative effect of making the film feel inorganic. My wife & I watched the \’Despecialized\’ edition of Episode IV at the beginning of this year and we were blown away by how it is a vastly better film tonally. I\’m not a purist and previously I didn\’t care that much about Lucas\’s changes (bar the obvious ones like Greedo shooting first; regardless of whether or not the idea is good, it\’s very poorly executed on a technical/editorial level), or even about Star Wars in general, but the Despecialized edition was vibrant, alive in a way that the over-thought Special Editions aren\’t, and — above all — cool. There\’s an integrity to it as a product of its time that makes it feel cohesive. So… yeah. Not a fan of the changes.