I just picked up my copy of the trilogy on my way to work (Fry's Electronics was selling it for $36 today only), so I'll see how it all fits.

I think the main thing that people are complaining about is that Lucas decided to release the trilogy without making available any version of the original movies. He keeps insisting that as far as he's concerned, the original films don't exist anymore. For people who grew up with the original trilogy, the original trilogy is what counts and what matters, warts and all. It would be as if a band decided to keep rerecording their best albums, and keep the original versions that fans first enjoyed locked up and unavailable.

With ET, the original plan was to release only the 20th anniversary edition, but after fans raised a stink, the DVD got released with both versions available. Lucas seems oblivious and almost antagonistic to his fan base. But, the thing is that as a cultural icon, Star Wars is bigger than just Lucas. He just happens to own the rights, so he sees fit to keep tinkering with it. For one thing, I'll never refer to the first movie as "A New Hope" since that tagline didn't even get inserted into the opening crawl until later rereleases. When a movie gets out there, how the fans perceive its value goes beyond the control of one guy. Lucas can try and convince us that new digital effects and tinkering with the plot lines and dialog are a good thing, but IMO that doesn't necessarily improve upon what a lot of people already regarded as their all-time favorite.

Also, gotta disagree with you about Episodes I and II. Both of those movies have been big time letdowns because Lucas lost track of what endeared the original trilogy to its fans -- the simple fact that we cared about the main characters and the fate of their quests. Young Obi Wan, Anakin, Padme -- if any one of those characters got killed, I would not have cared. If the trade federation in Episode I had prevailed, I would not have cared.

And the plotlines have gotten so convoluted that they have no clear purpose other than to advance all the plot strings up to Episode IV. In his effort to make the entire six-episode serial fit together cohesively, Lucas forgot that he still needs to make a decent standalone movie. I mean, try summarizing the plots for Phantom Menace versus Star Wars. Star Wars is about a ragtag group of adventurers who rescue a princess and defeat an evil empire. Phantom Menace is about a trade dispute, some young kid with a lot of karma, and a big battle to break a blockade that ends with the kid accidentally saving the day.

The original movie was far from perfect, but taken in the context of its time, it was groundbreaking. And the movie was simply fun.

Like everyone, I'm buying the trilogy because I just love these films. I appreciate that they did the necessary restoration work on it, and it's finally available on DVD. But, I can't help but think that the thing got rushed out due to piracy fears. I'm reading accounts about how the soundtrack in Star Wars got reversed in the surrounds with the music, and some of the remixing made some not so well advised changes. I guess I'll see when I fire up the system tonight.

Also, one thing about the Godfather trilogy, the picture quality on that DVD set has been a pretty controversial topic. I read that the recently released single-disc version of the first movie was done by a different mastering house and the look is different from the boxed set, which was done by Coppola's mastering facility.