![smile.gif](http://www.chefelf.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
1. Greedo-Han - It still sucks. It sucks less, but that's like saying the Devil Rays suck less this year than they did last year. They still suck, and so does this scene.
2. Luke scream - Yes, we may rejoice. Luke's ridiculous scream added in the 1997 edition was edited out of ESB. However, before Luke falls, Lucas ties in Vader to Anakin of the prequels by telling Luke, after revealing that Obi-Wan lied to him, "You see? It really IS all Obi-Wan's fault!"
3. End Celebration(s) in ROTJ - It was bad in the first place, and though the music is good, it's not Star Wars music, and I would much rather have the Ewok music there. Now they have added Naboo, which is shown for literally about 5 seconds (no Gungans), and amazingly, looks exactly the same as it did 30 YEARS BEFORE (more great skill with continuity with George), and they show much more grafitti and people on Coruscant. Also the Jedi Temple and Senate are visible, but the grafitti really covers a bunch of the screen. These additions don't really make the scene any worse, and the grafitti while distracting is an interesting touch, but it's unemotional and pointless, and takes away from our heroes emotions.
4. Hayden - Yep, sorry Sebastian Shaw, you've been replaced by Hayden Christensen. Amazingly, it's worse than originally thought. It's not even the fact that it's Hayden Christensen on the screen, that didn't bother me that much. What's annoying is how FAKE it looks. This is understandable, because Alec Guiness and the Yoda puppet were actually THERE, and could actually make eye contact with Mark Hamill and the rest of the party, thereby seeming to really exist there in their ghostly state. But Christensen, well, first of all, he has no expression, he makes one really awkward smile in the direction of Luke, but clearly not AT Luke because he couldn't SEE Mark Hamill, and just seems entirely out of place with Obi-Wan and Yoda. It's a bad change in the first place, and the fact that it's executed poorly makes this the worst change of ANY of the changes since the SEs in 1997.
5. Emperor's new dialogue to Vader in ESB - Now I love Ian McDiarmid. I think he did a great job in ROTJ, and I think he's one of the only bright spots in the prequels as Palpatine. But he comes off here as wooden, and isn't even creepy like he was in ROTJ. His face looks very strange and out of place, and they stupidly show you his entire face, with fewer wrinkles than in ROTJ but with every detail of his face clean, sharp, and visible, instead of leaving you with the aura of mysteriousness that you got from the original Emperor's mostly hidden face. The dialogue is similar. Some of the new dialogue sucks. Emperor says, "There is a great disturbance in the Force. I have no doubt that the young rebel who destroyed the Death Star is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker." Vader says "How is that possible," revealing either that he doesn't know he had kids, or that he hides the fact that he does know from the Emperor, which I must admit is kind of intriguing and fits in with what he says to Luke later. But then comes the worst new dialogue ever. Emperor says "Search your feelings, Lord Vader. You will know it to be true." Hmm. Where have I heard that before? Someone said it, a long time ago, when Lucas could actually write. I can't think who, or when, or...wait it's coming to me. Oh right. Vader said it, in the SAME FUCKING MOVIE! All in all, this is an unnecessary change that turns out to be WORSE than unnecessary because of stupid new dialogue, a surprisingly wooden delivery from McDiarmid, and a revelation of the entirety of the Emperor's face, which, in hologram form, just looks very stupid.
6. Minor changes - Boba Fett is now the Crocodile Hunter and has no menace in him whatsoever (many of his lines are actually overracted by Morrison instead of being subtle, menacing, and cool). Not a big deal, but annoying nevertheless. Some new effects have been added. One I'm not sure is new, but is cool if it is, is when an asteroid hits the bridge of a Star Destroyer, and the next scene you see Vader talking to his captains via their holograms, and one of the holograms looks up in surprise, covers his face, and then fades away as the bridge is destroyed. The Executor seems to have more fire in its engines, and when the death star II is blowing up as we see after Luke's shuttle lifting off, there are more internal and external explosions and more fire. One thing that was odd to me, and I don't know if it's true or not, was that the Death Star II run when they get to the reactor core is VERY, VERY blue, and it just seemed disconcerting and off to me. Again, maybe this was my TV, or it was always like this and I never noticed because the grain of video took away the vibrance of the blue, but it was just very annoyingly blue. I'm sure there are more changes like this, I'll tell you when I watch all of them in their entireties.
Oh I also watched the Episode III preview on Darth Vader, which was interesting to watch, the fight seems like it will be a combination of the fast-paced action of the TPM duel and the grittiness of the OT duels, as there were times when Obi and Ani would get dirty and throw punches and kicks. It looked pretty good. Also, I watched the Making of the Episode III Video Game, where you play as Anakin or Obi and take part in the duel among other things, which again, featured mostly swordfighting, it was interesting, but I would've liked to have seen more of the actual game. And I watched the original teasers and launch trailers of the 3 movies, and I have to tell you, they are hilarious. They're enormously cool and great and all, but they are just so funny to watch. The lightsabers are literally white sticks because the effects hadn't been done yet, and there are obviously some scenes that got deleted or changed, and it's just so great. But I'll get back to you on the rest.