For me, one of the most vexing things about George Lucas' constant tweaking of his works is that they aren't
always for the worse, just as they aren't always for the better. There are certainly any number of changes (Greedo shooting first, say) that virtually anyone who isn't George might agree are unnecessary or even detrimental, but at the same time there really are lots of changes that really are improvements. For me, seeing
the cobra's unwanted reflection in the glass in the Well of Souls set in Raiders of the Lost Ark |
was terrible; while some might have regarded it as "charming" or whatever, it obviously detracted from any feeling the situation is "real," and removed tension from the scene. It undermined one's immersion in the narrative, and I was glad to see it gone. On the other hand, some of the many changes in
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, beginning with the excision of the old Indy bookends and reconfiguration of the episodes into "movies" when a lot (most?) of them work better as episodes, are really unfortunate (at least in the opinions of many - most? - people here).
Of course the purist approach is simply to say "leave everything the way it was, flaws and all," but I don't think this is ideal.
For historical purposes, yes, it's important to have access to the original versions, and I really wish George weren't so keen on keeping his older versions of stuff out of the marketplace - but the movies and shows also have to work as movies and shows, not just documents about their own creation, and it's inarguable that sometimes the filmmakers just didn't have the resources (money, tech, time, you name it) they should have when they first made their works, or that they made easily-fixable mistakes that if left unchanged interfere with a viewer's appreciation of the work. For this reason I've always cut Lucas a little slack (compared with other fans) when discussing his constant changes; I try to not just dogmatically oppose every one of his little tinkerings, but evaluate them on a case-by-case basis. I still get angry and frustrated about some of his revisions... but I have to admit I actually like some of the others. If only he would at least make all the major versions of everything available in the format of the moment (à la Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, etc.), rather than forever consigning them to formats no longer in use...
And I do agree Greedo never got off a shot.