That’s what this was? What year did they do this? I remember a remaster, but it was general darkening of the sky and brighter colors.
This, they even messed with controls on the panels and pretty much everything. To me, as a fan of the Drive In versions… this felt like a completely different movie built around the human actors.
Did what? The issues you are talking about were there from the beginning. Like, in the theatres when they debuted.
The changes done for the special editions were more additive. They didn’t change much, but added in digital effects to make it more visually consistent with the upcoming prequels.
My DS heard this as he was walking down the hall and came in to investigate. He’s now doubting his life choices after seeing all the time and effort put into this.
Until his computer camp in 3 hours. He’ll be over it by then 
It’s the digital effects that’s throwing me.
I remember the debut. Then I remember a light touching up. Then a deeper re-do of the effects. I think this is the first time I’ve seen New Hope not on VHS or my parents old jalopy TV with the bunny ears antenna.
I’ll add my two cents on Ep. 8. Like @Jeff_AZ and @Mike_vndt both said I enjoyed it in the theater, I think all in all I still enjoy the movie, but there are some things about it that on re-watches have bothered me.
These are probably more subjective, but still:
4. The reveal on Rey’s parents being nobody. I have no issue with her parents being nobodies, but I don’t know why they teased it so much in Ep 7 if the answer was…“who cares”. It made the movies feel disconnected…more on that after you watch Ep. 9
5. Luke tossing the lightsaber bugged me. I sort of get his arc in the movie and how it fits with his nature, but apathy was not his nature, and that is how that came off to me. It wasn’t that he didn’t didn’t care about the Jedi or the force, he had shut himself off to it because of his missteps/disappointments. I feel like he could have given it back to her and told her something about how he isn’t that person anymore, or something like that.
Anyway, those are my feelings, I don’t “hate” the movie as a lot of people on the internet seem to, but I’ll say it is one of my least favorites.
I agree with all this, especially Leia, that was ridiculous.
My son was also bothered by the Leia bit. I, on the hand, was almost brought to tears by the moment and LOVED it. Like a LOT. Why?
Well, because we’ve been waiting a REALLY REALLY long time to find out what Leia is capable of with the force. Her grasp of it was different, yet somewhat natural. Luke even tells Leia is wrong for thinking she’ll never have the same power he does. But we never actually see that power, other than a couple brief moments where she senses that Luke is okay.
So, here we are, in this moment when all hope is lost…and we FINALLY get to see Leia’s power. We finally get to see that she grew beyond just some surface knowledge that she had some kind of ability. She was powerful, as Luke had predicted.
As far as…
Luke tossing the lightsaber…I actually found this totally in character as the story progresses. As a first reaction, I was like, “What?” But then we see his reasoning explained. This isn’t so far from what we see of Yoda at first in Empire Strikes Back, in a slightly different way. As such, I found, upon re-watching, that Luke tossing the lightsaber being quite symbolic of himself recognizing his own failure and not wanting to be reminded of it, etc.
Okay. I can’t get it to blur the second part, so I removed it. Trying again in a separate post…
And…blurred for those who have NOT YET seen episode 9…
Rey’s parents being a nobody…I totally agree about this point. And this is what comes of having the direction of a movie not dictated by a single individual. Rian Johnson wanted to go in a different direction from J. J. Abrams. And so he took in a different direction. But in 9, we see J. J. take it back. Only it made the flow of the three movies disjointed as a result. J. J. did a decent job bringing it back around, but Rian and J. J. needed to have a pow-wow about this ahead of time. Ultimately, the entire direction of the three films together, however, veered from Lucas’ original vision…and while I thoroughly enjoyed the new trilogy, I kind of wish they had used Lucas’ vision, but kept him out of the creative process otherwise. In other words, his “big picture” should have been followed, but leave it to the other filmmakers to carry out that big picture. The fact that Lucas was cut out entirely I think weakened the story that Lucas wanted to tell. I read an interview with him about what he wanted to play out in this trilogy. Frankly, it was a better story line, I think. But I don’t think Lucas himself could have pulled it off after seeing his Episodes 1-3 debacle.
I agree 100% with the blurred bit.
I kind of blame Kathleen Kennedy as the big boss, someone needed to have the conversation about what the overall arc of the three movies would be. They could have disagreed, had a conversation, and then made a plan at the outset. The tone of the movies could be different, but they needed to work together as one story. Just like Mandalorian…multiple directors, and each chapter stood on its own, but all worked within one overall framework.
I totally agree with your #4. That really bugged me and was a disappointment (at the time of course). You can’t build something up and then just brush it off.
The Leia flying part was weird for sure, but in the end I chalk it up to some Force powers. We saw some new powers in episode 9 too, but they felt much cooler.
Well I just Googled “Do Mandalorians eat?” 
The problem I have with 9 is that Disney chickened out on 8 and the Star Wars universe was stuck in the same rut that 7 carved out. It all came back to nothing new. This is a problem with the entire film industry really.
Whoa
And also, like I said
9?
9
Did you finish?!?!?! How are you going to wait until your trip to talk about it with your family?!
Oh, I know, talk about it with us. 
I haven’t finished. I’m about halfway through. I wanted very much to have someone to share the moment with when my head exploded above. So I talked to my cat. “Holy cow did you hear what he just said?!”
She meowed and walked away. I get it. I used to be like that.
Oh I’m so excited for you! I don’t know how you had the willpower to stop halfway though! We just watched 9 last night and I just love, love, love it!
