> It's not that easy, in my opinion. George Lucas and James Cameron have both said that their restorations were how they would have wanted to release the movie if they had had the technology/budget.
I dunno about Cameron's films (I don't think I've seen an original and an unchanged from him), but for Star Wars, the constraints helped make the film good. Yes, there's some rough bits, but all of the additions subtract rather than add.
Maybe it's not what his vision was, but we liked it as it was. If you watch ROTJ, you can already see where unconstrained technology distracts Lucas and it turns into too much of a green screen affair in parts. The prequel trilogy is so much green screen and it just feels so sterile and unbelievable; none of the characters interact with the environment at all; they're not hot in the desert or even when having a light saber duel in lava fields or whatever. They don't get cold or wet, etc. In ROTJ, the speeder bike stuff is mostly gratituous, but there's interaction with the environment.
George Lucas had to shoot his Star Wars movie in Englandd instead of California and its what gave us the iconic Empire portrayed by British theater actors.
I dunno about Cameron's films (I don't think I've seen an original and an unchanged from him), but for Star Wars, the constraints helped make the film good. Yes, there's some rough bits, but all of the additions subtract rather than add.
Maybe it's not what his vision was, but we liked it as it was. If you watch ROTJ, you can already see where unconstrained technology distracts Lucas and it turns into too much of a green screen affair in parts. The prequel trilogy is so much green screen and it just feels so sterile and unbelievable; none of the characters interact with the environment at all; they're not hot in the desert or even when having a light saber duel in lava fields or whatever. They don't get cold or wet, etc. In ROTJ, the speeder bike stuff is mostly gratituous, but there's interaction with the environment.