You can only see something for the first time once...

Rating: 10/10 (2 July 2006)

by all means If you've never seen this movie, see it on the Betamax or Selectivision CED or Laserdisc formats first because George Lucas' subsequent remixes are awful and will really will ruin the experience for you.
I'm fortunate enough to have the original Trilogy on Betamax cassette as well as having the modern DVD series. All I can say is Lucas got it right the first time. Every "new" sequence goes on too long and stops the story dead.
No...
Really...
Lucas tries to justify the "new" material as being "what he wanted but couldn't afford or get" in 1977. Well, Stephen Spielberg wanted a whole lot more shark in his "Jaws" movie but circumstances (his mechanical fish didn't work too great) prevented that and Jaws was all the better for it. Sometimes you have to let serendipity work for you.
The spectacular success of the 1977 print should be proof that you got it right the first time. At the least Lucas should've allowed us to chose between the original and remix since DVD technology allows such a choice.
In the meantime I'm going to have to get around to dubbing my Betamax tapes to DVD so I can keep them on a more permanent format.
And let me add - Han Solo shot first, dammit! <- that was the spoiler...