There has not been a Star Wars home release of the original trilogy that did not contain changes ever I believe. 2011 blurays had some changes, 2004 dvds had some changes, 1997 SE's had some changes. And continuing on the 1994 THX release, early 90's laser-disk, 80's original VHS releases even all had small changes be it with the crawl or different voice dubbing on Owen/Beru, etc. I don't believe there has ever been a home video release without at least something changed from the last release.
The changes began in 1977. Star Wars (the film, not the franchise) had 3 different sound mixes in its initial run. A 6 channel 70mm mix, a 4 channel Dolby Stereo mix and a single channel mono mix. The mono mix, which was the last to be completed, is the one with the different voice for Beru and C-3PO's lines about the tractor beam, as well as a number of other minor sound changes. It is the version I know best as it is the one I grew up with.
It wasn't until the 1981 re-release that it became Episode IV: A New Hope.
Empire's initial 70mm release had a different sound mix and additional shots of the Rebel fleet were added to its 35mm wide release prints. I think Jedi was released with only one version.
The home video releases were pretty much the same versions, using the Dolby mix for all films and the same cuts of the films. There were different masters, but the film was essentially untouched until the 1993 Definitive Collection on laserdisc. That had a new mix for Star Wars based on the 70mm 6 channel version, with some additional sound effects added to it. We once again lost '3PO's tractor beam lines. There were a few broadcasts which used the mono mix but that was, to the best of my knowledge, never officially released. It was from a VHS recording of one of these broadcasts that I first saw Star Wars.
The '93 master was used for the 1995 "one last time" release and latterly for the 2006 DVD bonus discs.
The Special Edition was released on VHS and laserdisc which was the same as the cinema release and, as you noted, there have been additional changes for both the DVD and Blu-ray releases.
Who knows what version we will get should this not be an April fools joke. There has been a new 4k scan which has been worked on by Reliance Mediaworks, so maybe this will be its debut.
Anyone know why that is
