McLovin, on 16 October 2013 - 02:07 PM, said:
It's an artistic thing. The movies as they were theatrically released never pleased him. He always thought they needed tinkering and work to be his vision. He was able (over a lot of years and a lot of tinkering) to get them to pretty much how he wanted them. And that's the version he wants people to see, not the theatrical cuts that he felt were unfinished. A good example of this is the Jabba / Han scene in A NEW HOPE. Without it Lucas felt that the threat to Han about the money-owed was nebulous and not really threatening. So adding it back in he was able to give that threat a screen presence that viewers will be able to palpably feel, not to mention adding weight to the end of EMPIRE and the beginning of JEDI. Sure it's not something we viewers noticed when we watched it as kids, but knowing the reasoning narratively behind Lucas wanting it back in makes it a more palatable change. To me at least.
Note: I'm not defending his decision...I'm just saying what I feel is his issue with not releasing them.