Perhaps one of the biggest thorns in the sides of science fiction movie fans is the fact that George Lucas has modified his "Star Wars" movies each time they were re-released. Each of the several re-releases to theaters, including one revision that was so obvious it was actually called the "Special Edition", featured a number of nips and tucks here and there.

With each release to video (and now, DVD), all previous versions became commercially unavailable. Thus, if you have a videotape of the movies from when they first aired on HBO, for example, you have a very different movie from the subsequent video releases... and a collector's item at that.

Now Lucas has finally released the movies on DVD, and he has further modified each of the movies beyond the 1997 "Special Edition" treatment. As could be expected, a number of fans are taking issue with the tinkering. Check out the reviews on Amazon.com, for example. A number of fans wish he had simply released the original versions and let it go at that.

The changes range from correcting minor continuity errors (Han Solo's vest disappeared and reappeared in a few scenes in Empire Strikes Back, for example, and now that's been fixed), to improving the special effects (the battle scene at the Death Star in the first movie doesn't look like models anymore), to adding new scenes (the gratuitous Jabba the Hut scene in the first movie), to outright story revisionism (having Greedo shoot first in the cantina scene of the first movie). Much of the revisionism is being done to correct continuity errors with the Episode I and II movies, which were filmed *after* the first three, but what the heck. So, for example, Boba Fett's voice is limply re-looped by the actor who plays Jango Fett from the Attack of the Clones movie, while the original emperor in Empire Strikes Back is replaced with the actor who played him in Return of the Jedi (and Episodes I and II).

The reviews on Amazon are interesting because, while the major bone of contention is whether Lucas should have released the "original" versions as opposed to retooled versions, there is also a minority contingent whining that some scenes that were deleted from the original release (and that were later re-added for a few of the commercial releases) are deleted still (or again, or whatever) from the new release.

While the fanboys bicker about whether this or that change should have been made in the DVD version, I'm surprised nobody has complained about these other changes:

* In the first movie, when Luke and Han take Chewbacca on the elevator to the detention level, you can now here Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' version of "A Taste of Honey" in the background.

* The infamous "pair of sneakers" space ships that appeared in Return of the Jedi have been switched from Nike to New Balance.

* One of the pilots in the Death Star battle scene in Return of the Jedi is clearly recognizable as "fat Elvis", while a "skinny Elvis" is seen getting into an X-Wing fighter in the first movie.

* A photo of Jar-Jar Binks can be seen on one of the milk cartons in the kitchen scene in the first movie.

* We learn in Return of the Jedi that the Emperor is actually Vader's father, which means that he is also Luke's grandfather.

* In the Sarlaac pit in Return of the Jedi, you can see an Ewok impaled on one of the lower rows of teeth.

* When Darth Vader and his two wing ships engage the X-wing fighters during the Death Star battle scenes in the first movie, you can hear the boom-boom-boom of a sub-woofer as they fly by.

* Darth Vader's voice has been over dubbed by Bill O'Reilly. I'm guessing that this is because the voice of CNN isn't quite as menacing as the voice of Fox News Network.

Were there any other changes that I missed?