What is with everything getting re-released as remastered?
Well, in all fairness the re-mastered episodes of Red Dwarf existed long before any of the series was finally put out on DVD. I think I actually have the first three seasons of the remastered episodes on VHS somewhere, though I'm not entirely sure about it. The re-mastery wasn't all that bad either, as it mainly just cleaned up some sequences and made others 'look' a bit better. Like in the first episode when Lister looks out the window it actually looks like a window instead of a flat section painted in primer black, and Rimmer's holo-effects were cleaned up a bit as well. They did make a few cuts to incorporate some of the better CGI – I distinctly remember a short scene from "Better Than Life" that was cut – though thankfully it was nothing quite as extreme as the "re-mastered" Star Wars films.
Personally, I'll probably be picking up the re-masters because I did like some of the cleaned up effects, though the original Red Dwarf will always be first in my heart for reasons too obvious to bear mentioning. Having them both would be a good way to round out the complete collection, methinks. Of course, I'm going to have to pick up seasons seven and eight of the originals first, because I'm totally slacking on that.
~ jj ~