Now that I've seen it, I agree with Michael and Trey that the only way the ending and much of the rest of the film make any sense is if the machine is more than an 8-minute simulation created from the brains of the dead (whose brains wouldn't be in good shape anyway after being on an train traveling 45 MPH and exploding).

But for that to work thematically, Jake has to SAY, "This machine isn't what you think it is. I can CHANGE the past." Then the scientists need to go, "Tut, tut, brain in a jar," and then privately say "Is there something TO this? We really DON'T know much about Doc Brown's flux capacitor before he died."

Boom. Movie fixed.

EDIT: To clarify, it is a strong rule of storytelling that anything that an authority figure like a scientist says is true unless it's questioned by the protagonist or antagonist. (It's how "the rules" get delivered.)

But in thrillers, where the main theme is usually "all is not as it seems," you need to be able to subvert the authority (who is usually a lying baddie). But any other character questioning the authority is usually the "Guinea pig". He's the guy who says, "You're full of it," walks out and gets eaten by the aliens or zombies or whatever to help prove the authority correct.

This is idiotic, but who is floating these little scene videos? It makes me wonder if Lucas is leaking these himself to gauge fan reaction to the changes, and maybe he'll pull back on this particularly egregious one.

After all, the new Han and Greedo scene has them firing at the same time, so George DOES know how much fans hated the SE version.

HOWEVER, can you imagine the recording session that must have preceded this?

G: Thanks for coming in and doing this, James Earl Jones.
J: Do you have the check, George? You better have my money. I don't do ruin classic movies for free.
G: Well, I don't have it ON me. We'll send—
J: That shit better be in the mail, cracker. Now what do you want done?
G: Uh, well, we're looking for you to dub a nice couple of "NOs" over that scene in Jedi where the Emperor is zapping Luke and Vader decides to dump him into the reactor shaft.
J: "Reactor shaft"? Is that what that was supposed to be? The emperor of the galaxy has a fucking open pit to the power reactor in his throne room?
G: Uhhh. You see, it's like how we ended Revenge of the Sith... with Vader shouting NO. It's like poetry. It rhymes.
J: Poetry hasn't rhymed since 1860, George. Hell, country music doesn't even rhyme anymore. Get out of the fucking booth and let me do this.
E: Vader vocalizes his dismay: take one.
J: No. NOOO!
G: That's great. Can... can you do faster and more intense?

That's awesome!

So... what are the results of Project Halp going to be? Not just a video, obviously. A searchable database of stats for each movie? A time-coded summary list of content of each commentary? Intelligent apes?

Honestly, the voiceover detracts from what overall is strange and mysterious. Too much liberal arts college student. Not enough Tom Waits.