I’ve seen several 35mm prints projected in the last couple of years Mav, as I live closeby to a cinema that screens them quite regularly. The most recent 35mm print I saw was Thunderdome and it didn’t look grainy at all for the most part (some comp shots did). It is my understanding, and I could be wrong, that most film grain is in the camera negative because it has to be fast-exposure film - i.e. shot at 24fps or faster if you want slow motion. Later generations of film, including prints, used longer exposures and more sensitive dyes with finer grain fidelity.
I am genuinely surprised there is such a difference between Star Wars and Empire
If you have an extremely fine grain print film stock, or an IB Tech print, then yes the grain is mostly in the negative. However the difference between an IB Tech print, and 1980 Eastman is staggering, a lot of the grain is on the print stock. Check out ESB on Fuji sometime, it is even grainier.
Anyway, if we could discuss it in the other thread, I would like to keep this on track to be specific feedback on specific scenes/frames of the film.
I am re-rendering reel1 with a bunch of changes fixed, and will upload it in the morning when it is done, so you all might want to hold off on feedback until it is up as I have re-done about 800 frames or so.