I have 5 sources. The 1982 PAL release (the crawl/flyover was horizontally compressed rather than cropped), the 1985 US Special Widescreen Edition, the Japanese Special Collection, the 1995 Definitive Edition/Faces Edition (the same source as the rest of the GOUT), and the 35 mm scan that was included with the Silver Screen Edition. Not one of them is good enough to even match the GOUT. The 1982 version has a lot of horizontal smearing (The stars are ovals). The words in the LD versions have artifacts that distort the edges, not to mention some ghosting. Some are too bright and you can see the full disc of the moons and the edge of the atmosphere in the matte, which, like the effects mattes, should be dark and invisible. Then you have the film scan which has super crushed blacks. The few stars that are visible are tiny specks.

As the 1981 crawl/flyover is the one I grew up watching at home, it is the one I want most to go with either the restoration from film, a despecialized version, or an enhanced GOUT. So I am willing to spend the time to make something that is close enough to the original from matching original elements to get it. I’m doing it in 1080p so it will match the 77 35 mm crawl/flyover in quality. It is a challenging but fun exercise.