I’d really love to see what amount of detail you could get from the speeder shot. You could always add grain to it afterwards to make it appear more natural. Since cleaning up the shot at all is already revisionism in itself, I’d say it’s fair to cheat a bit like that.
I would say cleaning up the shot to approach the image on the original negative is not revisionism. Cleaning up the shot to recover the maximum amount of detail with modern techniques with the purpose to recover an enhanced image beyond what was possible in 1977 is revisionism in my view.
Well yeah, I meant cleaning up the dirt that was created during those optical printer runs is revisionism. But most of the dirt in that shot came from that, and not from striking prints of the final shot. It’s never going to look much better than what we have now anyway. But that’s why I’d like to see HOW much better Poita’s tool can make this look (including removal of the defects that were created during compositing) without recomposing it.
I have to admit though that this cleanup wouldn’t have a place in a preservation, but in the Despecialized Edition.