RU.08 said:
Right, but these subtitles were not burned-in they’re an optical composite that would be present in the IP.
If the subtitles are optically composited they would be done further down the line than the interpositive struck from the o-neg. They would be inserted into an internegative or a dupe positive, there would be several versions for different languages.
I’d also like to point out that the GOUT version of that shot has the same clipped lightsaber effect. Sure, in 1997 they COULD HAVE gone back to the shot on the computer, rendered off another version, film out, telecine, edit into tape. But in 1977? no chance.
Who said anything about digital? This shot was an optical composite in 1977, and an optical composite when the photochemical restoration was performed for the 1997 SE. They re-composited the shot optically for the 1997 SE like they did most optical composites (the Speeder through Mos Eisley, the optical wipes, etc). What I’ve presented above is two composites, both made in 1997, with one giving a greater intensity to the lightsaber optical.
Pretty sure this one was a digital re-composite, as the hilt end of the blade is reshaped to fit with the prop, I don’t think they did that optically, only the dissolves and wipes were done optically.
What i’ve presented is how the lightsaber look can be caused by clipping highlights, how both the 1997 scan and the 1993 gout have the same clipping effect on the lightsaber despite comming from composites made 20 years apart.
You say that the only things in the shot that different are the saber blade, look again at 3PO. Here is a comparison between the TB and your color matched scan, see in the waveform, how the only things as bright as the saber are the highlights on 3PO and the light on the far left (cropped in the TB), and see how they are smeared, just like the bottom right corner of the saber blade.
Note the big chunk of dirt both on the TB and the 35mm. If these were entirely separately printed pieces of film that dirt would not be on both. Edit: It’s not on the 4K77 grindhouse edition, so its likely to be dirt on the SE interpositive.
