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.
No they wouldn’t. They’d be in the IP.
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.
No way is it digital. The digital shots have a different framing, and compressed contrast, this one is consistent with the majority of the reel. It’s optical.
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.
Yes it’s the same optical element in both shots, just at a higher exposure for telecine.
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.
No I didn’t say it’s the only thing different, what I said was blooming/smearing does not explain the difference as it only applies to the lightsaber effect. The blooming on the background anomalies does not match that on 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.
Right, the dirt is something I noted to poita, in fact the very first thing I noticed and I gave him quite a few examples. It’s not on the print it’s in the print. Not just black dirt, but white dirt also (i.e. dirt on the positives). And yes it would still be in both because it’s a composite shot and the dirt is on the film used to make the composite.