SilverWook said:
Haven’t watched the Blu-Ray version in a while, but I swear it looked like it was taken from something s few generations down from a broadcast master? (They also windowboxed it into a smaller image?) The vintage documentaries look even worse, and those could have been transferred off the original film elements had they been willing to spend some money.
Yes, they made the decision to windowbox everything that was sourced from videotape in the Blu-ray. Definitely an irritating decision for purists and people who care about quality. But I don’t know if that says anything in particular about their source for the Fett cartoon, besides the fact that it came from video. It did seem to be not the most stunning quality, but I do think it was probably taken from one of the U-matic 3/4" master tapes that they were supposed to get when CBS transferred rights over to them.
I still wonder if the film for the Boba Fett cartoon even exists anymore. Nelvana lost a bunch of stuff in a fire that also destroyed the alternate version of Rock and Rule. A surviving video tape copy was used on the DVD and Blu-Ray extras.
What a shame. Although I have to wonder if they would have kept the Fett cartoon film or turned it over to Lucasfilm. Seems more likely it would be in LFL’s archives, and maybe they just didn’t bother to do a transfer from celluloid. Note also that LFL had that full Leica reel of pencil tests/animatics for the cartoon that they put up on StarWars.com back in 2008 (but which is now sadly gone, along with tons of other great content). That should have been on the Blu-ray as well.
–SKot