I’m watching A New Hope right now. It is NOT the previous transfer. It suffers from some of the same issues but a number of key scenes have been corrected. Just the highlights so far (I’m skipping around to the scenes I know are bad) are the external explosion on the blockade runner is no longer pink, C-3PO is actually gold in every shot as he and R2 walk down the corridor in the blockade runner, the exploding door in the blockade runner is no longer pink, as C-3PO walks through the desert alone, he no longer has green sand behind him and his color is consistent (as it was in all the pre-DVD releases) in the whole scene (that was one of the hardest for me to clean up), when R2 is shot, the smoke around the gun is no longer pink, the sky in the stormtrooper/dewback scene is not longer intense and matches the other shots of Tatooine, The worst single shot of the film (where the sandcrawler door is open and you see R5-D4) now has natural colors rather than the intense reds and greens, there are no purple/pink tones to the droid sale, the yellow flowers are back during the dinner scene, the second sun is no longer intense neon orange, the phantom Luke is gone just before Owen goes looking for Luke and asks Beru, the stupid rocks are still in front of R2, the scene with Ben in the canyon actually has color and depth, the Han Greedo shoothout has been edited again, all the blaster flashes in the blockade runner, the detention cell and the death star escape are no longer pink but back to the more subtile peachy color of the GOUT, Luke and Ben’s sabers are now blue in every shot (no green or purple) and Vader’s is a consistent red (not straying to orange), the Millenium Falcon’s engines glow blue again, the opening scene of reel 6 is no longer overly neon red, the orange flightsuits in the inserted Biggs scene now match the surrounding scenes, the rebel screen table showing the approaching deathstar is no longer the wrong color, the rebel pilots cockpit shots looks more like the GOUT again (not so much variation in colors), the explosions look right again, the death star screen showing the progress toward Yavin is no longer blue, the proton torpedos are no longer pink, Luke’s yellow jacket is more consistent, and the final shot before the iris out is no longer the wrong colors.
This is either a very cleaned up version or it is a completely new scan. My guess is the latter. The colors still lean red, but not as bad and the movie is very dark. That could just be the phone I am watching it on, but I don’t think so. I think this takes the film from an unwatchable mess to watchable but no perfect. The new Greedo bit is annoying and unneeded, but then that is what a lot of the changes have been like. I’m curious if the new disc is this version or just the old one again. This would make me buy the new discs if this is the version on there.
The Force Awakens does not have burned in subtitles for the alien languages.