I’ve been watching other new 4K HDR transfers of classic movies on Disney+ and almost all of them look infinitely better than the original trilogy. For a movie shot on film, it’s depressing how the 4K version of the original Santa Claus movie with Tim Allen has better use of HDR and left more grain in tact than these transfers of the original trilogy. A silly 90’s family comedy has a better transfer than these legendary movies??? What the heck?
Manos: Hands of Fate has a better transfer than Star Wars.
I think the overall problem is that if it’s a “classic” or “big seller” title, it gets extra attention. A new color grade a la The French Connection, re-inserting some deleted scenes like Cinema Paradiso, or moar Maclunkey like Star Wars. I suppose the logic is: why would anyone re-buy this title a fourth or fifth time if it wasn’t radically different from any version they’ve ever seen before? Which is just a corollary to: Why would anyone buy a movie they’d already seen?
But if you have a niche/meh catalog title, they just hand it off to the intern, who runs it through the scanner and puts the result on the disk. Thus, Shakes the Clown seems to get more respect than Amadeus, when in fact it’s the lack of respect that saved it.
Like Kevin Smith said: in Hollywood, you fail upward.