That’s actually not true, there’s still plenty of GOUT footage in ANH and ESB Despecialized. The inclusion of 35mm footage in ROTJ Despecialized is the reason why that’s arguably the best-looking of the trilogy.
I just don’t like how a lot of the time you seem to undersell the 35mm releases, saying that they’re no better quality than the GOUT, when they look much better to my eyes.
There’s 35mm footage in ESB too, but you’re right that the percentage of 35mm footage goes up chronologically through the trilogy. Star Wars has lots of GOUT footage. Add them all up, and most of the original footage in the Despecialized trilogy is from 35mm, but yes there’s still too much GOUT.
I wasn’t implying that projection prints in general weren’t better than the GOUT. I’m saying that for that particular original element of Boba Fett flying behind Luke in one scene, the 35mm sources didn’t provide appreciably more fine detail than the GOUT. It’s one shot, and a blurred composite at that. It’s not that surprising. I’m not a big fan of 4K77 to be honest, but I’m a fan of 4K83. It looks good. Much better than the GOUT. And, like the person I was responding to stated, much more consistent levels of detail than Despecialized. Consistently low, yes, but consistent nonetheless.
That said, I will state without any reservations that Star Wars projection prints – even unusually good prints like the one used for 4K83, don’t really have enough fine image detail to max out 720p’s capacity. I’m not saying 4K is wasted on them – the film grain is better resolved at 4K, there are clear benefits to oversampling from an historical preservation perspective, and so on. But when you watch Despecialized at 720p and 4K83 at 4K side-by-side, there’s a reason Despecialized has so much more fine detail. This is why 1080p Blu-rays remaster from negatives or interpositives. There’s more detail there than can be seen on a projection print, and 1080p resolution would reveal that.
Again, this is not trying to say lack of fine detail is bad. Lack of fine detail is what people saw in the theatres. That’s literally how projected film prints look. If that’s what you’re after, then 4K83 is a pretty great reproduction of the experience. I just personally prefer something that looks more like a respectfully restored Blu-ray release. As of 4K83 1.6, lack of fine detail is my ONLY gripe about 4K83, and considering that that’s baked into the source, I feel like I’m effectively stating that it perfectly achieves its goal of reproducing the theatrical experience. If that’s underselling, I don’t know what to say.