I’m not one hundred percent sure on this but re: the first image… that is actually one of the 3 FX shots that was tweaked between May 1977 and June 1977 while the film was still in theaters. Among other improvements, ILM re-timed the flash frames, so that frame could potentially come from the earlier version.
Most fan preservations are based on the June cut (as are all modern home video releases) but the original version of the shot did make it to a couple of early releases, including some laserdiscs. Sadly, I don’t think it exists in HD anywhere. But laserdisc could be marginally better than what you’ve got now?
Again, not sure that’s what’s going on here but it’s worth checking out.
Ooh thank you for this! I didn’t know about the different 1977 versions. This would explains the discrepancies I found. I’ll go digging to see if I have the shots from LD somewhere.
Later that same day…
Thank you again! The pan&scan 1985 laserdisc had the older (May?) flash frame timings, so that crisis has been averted.
And the other frames were in an earlier shot, I just hadn’t noticed before.
Moving slowly forward…