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Claim: The Laserdisc masters is the way how the OOT looked in theatres back then.
Answer: Absolutely not. The original trilogy was released to theaters in 35mm and 70mm film formats. A standard 35mm film copy can hold as much picture information as a HDTV image. 35mm negatives or 1st generation copies can even yield 3 times the resolution. If someone would request an OOT release which matches the theatrical experience, one would have to request at least a HDTV transfer. No to mention those people, who saw the 70mm release of Star Wars back then...
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Claim: The negatives of the OOT were destroyed, so the Laserdisc master is the only high quality source left to make a DVD.
Answer: It is true that the negatives were recut during the process of making the 1997 SE. However, several 35mm copies of the OOT still survived, from which a very good looking transfer could be made which would easily surpass the old Laserdisc transfer. Lucas himself claims that he has a Technicolor dye transfer print os STAR WARS (high qwuality prints which are very durable) which has been used as a colour reference when they restored the original faded negatives.
Proof: The Empire of Dreams documentary contains several unaltered scenes from the OOT. Like the whole documentary, those scenes are presented anamorphically and look much better than the Laserdisc masters. The actual OOT release will look worse than the extra materials on the 2004 SE. Period.
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Claim: Every 35mm copy of Star Wars is unuseable now, since it has faded very badly.
Anwer: Film is mostly dying due to wrong storage (air humidity, temepreature). There are a lot of institutions (like the BFI) and private collectors around the world, who have dedicated themselves to the preservation of original Film elements by storing them properly, being old flammable and explosive nitrate BW films or films shot on relatively modern film stock like Star Wars. Several sources have already announced they have excellent quality 35mm copies of the OOT in their possesion. GL himself has a super durable technicolor dye transfer print of Star Wars.
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Claim: It would cost a fortune to make a new transfer from surviving film elements.
Answer: No, It is standard procedure for every DVD studio nowadays to make fresh digital transfers from 35mm film prints. Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox have all the equipment to make a good release. Fox has a high reputation to release film classics in excellent quality (like Alien), even those films which are nowhere as important as Star Wars.
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Claim: But in the end, it is just about them being non-anamorphic. Luckily, as a 4:3 TV user, the non anamorphic issue does not bother me.
Answer: You forget that the 1993 masters were made using now obsolete telecine equipment (a technique to transfer film to analogue video), compared to modern digital film scanners, which yield a much better clarity, contrast and colour rendering than the equipment used in the first half of the nineties. Films are nowadays stored as high resolution digital files on workstations as a standard process, the 1993 master used for the Laserdiscs and sadly for the 2006(!) DVD´s is just an analogue NTSC resolution D1 master tape. Since this tape is more than sufficient for a VHS and laserdisc Transfer (these are also analogue formats, NOT digital), the master will show all its flaws on a modern digital video format like DVD, and introduce new flaws like compression artifatcs which are not present on the Laserdiscs. Bottom line: the master will show all its weaknesses, even on 4:3 TV´s.
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Claim: We should be grateful that Lucas is doing his fans a favour and release the OOT, no matter what quality comes out. The Goodwill counts.
Answer: It was not Lucas Goodwill to bring us the OOT. It was the continuing protests of fans and the numerous attempts from fans to preserve the OOT on DVD´s themselves using VHS or Laserdisc sources which changed his mind. The primary aim for this DVD release is to destroy the commercial market for the fan made preservations, which were sold by bootleggers for very high prices on Ebay. Keep that in mind if you try to bring on this "George is so good, be grateful!" argument, since it is only an understandable decision made by a business man. If George would really listen to his fans, and understand their dedication and love for his films, he would have released the OOT in proper DVD quality, rather than just Laserdisc transfers which hardly surpass the fan preservations (since they come from the same source). Further he is forcing OOT fans to buy the 2004 SE with the OOT and charges a lot of money for this release.
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Claim: But no matter what comes out, it will surely look better than the fan preservations.
Answer: It could be, but only hardly, since Laserdiscs are high quality analogue video formats, which can represnet the qualities of the original analogue video source quite accurately. However, you forget something: rumours are out that the OOT is going to be released on a DVD-5, along with other materials like game demos, which take up Space on the DVD. Fan preservationists however can digitize the Laserdisc source material, and compress it so that it takes the WHOLE place of a DVD 9,minimizing compression artifacts and retaining as much information of the analogue source as possible.