.: The XØ Project - Laserdisc on Steroids :. (SEE FIRST POST FOR UPDATES) (* unfinished project *) — Page 29

Then Steve Sansweet took the stage. I’ve liked Steve’s genuine affection for this property in the past. He’s a true friend to Star Wars, or at least has been in the past. But when he took the stage, I sensed something funky from the get-go. He launched into what I could only call a tirade about how if you complain about these new DVDs there’s something wrong with you (I’m paraphrasing, of course). He said that “the little black bars” won’t detract from our enjoyment. This part lost me. There would be black bars at the top and bottom of the screen anamorphic or not. I couldn't tell if he actually believed what he was saying, or if Lucasfilm had shoved an explosive device up his rectum and tossed him out onto stage to feed us what he damn well knows is a bunch of hooey. The second scenario is probably more likely.

It all seemed like misdirection, the same way Lucasfilm is fixating on Han shooting first (there are far worse offenses in the Special Editions). So of course, that was exactly the clip he showed next. And it looked pretty much exactly as you'd expect: An old transfer of a movie made for laserdisc, zoomed to fit a 16x9 screen. And he even acknowledged these masters were made specifically for laserdisc. I'm sorry, but the minute you say the L word, you just lost my dollar. They did a cheesy fake-out first with the Han/Greedo scene by showing really horrible looking video. Maybe this was to joke with the audience, as Sansweet suggested, or maybe there was a more sinister intent. Perhaps this was shown to make the real DVD clip they played right after look much better by comparison. Bottom line, though, none of it looked that great. It looked okay at best. But it's nowhere near the second coming they want us to think it is.

What about a dual-layer SUPERBIT version?