adywan said:

I'm pretty sick about talking about it all the time when i should be concentrating on doing this edit.

Amen, brother! If given the time and venue, I could talk for hours about PT vs. OT and the merits/disadvantages of both (I did in fact love the PT the first few times around, but since ROTS ended, my opinions have sharply changed), but you're right, the ESBR thread is probably not the place. But back to business:

Empire is one of the few movies out there I consider to be a nearly 'perfect' movie. This, of course is a matter of opinion, but is what I believe. Pre-SE, everything about the film worked. The pacing, music, acting, direction, cinematography, all combined to make for one of the most enjoyable cinematic experiences I have ever had. And what sets the great movies apart from the good movies is the test of time. ESB is as enjoyable to me today as it was in 1980.

Step forward from 1980 to 1997 (and then to 2004) and some of the mystery of the movie was taken away with the extra Wampa footage, but these scenes certainly did not break the film. The new Vader/Emperor dialogue was poorly delivered and the new footage of Ian McDiarmid seemed 'off,' although it was a welcome addition to the movie for continuity's sake. The new Vader leaving Bespin sequence is not a bad sequence at all, but the problem is that it breaks up the flow of events. John Williams' great score gets hacked with the newly inserted scenes and breaks that part of the movie.

With my love of Ady's ANHR, I am obviously not a GOUT-only fan. I like to see new effects in addition to pristine color timing and properly leveled sound fields, but only if they're done the right way. I believe Ady is one of the few talented enough who 'get it' and can pull this off.

I would like to see ESBR presented just that way. Clean up the effects, bring back the true (or more realistic) color, devolve some of the 1997/2004 enhancements, and package it all with a great, enveloping sound field. I hope that FX work is not done just for the sake of doing it. I personally wouldn't mind a bigger Hoth battle, but I don't need to see the Walkers landing on the planet (and if they do, certainly not before their reveal to the rebels on the ground). You know my position of the Death Star being in ESBR (nay, I say!). I'm sure the new Vader/Emperor scene will be fantastic, especially if we can find a decent "Luke" for the big guy to say.

Re-inserting the original Boba Fett dialogue as well as the original "Bring my shuttle" and "You're lucky you don't taste very good" lines will be very welcome indeed.

What we're seeing currently is a movie produced in 1980 and it won't necessarily look like a film made today. That's the big challenge with FX work on an older film. One could go down two routes: have the FX scream out "Look at me!!!" as Lucasfilm did in 1997, or have everything blend seamlessly as Ady did in 2008 with ANHR (and to a degree with Paramount's work on the DVD release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture - they even managed to match the film grain with the new CGI).

It sounds like the major issue right now is getting the color right. Once that's done, I have full faith that Ady will craft some new visual effects that will blend in extremely well with the existing footage and enhance a great film to levels unseen.

Oh, and I'd really like to see an Ewok as one of the bounty hunters. That'd be sweet! :)