captainsolo said:
These really do look good from the previews-was anything or can anything be done to those awful garbage mattes?

There is probably a digital solution not that i would know how. But if they had recomposited the original opticals in 1997 as they claimed with new digital technology those should not even be there, or they could have removed them with the same computers they painted all that nonsense cgi that was not needed. I mean it is crazy to fix stuff that does not need fixing and not fix things that could not be fixed because they ran out of time and money when originally shooting the movie.

The low quality of laserdisc and the noise in the image, dirt and scratches on the print made the mattes less visble but the lowry clean up made them stick out like a someone with a black eye.

That is one of the things you can play with your sets black level i remember reading to get them to dissapear but you should not have to undo a set that is already properly calibrated to do that, it was just lazyness on their part for leaving them in. Yes even on non anamorphic bonus discs. Supposedly they were much less noticeable in cinemas as you had no pause feature.