Thanks, Templar :)

Doctor M said:

Edit: Just noticed that you went with 1.77:1-ish not 1.85:1. Okay, probably the best way to go.

Yeah, when I was first matting the things closer to 1:85, it looked to too close in a few areas. Given the lackluster quality of the LD, it may have lost a bit more than average picture information on all sides. I added pillarboxes, so it may even be closer to 1:66.

Beyond it being an Empire release, the reasons I assumed it was an open-matte transfer and not cropped (like some people seem to think) were:
A) Waaay too much headroom in some areas.
B) In 4x3, there's a boom mike that can be seen in one shot during the motorcycle chase.