All right, anyway, more thoughts about Project Blu...
I finished ANH and was left blown away by the whole experience. The edition looks very nice, as I said before. Despite the DVNR, it still retains a film-like appearance with the occasional (film) artifact; it certainly has a warmer, more natural feel to it than the sterile 2004 versions. Immediately, I was swept up by this.
On the whole, the color scheme is very nice. It's pleasantly saturated and a great colorful movie, much like Apocalypse Now... The picture now resembles all those wonderful film cels I've seen throughout the year. Certainly, this is the best, color timing-wise that Star Wars has ever looked. The very warm, bright, colorful picture feels right, and I'm not sure that anything color-corrected from that dull, bland 2004 master can look as majestic.
Overall, the brightness and contrast were good. All stars in space were visible and no crushed blacks! The contrast was natural and never overwhelming, feeling like the late saturated 70's film it should feel like. Truthfully, and yes, I know I said the exact same thing on Harmy's release, I did notice more details I had never seen before. I'm glad this has such a high bideo bitrate since there are absolutely no digital compression artifacts whatsoever and you can see everything possible. :-)
Of course, as earlier, I must mention the grain reduction. This is certainly no fault of Dark Jedi's, as it is inherent to anything from the GOUT. There was nothing he could have done... It's lesser in some scenes than others, for instance it seems relatively visible on the blockade runner and Tattooine, but far less so during the Death Star and Yavin 4 scenes. Still, no Star Wars release is perfect and if you didn't have the grain reduction, the picture would indeed be VERY grainy or if it was 2004 sourced, crushed blacks and still some grain reduction. The 1080p conversion does make it more visible than in the SD GOUT. After the first 10 minutes, you'll get used to it and enjoy the rest of the film. Strangely, optical grain is still visible in some shots...
All the audio tracks are in sync and wonderful. I'd often transition between them with that snazzy pop-up menu this thing has. I'm glad this has such a high bideo bitrate since there are absolutely no digital compression artifacts whatsoever and you can see every detail possible. :-)
However, by far, the absolute best part of this release is... the lightsabers (lightsabres?). They looked absolutely fantastic... better than any lightsabers I'd seen so far (yes I'm including Revisited). Personally, I favor the hand-rotoscoped, animated-like, original feel of lightsabers to digital ones. This Blu-Ray certainly showed it off... in all its glory. I loved the simple animated look of the lightsabers. It must have been such a pain back in '77 to make those; finally seeing it in it's original (arguably primitive) glory, I appreciated their grandeur and brilliance. They also were surprisingly colorful! Luke's and Obi-Wan's lightsabers were both true blue. Darth Vader's was even more impressive. It was certainly the reddest I'd ever seen it in any movie. No trace of pink whatsoever. In these lightsaber scenes, you can even see the old-fashioned optical grain, letting you know how much effort was put into making it. ;) If you want to really feel how natural and original this release is, take a look at any of ANH's lightsaber scenes.
And that's all for now folks! I can't wait until THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! :-)