The Aluminum Falcon said:

mverta said:

Star Wars was shot on relatively fine-grain stock; what we're used to seeing is not representative of the negative.

Ah, I see. All right. I didn't know that. Thanks for the info, mverta. :-) Out of curiosity, lack of resolution, crushed blacks and color issues aside, is the 2004 master's smoother look closer to how a film print looks than the grainier LD releases or GOUT?

I don't do any noise reduction or grain removal. I do, however, use tools to recover detail from within grain structure.

Thank god. I can't stand noise reduction. I just didn't know that Star Wars had inherently fine grain.

Yes, the 2004/Blu-Ray is closer to what the best prints/negative look like, grain-wise, though even then it's curiously noisy in places - likely from where other sources were used. I have said many times I think people would be surprised by what Star Wars actually looks like. Certainly, I didn't remember it being as sexy as it is, or as inconsistent in places.

_Mike