none said:
This next one i'm not 100% sure, but it looks like there is falling snow in 2004. You can see some flakes in the pic over the hind quarters.
In 1997, clean up of film glue occurred. (Exit) In 2004, falling snow was added.
https://picasaweb.google.com/102542760950977079734/EmpireSpecialEditionChangesHD#5672809717898301810
Yes there is definitely snow falling there but it's there in the original film as well, much easier to see on DVNR-free transfers and old pan & scan videos. The DVNR on Empire is so horrible that I have seen trails from 5-6 frames earlier sometimes. The "frostbite" I would say is just a horrible colortiming issue but you never know with Lucas these days. :)
About those glue marks and splices, I know that you want to cover everything none, but then you may as well start to cover all the specs of dirt, optical grain, film grain and so forth, but that's just my opinion no offense, you have lots of those glue marks on the old IP the earlier releases of the first film was made from, check out the JSC of ANH, the IP they used for the GOUT was much cleaner in this regard. You also have all the missing frames around reel changes, NTSC GOUT-Empire lacks at least two frames for example.