Isn't the original negative A/B roll? If I had to guess, the '82 IP was probably printed as A/B roll and given a quick-and-dirty glue job. Since it was intended for pan-and-scan video, and the edges of the frame would fall outside of the "safe area" of most early-80s TVs, it must not have been judged to be that big of an issue...

As I said before, that source is an enigma.

- It looks low-contrast; aren't IPs low-contrast? I will note that the home video transfers have low contrast, but the version seen on ITV has higher contrast; I have a theory that ITV got an actual *print* and transferred it themselves, as it has the blue-green cast and blown-out highlights I associate with film chain;

- It comes from a source that lacks the burn marks and the Greedo subtitles (meaning either that these weren't on the O-neg, or that earlier-generation sources were cut in);

- There's those weird blobs that msycamore seems to say are on much of reel 3. I find it hard to believe that those were on the actual negative - perhaps there was a lab mishap during duping and they let it slide because it was only intended for the relatively small and mid-size TVs of the era?

Oh, and by the way, danny_boy said his screenshot was from the "PAL UK 1982 VHS premiere broadcast (mono optical audio track)". The screenshot looks very similar to the ITV broadcast screenshot from Russ - might it just be another ITV recording? He did say "premiere broadcast" and "mono optical audio track", and he put it side-by-side with the PAL rental VHS, which has a pinkish tone similar to the U.S. VHS/Beta transfer.