danny_boy said:
msycamorewrote:
Yes, Lucas had to get it restored due to the bad shape it was in, in order to release the Special Edition, but as we all know by now, the purpose of that event wasn't to restore the original film, that being made was just a stepping stone towards the revised cut of the film. It was in fact not restored in the truest sense either, the 62 shots made on CRI-stock for example were replaced with digitally re-composited shots, all the optical wipes were redone etc.
That's true to a degree-----but the original film was restored---here is Rick Mcallum saying as much:
One of the most frustrating things is, if you could see the print that stuck of the original negative that we have done - it's perfect. It's not perfect in terms of the color restauration, because we still have a long way to go.
Unfortunately when you read that snippet in context, it's clear that they hadn't actually scanned the film yet to start making special edition changes. After they made all the changes, it is my understanding that they went back to that clean, beautiful negative and cut it up for the purposes of pasting in the new 35mm special edition shots they had just printed from their computer.