bkev said:
Way to throw him under the bus for no reason.
??
bkev said:
I think even King Kong features better compositing than Star Wars... I'm actually not against cleaning up things like the speeder shot. From what I've seen the drop of quality is genuinely apparent and not just a figment of Lucas's imagination. Sure, you might not notice it on a release print - but, honestly, what official restoration comes from one of those? This isn't replacing the effect we're talking about. We're talking about presenting it as best possible. So I say DNR the hell out of scenes like the landspeeder one, so long as you don't touch it any further. Maybe that makes me less of a purist than I thought, but cleaning up a scene (in moderation) like that would be a far cry away from removing wires or mirror reflections.
I don't know what sore point I hit bkev, but at no point did I ever talk about not accepting any cleaning up of elements, as it goes without saying when it's one of the major and most common things done in any modern film restoration. So I have no idea why you brought all this up as an counter argument to what I said. Care to explain? Cleaning up dirt doesn't equal re-compositing.
danny_boy brings up very good points regarding the film elements which I completely agree with him on, the film never was meant to be seen straight from the negative. Generation loss even things out and many things like props and sets were often made to look good with that in mind as well.
The apparent quality differences between film elements in the original Star Wars have always been there, it's even seen in low-res transfers such as LD or VHS as well. My point is, if you cannot accept that Star Wars is a flawed masterpiece with all the shortcomings of its time, then the original film isn't perhaps what you want. So in that regard I guess many on these boards are impossible to please.