poita said:
Actually, the assumption is correct.
This is why Leia looks like she had the make-up gun set to whore in the bluray releases and why we have lobster-men and other weird colour anomolies.
In the 70s and 80s when working on film, we were conscious of what film stock we were using and what stock was expected for the theatrical prints and how many generations down they would be.
So makeup had to 'overdo' the makeup by a known quantity (talk to any makeup people from that era and they will now all about exactly how that red colour rouge will end up looking like pale peach on a release print), the costumes were chosen for how they would look on the release print, not how they would look on set, as was the lighting and props and everything else.
The good crews would know that everyone in this shot needs to look a bit candy coloured to achieve the required colour pallete on the theatrical print. They also know what detail will be lost, so where detail is important, where extra detail is required and where it can be softened down.
The answer print was often what they were working towards, but good DoPs and crews would often work towards the theatrical print as being how they wanted the film to look, and shoot accordingly.
Enter film scanners and computers that can extract *all* of the data from the neg, and change its characteristics endlessly and deliver that colour gamut and sharpeness directly to a digital screen, and what the original film-makers intended to be seen vs what *can* be displayed changes immensely.
It is exciting in some ways to see detail that has never been seen before, and interesting. It is also not what was seen at the film's release or even in the director's screening room.
This leads to interesting problems, leia looking like a hooker, Luke looking like a wax dummy, some effects shots looking dodgier because you can now peer into the shadows etc.
It is difficult from a restoration point of view, that information was on the negative, so should be preserved, but it may never have been intended to be seen, or at least seen that way.
Much like Jurassic Park which was shot open matte. The effects shots are all in wide, but the live action is full frame. The film was never meant to be viewed that way, but if you scan the neg, that is what you get.
It is interesting to watch, but it isn't how the film was shown at the time, or intended to be.
Both are great to have, but for me personally, the best viewing experience of Star Wars would be a scan that was cleaned up to the point that it would be equivalent to a first day screening on a really great print.
As Harmy said, in some ways the BD has more detail, but it is also missing a lot of detail from the original movie, the grain, the correct colours, the correct gamma and the 'look' that the original movie was designed to have. There was a resurgence in the late 70s to go for that softer 1930s look in film, the crews on Star Wars were trying to achieve that look (it is mentioned in many crew interviews) and that 'detail' is totally missing from the BDs.
Well put. In the case of the original Star Wars you even have instances of none-special effects sequences that are dupe material to make the transitions between live footage and effect footage be as seamless an experience as possible.
Take matte paintings for example, that beautiful art is almost always misrepresented on new HD-transfers, the contrast, softness and grain build up can cause a beautiful illusion, but when seen as on the negative and on most blu-rays with a lot of grain reduction applied, it is seen exactly for what it really is - a dead painting. It's interesting if you want to see brushstrokes but not if you want to get immersed in the film. I recall Raiders on the new blu-ray was quite horrible in this regard.