All the talk about getting the best possible transfer of the LDs has been fascinating ... MeBeJedi and Laserman, you're doing great work.
But yeah, with the incredible picture quality on the new DVDs, we're REALLY going to want versions of the O.T. DVDs that attempt to de-specialeditionize them. Even if it means cutting to a blurry laserdisc shot in the middle of an otherwise sharp transfer.
The good thing about using the DVDs for as much of the transfer as possible is that the number of shots you'll actually put in taken from the laserdisc will be fairly few. Therefore, you'll be able to put more work into them.
What I mean is - someone a few pages back said what may or may not have been a joke - that someone should take the pan & scan laserdiscs and overlay that larger image over the widescreen image, to add resolution to at least part of the image and bring it a bit closer to DVD standard.
Now you couldn't do that with a whole film, but if it's just for a few shots when you're de-SpecialEditionizing the DVD, that sounds like a damn good idea. If the Pan & Scan is staying relatively still during the shots you need, you could add a little bit of extra detail that would help a lot.
You would have to put a pretty thick feather around the edges of the Pan & Scan image so that the join with the widescreen image is seamless, but sounds good to me. I did a little bit of this exact thing myself for a project once.
If you're sourcing from the DVDs, you'll have to just deal with a few of the little changes - fixed matte lines around the rancor etc., little matte painting changes - that's not worth going back to the blurrier laserdiscs for. (And who wants matte lines around the rancor on an '04 DVD anyway ...)
I suppose you could go into Final Cut Pro or whatever and artificially sharpen the laser image a little, and blur the DVD image a little if it's being intercut with laserdisc shots very quickly in a sequence ...
But the clips in Empire of Dreams will help, and anyway, at the very least you know you can put back Boba Fett's voice! Just undoing the sound changes will do wonders. And, y'know, if you cut out that ONE shot, the Greedo scene almost goes back to normal. And things like the X-Wings and Ben's Hut and the ghost shot are all effects shots or exterior shots anyway ... cutting to a lower quality version would barely be noticed.
You can also cheat in some shots by combining part of the laserdisc image with part of the DVD image if possible ... I wonder if that would help add some extra detail to the ROTJ ghosts and the "You don't need to see his identification" stormtrooper. Essentially painting out what Lucas painted in!
When you need to replace a shot that wipes, well, wipes can be redone easily enough (especially simple lines across the screen) ... in FCP you'd just set the keyframes for cropping the image and put in a pretty large feather, and you could easily make a shot that transitions nicely from laser to DVD with only a bit of blurring inbetween.
Get someone who's rotoed lightsabers for a fanfilm and you can even change the pink (ROTJ), green (ROTJ) and green/white (ANH) sabers to red/white, green/white and blue/white respectively. It'd be a bitch of a job, but it might be fun. I mean, if Dooku's saber can be made yellow ...
I know you've thought and agonized over all this already. Just saying.
I will be following progress on a patchwork '04/'93 edition with great interest.
P.S. And can I put in my vote that Biggs, "Close the blast doors!" and "I can see a lot better" be left in? And maybe the bantha herd, Oola's death and the windows on Cloud City? But not the rings on the explosions.
I keep waiting for someone to be totally silly and extend/alter the "Lapti Nek" sequence using the single-version vocals with making-of and video footage, just like Lucas "extended" it with Jedi Throw Rocks.