metalmunki said:

Sojourn said:

Awesome work as always, Ady! Does anyone know why they were cropped in the first place?

I suspect the reason they were cropped is because you can it looks obvious the camera is looking in from OUTSIDE the cockpit and it looks more like a set (because you aren't seeing any cockpit window/window frame.)

I agree with this. Looking at the screencaps individually when you're not actually watching the films, Adywan's shot looks better because there's more detail on display, you can more clearly see that a wide angle lens was used with the lens distortion you would expect and I generally dislike cropping in films on principle.

In the case of actually watching the film though, where not breaking the fourth wall is the most important thing of all, that uncropped shot looks blatantly like a set like metalmunki says. Its reminding the viewer that they're actually watching something make believe, which is the worst sin you can commit in a film, rather than looking through a window into a universe far far away.

When watching the film, the cropping of the blu-ray was clearly done on purpose by Lucasfilm to avoid breaking the fourth wall. It succeeds in doing this and is therefore superior IMHO and given the choice, I personally would not use the opened up frame for my semi-specialised release but the cropped frame instead.

It is cool to see that opened up frame in terms of giving insight into how the film was shot and all the extra information it reveals on the sides but I personally think it would fit better in a behind the scenes making of documentary of Empire Strikes Back than the film itself.