mverta said:
I've seen that, too, but to that point, when I screened a few prints on a vintage projector, with vintage bulb and screen, which apparently had lower reflectance by default, they weren't visible. It's been my assumption since then that improvements in screen reflectivity and/or increased luminance output was the culprit, but this doesn't explain your anecdote from "back in the day." One thing is for sure which is that during the development of the shots, whatever they were screening the tests on was not exhibiting the artifact or they'd have compensated.
Where does that leave us? Certainly I have been setting my garbage-matte-black-point nice and low in the P3 curve...!
I was watching it on some big-arse 1949 carbon arc jobbies, on a somewhat too large screen, increased luminance and reflectivity certainly aren't features of that setup. I've found multiple mentions of the 'force fields' on the tie fighters, I think the mattes were always visible, but not many people would notice them, the effects were so far ahead of anything else out there at the time, and so exciting, that I don't think people would have noticed en-masse, at least not the first few dozen times they saw it :)