Once Harmy has finished the final 3.0 1080p versions he said he plans on Facebook, we’ll have the definitive versions of these movies. I doubt even an official release could top it.
Well, I disagree - Despecialized will still use the 2011 Blu-Ray as its main source and there are all manner of things wrong with that transfer, some are fixable but many are not. You can fix the colors to a certain degree but there are certain idiosyncrasies of that transfer’s colors that are simply there to stay, plus with the BD, we only have a compressed 8bit 4:2:0 version of the transfer, which makes its fixability even more limited. But there’s more - there was copious amount of DNR used on the transfer and then a thick layer of artificial grain has been added on top, which means there’s tons of detail lost and I can see other tell-tale signs of DNR, like a specific sort of warping and bits of frozen grain moving along with object. There’s still more fine detail in the 2004 transfer than any exhibition print thanks to it coming from the o-neg, so even with all those flaws there’s still merit to using it, but with a proper 4K transfer of the o-neg or even an IP, there could be way more detail still, so a properly done new restoration using the best source materials available from the LFL archives should far surpass anything that can be done using the 2011 Blu-Ray or exhibition prints.
And yeah, Mike’s version would probably be pretty close but it’s still sourced from exhibition prints alone.
Yeah, but I think it’s likely that an official release of the official trilogy wouldn’t be much if any better than the 2004 transfer. Considering how much effort was put into the GOUT… I doubt the work you’ve done to correct the colors and such would even be in an official release or as much care put into it in general. And they certainly wouldn’t include all the extra audio mixes, etc. you’ve included. But it’s all hypothetical of course. I may be surprised. But even though you recognize all those little details and flaws, the reality is that to most of us simply watching it we already see your current Despecialized versions as near-perfect and certainly more than satisfactory. Better than many official releases of other films I’ve seen for sure.