I’ve just watched Hal’s edit on a big screen (well, I mean my home cinema, instead of the little window on my laptop used to synchronize the subtitles), and I concur: the video quality is great. There is some noise in a few scenes (mostly interior sequences where the production value is not full cgi), but the details are very good. I don’t quite remember the blu ray colors except the fact that I didn’t like them (saturated reds on Geonosis and some waxy filter used on every shot), here it feels more natural, less fake/digital. A slightly “grained treatment” (à la CLOAK OF DECEPTION) could indeed be the final improvement to make EpII look even better, or at least closer to EpI & III.

On the movie itself I won’t say that Hal’s cut has made of EpII a masterpiece, but it’s now highly watchable: most of the silliness is gone (only remains the silliness of the script itself), the “falling in love montage” is convincing (Anakin is no longer a whining piece of **** always talking about his boss and confessing mass murders, children included. He still has fascist tendancies but Padmé thinks he’s joking so it’s ok…), the political background is clearer (two interesting deleted scenes reinstalled), the pace is greatly improved. It stays the weakest movie of the franchise but now it no longer ruins everything. Un tour de force.

Once again, very good job !