poita said:
None of them. If you compare them to a print, they are all off. The SC is in the correct spectrum but the saturation is way too low and the colour is way off in some areas. The THX laserdisc releases are closer to correct saturation, but the tint is off. The bootleg tapes are also not all that close. The PAL THX ones are closer than the NTSC ones.
The only reliable source is a print, anything else and you are only matching to the telecine colourist's choices of the day.
Agreed. That's also the view Mike Verta takes.
I've talked about how the PS78 bootleg transfer offers important clues to how the original '77 Eastmancolor prints looked*, but even so I understand that it is not a truly accurate representation.
Old video footage still intrigues me. We don't know how much of the color variations in the official releases was due to the telecine colorist, or how much was due to the timing of the film sources. However, when clips were shown in TV reviews and such, they were sourced from film that contained the original color timing. There's a clip of the TIE attack on the Falcon in a 1980 Siskel and Ebert episode, and it has a nice gold tinge. That's another clue, but no, it doesn't tell the whole story.
I am fully aware that you have to project an actual print under the correct conditions to see how the film actually looked. It's a pity that any surviving Eastman prints have faded.
*For example, the IB Technicolor prints have some unique color flaws, like some shots of the lightsaber duel having a blue tint. All of the bootlegs I've seen have a normal color balance in those shots, proof that even the IB prints don't provide a full picture of how the film looked in theaters in '77.
