Luckily, this weekend, I was able to watch Empire Strikes Black: THE PROJECT BLU EDITION! As I inserted the disk into my PS3, I eagerly watched, as it was identified as ESB and then launched. The menu immediately started with its nice, clean interface. Unlike before, I didn't start the movie right away, going to the kitchen to get some soda. Upon my return, I was surprised to find the background transitioning to an alternate poster. LOL. I didn't know the menu cycled, anyway, before watching, I excitedly saw all the various ESB posters. I did notice that the music was surprisingly mellow considering the exciting movie... a different choice over the cliched Imperial theme.
As the movie started, the crawl looked less sharp than Star Wars's, probably since it's GOUT material. As the movie started, it looked promising. In contrast to Adywan's AVCHD's snow-white Hoth, this edition had a Blue Hoth, which I can appreciate since that's how it appeared. Interestingly, though, the tone of Blue looked slightly different, it was less cyan than Harmy's and the 2004's and a darker blue instead. Once again, I must say, it's impressive how clear this picture is compared to the murky GOUT. Grain reduction was not as prevalent in this section as I expected...
By the time they were in the asteroids, everything looked pretty nice. There were no bitrate issues, and you could make out every star and asteroid. No blurriness. When we got our glimpse of the Emperor, the hologram looked detailed, moreso than the GOUT. You could see scan lines. Dagobah looked pretty good. This scenes did have DVNR but not enough to distort the smoke into blurs, so that was fantastic. Furthermore, by the time it got to the cave scene, one will notice that the lightsabers look different than in your Star Wars: Project Blu. They looked more modern, so I assume that they were able to far improve the lightsaber roto-scoping techniques for the making of ESB. In any case, it was unexpected but interesting. The lightsaber colors seemed fine. This cave scene seemed to have a bit more DVNR than the rest of Dagobah.
Unfortunately, due to how infernally bad it is in the GOUT, Bespin seemed a bit worse though than the rest of the movie. It was "flatter" than the 2004 versions, with less contrast and seemingly darker. The lightsabers here looked as in the cave scene (improved over the animated looking ones in ANH), but Vader's lightsaber did look pinkish in some shots. After watching many versions of ESB, I'm guessing that the blue tint (not to be confused with the additional cyan from the 2004) added to ESB when in theaters did mess with the lightsaber colors a bit. However, during some later scenes, when they were on the ledge during the famous revalation, Vader's lightsaber seemed a bit more reddish. Another thing I noticed is that Vader's face seemed to be obscured a bit during these final scenes, with it seeming a bit dark. I understand that this could not be helped, as the detail is simply not there in the murky GOUT and punching up the contrast (as instinct would sugguest) would just lose detail in brighter areas.
All in all, picture was good. It wasn't as saturated as Star Wars, but it's not supposed to be. In other words, all is how it was in theaters, a contrast to Star Wars. Perhaps this is even why it received relatively bad reviews on release. To those who abhor the colors of the 2004, also take note that this release of ESB (as mentioned earlier) does have a dark blue cast, which was always suppposed to be present, as shown in the recently-uncovered 35mm Betamax bootleg. Detail is there and visible, especially during the asteroid and Star Destroyer scenes. There are no overblown whites. Grain reduction is definitely present. It gradually increases from Hoth to the Dagobah sequence. For some reason (and I honestly don't know why), the grain reduction does seem noticeably higher than the rest of the film during the Bespin scenes. The men who made the GOUT probably tried to wipe out the optical grain during lightsaber scenes completely, making it less noticable, while in ANH, they decided to leave it be more. It was during these last sequences that this seemed to lose its filmic look. If you are really bothered by the grain reduction in Bespin, then go for Harmy's despecialized edition, but be prepared for a more contrasted look...However, I do want to make it clear that this is the ABSOLUTE BEST upscale the ESB GOUT can achieve. Empire Strikes Back was, in my opinion, hit the HARDEST of all the films in terms of grain reduction and lack of detail, so DJ did the best he could in recovering his detail. You can only polish the turd Lucas crapped out for us in 2006 so much.
The audio... was EXCELLENT! All of the audio tracks were in sync. Once again, I occasionally switched with your pop-up menu. Though Hairy-Hen's remix is superb, I was not viewing with a surround system, so I watched the theatrical stereo. It had great dynamic range for an audio rip from an old LD. I liked it. The Linear PCM was also great. Though I'm not an audiophile, it seemed to be punchier than the Dolby Digital. Your LPCM version of the '93 remix sounded even better and I also liked it. Of course, the "Imperial Edition" isolated score was wonderful... certainly clearer than ANH's isolated track.
Finally, I listened to the Hotline recordings. These were a treat. Your intro screens were very informative and I didn't see any spelling errors, so that was good. The audio seemed to have slight tape hiss but was very clear and at a good volume. Corny, of course... Forgot to mention it earlier, but in both this menu and in ANH's, I did notice that lightsaber was always spelled "lightsabre." You want it this way right? I think both spellings are equally acceptable.
Well, congratulations are in order, while not quite as impressive as ANH, due to the more subdued visual style of the film, Empire Strikes Back looks as it seemed to in theaters... and I suppose that's what matters. The audio is the best I've heard though... ;)
I'll review ROTJ when I see it... It's been awhile since I've seen the theatrical version of that.
