Someone has UNrestored the original Star Wars

The Harmy versions are 720p. The 35mm film print transfers are 1080p. The Harmy versions look "cleaner" because they are mostly taken from the official Blu-ray releases (though resampled from 1080p to 720p). The latest Harmy versions use some of the 35mm transfer footage, resampled to 720p, and tweaked by Harmy to match the rest of the footage as best as possible.

The Star Wars movies, along with nearly all other movies until the somewhat recent change to digital projectors, were originally shown in movie theaters on 35mm film prints (and they were filmed on 35mm film to begin with). So the 35mm transfers were created by people who own or have access to some original 35mm film prints which were used by movie theaters, and who also own or have access to film-scanning equipment. The transfers have a lot of dust, scratches, and film grain. I love them. I watch them on a 1080p projector and a 100" screen from a 10' viewing distance, and the dust, scratches, and grain makes it seem like I'm watching a real film print from a real film projector in a second-run movie theater somewhere (by the time the film prints hit the second-run theaters they were well-used and tended to have noticeable dust and scratches).

The average person doesn't realize what a big deal it is for these 35mm transfers to exist. No one who followed the unaltered original trilogy projects ever thought it would happen, because of the huge obstacles in the way. To start with, you need a 35mm film print. Not only are they very expensive, especially for a highly desirable movie like Star Wars (thousands of dollars), but they are also rare because they aren't even technically legal to own, because the movie studios owned all of them and never offered them for sale to anyone. Theaters only leased them and they were supposed to return them when they were done with them. Some of them slipped through the cracks, obviously (continued in next post...)

On top of that, the ones that do exist tend to be quite damaged, and the film stock used for nearly all of the Star Wars film prints was highly prone to color-fading, i.e., everything turns pink.

So once you get past the obstacle of gaining access to a film print, you need to scan it in. The equipment to do so is very expensive, and you can't just take it to a company which offers film-scanning services. They won't scan it in for you (unless you're personal friends with the owner or something) because you don't own the copyright to Star Wars, and they don't want to risk getting themselves into hot water.

As I said, I love these 35mm transfers, and even if Disney released official Blu-rays of the original movies I would still prefer these. Having these is almost like owning the real 35mm film prints from which they were made, and the dust/scratches/grain add so much theater atmosphere to the viewing experience, especially if you have a good 1080p projector.

Official Blu-ray releases are cleaner, because they usually come from pristine, vault-stored interpositives/internegatives which are higher up on the generational ladder (i.e., closer to the source, which is the original negatives) than the film prints that movie theaters used, but the 35mm film print transfers look like what you actually saw in the theater way back when. I wish I could get raw 35mm film print transfers of all of my favorite movies.

In craptastic picture quality, that is. Hell, DVDs already look bad enough on a 50+ inch TV.