Our old friend Drew Stewart—who is a longtime Digital Bits reader—is the webmaster for Star Wars Revisited and also curates the Star Wars Visual Comparisons blog.
He’s been working diligently to create a kind of visual guide to all the changes found in the new Disney+ 4K version of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
Drew’s created a set of comparison images showing all of these updates and alterations—nearly 40 of them in all—and he’s kindly allowed us to compile them here in a 6-page gallery on The Digital Bits for all of you to see.
We definitely think that Star Wars fans will find this gallery both interesting and useful, not just to compare the new Disney+ 4K version to past Blu-ray and DVD releases, but also as a baseline in the event that further changes appear in the future. [Read on here...]
With all of this in mind, here’s a look at the differences that Drew has spotted thus far...
A new Fox logo without the “News Corp” banner was created.
The Disney-era LFL logo has replaced the 1990s-00s one, even though it’s timing doesn’t really work with the Fanfare.
The preface was replaced with the Attack of the Clones preface in 2004, and now is back to the original.
The probe droid was missing in the first frame of this shot until it was restored in 2004 and again in 2019.
The 2004 scan showed too much of the bottom leftmost part of the frame, then in 2011 a fur patch was put over the arm of the puppeteer for the moment it is accidentally seen. The 4K scan is properly framed and a new fur patch was created to cover the arm.
