STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 4K ULTRAHD BLU-RAY REVIEW | DOLBY ATMOS + HDR10

Lets check out Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back on 4K UltraHD Blu-ray and see how it compares to the previous Blu-ray releases and the Disney+ 4K stream in this review!

Screenshots courtesy of My Moonization:

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[canweshoot]

Host (and many of you) have the misfortune of not having experienced the reference version of this film; the 70mm prints. I saw this film scores of times in the finer 70mm houses across the country in 1980 in order to study the cinematography in preparation for my career in that field. The 2011 BD grade has tinkering that jacked up the saturation, skin tone hues, and contrast successfully making it a digital product rather than being faithful to the 70mm prints. Fortunately, the new UHD/HDR grade restores those picture quality factors to their original glory. The HDR grade makes no attempt to "look like HDR." Instead, it uses the new technology to faithfully reproduce the latitude of the original film. By the way, even your screen shots don't agree with your description on the color of whites. The new grade is now appropriately neutral.


As for sharpness/resolution, the popular trend among directors of photography of that era was to intentionally not deliver super sharp images. ESB was one of the earliest films to shoot with sharp lenses (the C-Series anamorphics, although not razor sharp) mostly without softening camera filters, but use soft lighting extensively. This was a big step back then because the Eastman 5247 stock was rated at 100 ASA tungsten, the C-Series lenses needed about a T4 stop to look sharp enough, and efficient output HMI lighting had not arrived yet. That took a lot of power, lighting hardware, additional time and expense. At the time of release, ESB was relatively bright and sharp by comparison to the standard fare of the time, and that alone made quite a visual impression. I agree that the HDR picture tone is a bit low overall, but that is easily adjusted. Raising that a bit will get rid of your concern over perceived black crush. The image you chose of Vader in the carbon freeze chamber is virtually a silhouette, so no significant detail is intended. One might also prefer one notch up on saturation, but fortunately gone are pinkish skin tones and near clipped highlights.


This new version is extremely close to being a clone of the 70mm prints, and that is about as good as we could ever hope for. FYI, the included BD has the same new color grade. Reference viewing via calibrated JVC RS640 projecting onto a 10' wide scope screen. Cheers.

[MrJgibo]

Remember the good ole days when THX calibration was included on each disk to calibrate for each disk in case your TV was not right?

[r.austin]

Most people don't understand that HDR is there to make the images more accurate and accuracy is not what most people are used to seeing. Most are used to tv's set on torch mode (Vivid or Sports) in their local Best Buy or whatever. The Cinema or Movie settings in tv's are much more color and light accurate. I general the most accurate you can get set it straight out of the box and a lot of times people believe that to be to dark and flat. Which is why they're disappointing when they see images that are more correct.

[atoz]

review! Screenshots addition is a big plus my friend.

[rchirinosmd]

Great review, well done. I'm gonna disagree with you about Hoth. Snow looks real with texture not bluish like in the original VHS or Blu-ray. The detail on the Empire's galactic fleet looks amazing. You can appreciate the vessels' blue lights and amber red exhausts. Look closely and you'll appreciate Luke's facial scars on his right cheek and upper lip from the near fatal car accident he had just before the release of A New Hope. Skin complexions look natural and not over saturated like in the Blu-ray. The holograms blush textures looks awesome.

[kthx]

Hey, Jeff--how about reviewing the Harmy Despecialized versions of IV-VI as well as the 4K77, 80 and 83 projects?

[brianmcalinden]

Here's an issue that was not brought up: the 4K version of Empire is at times, too crystal clear. For instance the initial battle in the snow on Blu-ray looks very real but on 4K, it looks less real because of the ultra fine detail of the visual special effects. Just my 2 cents. 🤷‍♂️

[hdmoviesource]

Nice review Jeff, Bluray does seem to have issues displaying primary and even secondary colors accurately. I don't understand how a franchise this large gets an average transfer, Overall I'm really disappointed that Disney have taken on the Star Wars franchise, because pretty much all of Disney's transfers on 4K have been poor. Their baby is now streaming, and these transfers just prove that.

[TheBoomerPlace]

Love your reviews. While I do have a 4K tv and player, I’ve had the original SW trilogy on VHS, DVD and BlueRay. I’m done upgrading.

[distilledyougamecast]

After your review of Star Wars A New Hope on 4K. I went to Target and bought New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi on 4k for the buy two get one free. I am so happy I did. A New Hope looked amazing, and so did The Empire Strikes Back. Everything was clear and detailed with no noise. The HDR highlighting all of the lights on the spaceships and the Death Star. The fight scene between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker was a little dark, but only where it really needed to be. And I think it added to it by having small parts of the scene darker with HDR highlights. So glad I saw your review. I was going to wait until they came down in price, I'm happy I didn't wait. They're so good, I'm tempted to go by 1, 2 and 3. Thanks again for all your reviews.

[irvinezekiel]

Going off of your screenshots it seems like everything on the old Blu-ray has a blue color shift and the new one has a more neutral color.

[sideswipe]

At 7:00 (ish), to me, the BlueRay coloring on the AT-AT walkers combined with the mountains and sky have a gorgeous contrast, while the 4k looks like someone took a gray paint-roller over everything.

I thank you for being open to your viewer’s opinions! Some youtube reviewers don’t like any opinion but their own!

[slartybartfarst]

Subscribed. I really like your honest, normal guy, approach.

[shawnschnaufer]

I just bought the Star Wars 4k box set that is available from Best Buy. I never owned any of the Star Wars movies on dvd or Blu-Ray until now. The set is awesome!

[Tomhyde]

I’ve learned that I’m not getting any more Disney 4K movies. I have all the Marvel movies on 4K and I don’t even bother putting in those discs anymore, I end up swapping it for the blu ray disc. I just don’t get how a film like Batman Returns on 4K can look clear and bright (even in dark scenes I can see everything) but Civil War looks like mud is covering the entire screen. It’s just so dark and blah looking. At least on blu ray it brightens up the picture

[iangarland]

Great review buddy! Was very tempted to double dip (think we’ve all dipped many times now, with Star Wars over the years) and pick up the 4K, but I think I’ll hang onto my Blu Ray set. Sending big hugs from Ireland! ☘️ The channel is fantastic!!

[LILGHETTI]

I'm probably going to wait until the price drops on the individual releases or buy the UK blu-ray boxset!

[KennethKralyJr]

From what I understand and have read'ed over the years The 2004 DVDs / 2011 Blu-Ray Discs / 2015 Blu-Ray Discs of The Original Trilogy had rushed color grading on those releases and on these newer 4K UHD Blu-Ray Disc releases the color grading is closer to what the films originally looked in 77, 80 and 83 and what they looked liked back when the Special Editions came out in 1997.

[ironmike]

Let me tell you one thing I live in an area that has snow almost year round and the 4K has got it right, blue ray version is way to blue, doesn’t look realistic.

[TheWaynos]

I was really impressed with the 4k of Empire. For a movie that came out in 1980 its pretty great.