>>69546
To re-iterate what the cinematographer explains without getting lost in the technical details, for the theatrical release he had trouble reconciling the handling of the narrative and the fantasy sequences due to the processes needed to achieve the scope aspect ratio from shooting flat, and also to get the fantasy sequences in the computer. These manipulations of the aspect ratio and getting the film inside and outside of the computer meant the degradation of the image, and of course the computer work on its own also meant a further degradation as the resolution would only be HD, "1000 lines", so in the end the fantasy sequences looked terrible.

They devised some workaround for the fantasy sequences by doing less back and forth from the computer and instead doing more work directly in the computer space, but while that did improve the fantasy sequences, it meant that the narrative sequences suffered. At the time it was not possible to splice the best of each, so I guess in the end they prioritized the fantasy sequences? He says the theatrical prints were 5 generations down from the negative (or maybe the narrative scenes were).

During post-production, when the DVD was to be made, he took 2 months to rebuild the film directly from the negative and complete it in open matte HD even though "nobody was doing HD" in the year 2000, but he managed to convince the studio that he better do it in HD as HD was on its way. So the gist is he rebuild it from the negative, but do note that this is the year 2000 we are talking about, i.e. with the scanners and tools of 2000.. I'm sure if he were to do it today it would look even better, even if done in HD instead of 4K.

Anyway, then he took a backup of this copy because he knew that the studio would lose it and he now shared it with Arrow, after getting approval from the studio, to be seen for the first time - though, as I have proven, unbeknownst to him it's actually been used before, here and there. Nonetheless, this is the most readily accessible and best quality version of that transfer.. He invites people to watch both this and the much softer 2.40 version and decide which one they prefer for themselves.