Well, while I am confident that the 35mm print was professionally captured as good as possible and probably virtually shows everything what the LPP film print had to offer, considering that the video releases (from whatever source they come from) show a lot more detail in dark areas, I think it’s fair to consider the blacks to be “crushed” compared to some original negative which must be lying around somewhere - at first independently of where that happened (during the film to video transfer or from film to film).
“Black crush” generally refers to either the dark details being lost due to the capture device (i.e. the camera in the film scanner, video compression, or because of the contrast setting on the display device. My point was simply that the detail is not in the print, it’s already gone. We see the same thing with Lady and the Tramp - if we get to scan an IB Tech print there will be much more detail in the dark areas.
In other words - I didn’t mean to say that any dark detail was crushed on purpose within the scan project, all I am saying is - given the original negative - it should be possible to have all the grainy and cinematic look the current scan has plus the details in the dark areas (which would be nice). After all, one has to have dreams, right? 😉
Yes that’s possible, just not theatrically accurate for this film. 😛