I just watched The Sword in the Stone on Disney+. Definitely NOT one of Disney’s greatest works (just a, admittedly humorous, series of events before Arthur pulls the sword after not being mentioned for most of the film) but that’s not why it’s brought up on this board so often.
I watched it because I know its DNR reputation and I’ve seen the results. I also saw it was one of the films available in 4K, which I took to mean a new restoration/not using the flawed Blu-Ray master. So, I made it a point to watch it (AFTER I got some Star Wars in my system, including The Mandolorian 😃 )
In short, it looks FAR better than the Blu-Ray/streaming screenshots I’ve seen. Granted, the linework is wonky, but it’s too sharp to be the fault of anything other than the xeroxing done to make the cels. It’s hard to just see in these screen shots but the lines change and you can see the pencil markings that made it to the cels and film. In short, the films looks great… er, in a “replicates the original art” way rather than “replicates the film” way. (Keep in mind I can only get screenshots off a laptop that’s not 1080p; please account for that, it looked great on my TV).
https://imgur.com/88APyO8
https://imgur.com/RPngbTH
https://imgur.com/UeuGneLAlso, I saw this Hollywood Reporter story. In summary, people seem to be warming to the “Contains Outdated Cultural Depictions”; they want more but I don’t think we have to worry about films getting edited as of yet (the crows are still in Dumbo)
I saw that The Black Cauldron is also in 4K Dolby Vision, which is interesting since Disney pretty much treats it with the cold shoulder and has never released it on Blu-ray, let alone 4K UHD.
Also, the linework is supposed to be wonky, considering it’s a xerox-era film.
The terrible DNR on the Blu-ray was supposed to combat the wonkiness inherent to the xerography technology.
A good restoration of a xerox-era film should embrace the wonkiness.