Were these films ever really super grainy? I know they were shot on Super35. But what was the reason PJ had to degrain them to hell and back.

I don’t remember them being overly grainy at all. I do remember the image being not incredibly sharp and kind of soft on the prints i saw in the cinema. But they looked plenty lifelike and filmic in non cgi scenes. Unlike the Hobbit which looked like it was shot on a video camera, and everything looked flat and fake like a pre-rendered videogame cutscene.