As I’ve learned more about the photochemical process and having seen a few 35mm film print scans, I must admit that I am very skeptical of official home video releases these days, as they very often have drastically different colour gradings, lowered contrast, excessive DNR, etc.
For what it’s worth, the contrast and the color gradings are both part and parcel with going back to the negatives. Every stage in the optical duplication process boosts contrast, so by the time you get to a 35mm print, the contrast is much higher than the negative. Similarly, the color on the negative may have little relation to the color on the print.
So if you go back to the negative, you’re going to have to make some choices about contrast and colors. Most leave contrast more-or-less unchanged because the negatives still have a pleasant and natural contrast – albeit unlike a print (i.e. it’s not a choice to reduce contrast, so much as a choice not to boost it to match), but colors are where bad stuff happens. Even with the best of intentions, it’s HARD to reproduce digitally color timings that were initially achieved photochemically. And people are often not the best about checking references. But yeah, sometimes/often it’s way worse than that.