Yes, the laserdisc masters will look superior when used for the DVDs. DVDs have better contrast and color than laserdisc with considerably less video noise.
Now... people like me with a video projector that projects 16x9, we really hate the quality of movies that are not truly anamorphic, because when we zoom in on a 4x3 lletterboxed movie, it looks horrible.
There is no excuse for not releasing the original versions anamorphically. and with 5.1 tracks. (Each film was originally released with a six track recording on it.)
My two cents...
CS