I couldn't agree with him more. I've actually been thinking about this issue a lot since the last "film grain" thread.
Film grain is a product of actual, real light hitting actual, real molecules. It's a record of reality that is a reality itself that contains real information and any change of that information must result in a loss of that information.
I don't care how good a studio supposedly is (Lowry or whoever Zombie mentioned in the other thread), removing film grain will always destroy information regarding the random movement of light and the random behavior of the film as a physical medium (chemically speaking). Supposedly preserving that kind of immense information in a way where we put stuff "back where it belongs" is impossible.
At best we can only simulate what "should" be where and that just seems wrong in principle to me. Light is already where it's supposed to go and chemicals already move as they're supposed to move. I don’t care if we use a chemical or more electronic method to capture light-based visuals, there is no way to escape physical reality to the point where we can make a completely perfect image. Even if our goal is to merely simulate what an existing image would have looked like using a more accurate process, how do we define accuracy and perfection apart from another reality that is physically connected to it? A computer algorithm isn’t physically connected to the world which produced that image and it must destroy the information contained within grain and replace it with something else. That doesn’t seem right to me.
Even if I were okay with simulated information, I still can’t believe we have a sufficiently competent method to simulate the immense depth of information which can be recorded by film from frame to frame. Certain simulation techniques may look great, but I can’t believe the same level of complexity is preserved.
Lastly, film, like any visual medium, has its own unique beauty in the way it physically behaves. That beauty may get in the way of portraying certain visuals in the way an certain artist or viewer would like, but once it’s chosen as the final medium, it shouldn’t be supposedly improved later on without making it clear that we’re making a new work of art (as apposed to “improving” an old one).