So, you guys remember this?
Well, hold on to your hats, because I finally got my hands on a scan of reel 3 from an LPP print and here’s a comparison with the Blu-Ray:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/153998
The difference is shocking!
By the way, this problem is present pretty much exactly throughout the second half of reel three and definitely ends precisely with the last shot of reel 3 and since the negative is actually split into smaller ten-minute reels, it definitely points to them just mucking up the scanning of what would be reel 6 of the negative and instead of re-scanning with proper focus, they just threw a sharpening filter at it.
This is absolutley shocking indeed. The reel scan looks like a promo shot. Awesome!!