Hey guys, saw MOMA’s 35mm preservation print of FOTR, and I must say, though the BD grading isn’t perfect, the DVD colors are far worse.

Rivendell especially looks nothing like it does on the big screen; it’s got a subtle cyan(!) shift to it rather the DVD’s ugly purple tones. Really, the film looked beautiful on 35mm in a way that none of the releases have done justice.

It really does look like to me that the BD was an earnest, if flawed, attempt to recreate the 35mm look in a digital realm. In short, trying to recreate the DVD colors doesn’t seem like the right path for theatrical accuracy.

Also, there was some footage for The Two Towers at the end of it, and, looking at it, the Extended BD (which keeps the established color palette from the DVD) looks flawed as well.