The Boy and the Heron 4K UHD (2023) (GKIDS / Studio Ghibli)

[Hydra Spectre]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Did you consider the fact that they're most likely dupes which were cut into the original negative on release? I mean, this is to be expected for older films in general, so nothing I've said is wrong. They scanned the OCNs and those sections in particular weren't original. This isn't some "gotcha!" type revelation you seem think it is. I doubt they were A/B roll finished, so this is just how older films are. Credits and shots with optical effects are softer because they're not "cherry" OG neg and instead 2nd or 3rd generation elements (if not even higher gen in some cases).

If you wanna be this specific, then practically every older film is just as guilty of this as well by not being 100% original, untouched OCN, so I guess we should dispute any and all claims of OCN film restorations simply on the merit of them not being fully original, right?

Yeah. you're right. AFAIK The only time they actually digitally recomposited things for a near-100% OCN restoration (as some scenes still had to be from IPs) were the Star Wars Special Editions. And some scenes for them had to be taken from IPs, particularly deleted scenes like the Biggs scene and Jabba the Hutt in A New Hope.

But on the other hand, it's disappointing that Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind had digitally recomposited credits on both 2010 and 2014 BDs. The white balance on the text is different from the rest of the image (which looks rather reddish on the 2010 disc), so it looks off as opposed to using 2nd generation or 3rd generation elements with the original composited credits.