Blu Ray film source - The Blu-Ray movie collection
It says in Wikipedia that ST2 is the only film to be fully remastered from the film negative.
While not a confirmation the home video (Blu-ray/DVD) versions of feature films are usually created from a film interpositive which is already 2 generations removed from the original camera negative.
1- original camera negative
2- internegative (white specks of dust ONLY)
3- interpositive print (black specks of dust & dirt)
sharpness is reduced and contrast added by the chemical nature of the duplications as well as black specks of dirt/dust and more grain.
2000 -
O Brother, Where Art Thou? – The first time a digital intermediate was used on the entirety of a first-run Hollywood film.
Feature films have been creating digital intermediates [DI] since 2000 where the camera negative is scanned at 2K or 4K for color correction and then as the film's digital master.
SOURCE
Episodic TV series since late 1990s have been telecined to High Definition tape from the original camera negative. The only feature film I've heard of is
SE7EN that was telecined from the original camera negative for a home video release and it was not a trivial matter.
the transfer was mastered directly from the film's original edited negative, which, according to New Line, is a first for DVD. A high definition transfer was completed and then the film was digitally cleaned of dust, dirt and other print defects.
Se7en: Platinum Series DVD released in 2000
see the special feature on its disc 2 called
Mastering for Home Theater video clips (including Audio Mastering, Video Mastering,
Color Correction Demonstration to see the time consuming process.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews/seven.html
older TV episodics have been transferred from the original cut negative to HD tape have been
Star Trek TOS,
ER,
The Twilight Zone [1960s].
If Paramount were to take the Star Trek feature feature films original camera negatives and do a 2K or 4K telecine they would have to do the very time consuming shot-by-shot color timing/grading just like in the special feature on
SE7EN mentioned above.
It is possible in 10 years Paramount could go back to original camera negative [OCN] and do it but they will release these Blu-rays in the meantime 'as-is' from the interpositive print.
Modern day TV episodics do technically look better on 1080p HD televisions from a Blu-ray such as
LOST,
Heroes,
30 Rock,
Grey's Anatomy, CSI, Weeds or
Smallville than a feature film that does
not have a digital intermediate because the 35mm film camera negative is telecined to HDCAM SR and is mastered to HDCAM SR tape.
