Colorized Movies...Your Opinions...

[Urchinn]

Good grief...this has got to be one of most ridiculous thing to argue over...as far as cinematic arguments go!
First of all, no black and white movie is ONLY available in a colorized version! When Ted Turner's lackeys began this craze they always did extensive restoration work on the original film before colorizing it. This resulted in new fgmp (fine grain master prints) of films that had been long neglected. And, of course, nobody was actually coloring the original negative/positive filmstrip anyway (that hasn't really been done on a large scale since the silent days of Pathe and Gaumont).
Second...I watched Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind, and The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T at least 6 times before I ever knew they were fimed in color. Why? My family didn't have a color TV till 1971! Amazingly enough, I enjoyed all those films (and more) without knowing what I was missing. Dangit...the Venus De Milo doesn't even have arms but I know it is a beautiful bit of sculpture! This same "enjoy it even though something is missing or added (color)" theme is directly related to aspect ratio: ALL OF US learned to love movies with the help of television...and ALL OF US loved those movies on a 4:3 screen...no matter how they were originally filmed.
Third, and this is a big one to me, is the fact that most director's give little honor to source material. If Peter Jackson can hack up and distort/reinvent Tolkien's source material then he could never, ever complain if his (Jackson's) work was released only as a 4:3 dvd (or only a black and white version). Why? Because in disregarding the original work how could he complain if his version was altered in any way.
I've had too much coffee, folks! Sorry 'bout the rant.