I finally saw it in 70mm a couple weeks ago. The first time I saw it; it was during a midnight show at one of the local theatres on 35mm around 1981. Since then I've seen it on Laserdisc and DVD (I'm pretty sure I don't have the Blu-ray version,) and one day I'll probably get a UHD version. Learning that the new print was struck from the original negative I thought was pretty cool, then I learned the new 70mm print was going to be just that, a newly struck print directly form the original negative and nothing more. No color correction, non of the cleaning up of any scratches, splices, film damage, dirt, watermarks, no adjustments to contrast nor any control of under or over exposure. Just a straight print from the original negative. Now that I have that out of the way; let me tell you about my experience.

The first thing I noticed is there's tons of scratches all over the print. Near the beginning there's two or three splices that are very obvious, the image itself is not rock steady (due to the wear of sprocket holes) a few long streaks of dirt on the negative itself; and in one area there is what appears to be water damage all along the center of the print that looks like moister at one point somehow reached this portion of the negative and may have caused it to curl for what seemed to last about a couple seconds or so. Then there was a planet or two that looked to be blown out, not to mention all the color shifts. Blues took on a turquoise look and reds tended to lean towards a slight purple.

The monkeys at the beginning were not well defined...taking on more of a grayish look (instead of solid) when they were meant to be at their darkest moment. For example at one point when they were all huddled together resting or sleeping. Also, the monolith was not totally black, instead...it was more of very dark grey.

I knew at least about the color shifts and scratches, but I was not prepared for what I actually experienced. There were also a couple scenes where interior lights should have been white, but instead took on a dingy yellowish/greenish tint and of course colors did not take on that newly saturated look you would normally get from film recently exposed and freshly developed.

I was even taken by surprise that the intermission had about 16 or 17 minutes of blank film. The projector continued to run and on the screen there were a constant stream of white dots and scratches flying by. Obviously the intermission area of blank film that ran was also a direct copy from the original negative.

What I saw was a copy of a negative that had been used extensively over the years. Also, I'm sure the original negative had also been used for several versions of home video releases, and probably was worn the most when it was used to make copies that were used to make copies for release prints back in the day...and when those copies worn down, the original negative had to be used again to make more copies.

Besides all of that, it was still fascinating to watch. After a while I had forgotten about most of the minor damage and was only reminded of it again when something a bit more obvious flew by (like that that water damage...or actually probably damage from moister getting to it at one point.)

When it was all done and over; I couldn't help but think about the experience over the next few days. I kept thinking about the differences between what I saw, and the Blu-ray version (which by the way used the same exact source.) The 50th anniversary version on 70mm looks dramatically different than the fully restored version on Blu-ray. And when I thought about what I have read about the restoration of other movies as to how much work goes into making those movies look new again, and as a result, how they end up looking better than what most people saw when they were originally released in the theatre. The same is true with the fully restored version of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Still thinking about the differences, I was struck again with what I saw recently in the theatre; did in fact make the movie look like it's age, that 50 years had actually passed since it's making. So what did I learn? After a couple days thinking about it; I thought again about what I had read at one point that back in the film days (I'm sure this still takes place, but I'm sure there are very few that know how to do this properly) about color timing. All the tests prints that would have been done (including all the extra time it takes) to make sure each scene had a certain look to it that would have been needed to be approved, then it struck me, there's more than just color timing, there also would have been contrast adjustments, black levels, white levels, over all brightness and overall darkness would have been all part of making a print back look correct with experts who knew what the hell they were doing to make each scene about as perfect as one could get with what ever chemical processes that were available at that time. It was a science, and I'm sure there were those that were known to be better than others.

In contrast; today (even if something is newly shot on film) all of those adjustments are done digitally. Once the original negatives have been scanned, no longer is there the process of having to adjust development times, or possibly apply filters (and even use different types of film stock to get a desired look) onto a final print. Now it's just sliders and knobs. Don't like the result? Select the starting point again and make the adjustments in real time.

Personally I'm fine with all that. All the tricks of the trade that were done in the analog world can be done digitally with even more control and tighter tolerances to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to see what the director intended.

No "enhancement" should be done on this movie please can't everyone leave it just the way it is clean it up restore the colours get rid of the dirt,scratches and other damage (like they did with Spartacus and Vertigo). But what I find a bit odd is the intermezzo you mention because on the dvd there is a black screen with the music of the opening (prior to the image of the Earth and the Sun and the Also Sprach Zarathustra cue)Ligeti I believe and it ends with title card "Infinity And Beyond".

@Nexus71 said:

No "enhancement" should be done on this movie please can't everyone leave it just the way it is clean it up restore the colours get rid of the dirt,scratches and other damage (like they did with Spartacus and Vertigo). But what I find a bit odd is the intermezzo you mention because on the dvd there is a black screen with the music of the opening (prior to the image of the Earth and the Sun and the Also Sprach Zarathustra cue)Ligeti I believe and it ends with title card "Infinity And Beyond".

What do you mean by enhancement? There was non on this 50th anniversary edition...just a straight copy from the negative to new film. If there was going to be a full restoration; it would include all the items you talked about such as restoring the colors, getting rid of the dirt, scratches and other damage; and then of course a few other things that you didn't mention like black levels, white levels, overall darkness and contrast as was originally done when working with the original negative back in the late 1960s. Doing that again with the original negative would recreate how the release prints looked when they were first released.

Now in case you did not know, there is going to be a full restoration version of it for home video in 4K that will be coming out later this year. It will include HDR, which is an enhancement that's unlike the original presentation. But other than that, it should be close as to how it looked when it was first released...much like how the current Blu-ray version does.

What I meant with "enhancements" was not to replace some of the FX's with CGI and I also understand that a full blown restoration implies more than just the things I mentioned what I meant to say was actually that the movie should be be restored but as closely to the original release as possible and since your stance on the subject seems to be the same I do think we both agree that a restoration is fine as long as it stays the same or as close as possible to the original release.

Oh I see, yes I agree. By the way the new home version in 4K comes out on October 30th. We'll have to check it out then to see how it compares to the current Blu-ray version.