You're going to get a lot of push back on that in this forum. However if you are referring to Arrow's "2.00:1" version of The Far Country, they actually somehow botched that and over-matted it to 2.10:1 and it does suffer from it. I took the 1.85:1 version they had (which looks perfectly fine, by the way) and matted it to 2.00:1 myself and it looked much better than the over-matted version they did.
Whatever Arrow did to The Far Country, it is not easy on the eyes. At least compared to Warner Archive's The Naked Spur. It says it is scanned from the original negative but that neg either never looked good or its been somehow botched. Just grainy and and mushy. At times it looks better than others but it is not up to the standards of a WAC, Kino or Criterion transfer. It's an excellent movie and the supplements are good too. Maybe with The Naked Spur as a point of comparison it is too high a bar for a one to one. And yes, TNS is 3 strip technicolor and not "regular color negative. To quote RAH from his review...
Sounds quite logical. The film was shot by William Daniels, who worked in virtually all of the formats over his long career, inclusive of aspect ratios. He began during the silent era, and shot - among many other films - Foolish Wives, being released by Flicker Alley.
Not at transfers of Technicolor films are created equal. Many can look far worse than early Eastman Color. All depends upon generations, handling and the eye of the tech in the lab doing the work.
Probably would not have been a great candidate for VVLA, based upon the amount of stock footage and rear screen shots. Would have been too sharp.
There was Never a problem with 5248.
