I'm not not much on films, but those Technicolors were great. There is just some thing about reversal film that can't be beat. I think the big problem is special effects which seems to infect all new movies; I bet it is hard to do in none digital.
Technicolor was never a reversal with the exception of Kodachrome that was used for a very few cases where the actual Technicolor system couldn't be used such as hand held camera shots.
The Technicolor process was actually three B&W strips of film shot simultaneously in camera through RGB separation filters. The cameras were huge and had three magazines of a B&w film, beam splitters and separation filters. The processed B&W negs were used to produce color matrix that absorbed dyes that were transfered one at a time to a transparent receiver base. The receiver was what was projected. It's exactly like the dye transfer process for still image prints except the dye transfer process used a paper receiver.
Obviously this was a very expensive process and the cameras were huge and cumbersome. When mobility was needed Kodachrome was shot and separation negs made and then the matrix and the final release print.
Expenses were huge for technicolor. You had cameras that were 3 times more complex requiring three magazines of film, beam splitters, filters and three gates and precise registration for each set of frames. Also at 24 fps a 35 mm camera shoots 90 ft per minute so multiply the cost of film, processing and conforming the film by 3.
Later on technicolor became a lab processing Eastman color negative motion picture film like 2475 emulsion. It was nothing more than a film similar to kodacor with a Carbon rimjet backing. The color neg was printed on an inter positive stock and that was used to make release prints on a direct color print stock. It was nothing like the original technicolor 3 strip B&W / dye transfer process. It became just a name.
I did a lot of 16 & 35 mm motion picture work in the day for TV commercials and some theatrical release. In the 60's and 70's there was a transparency film used as original camera stock called ECO, don't remember the number but I do t think it was ever used in the theatrical film world. It was used some for commercials and industrial work in 16 mostly but had low contrast so release prints from it wouldn't gain contrast and was very low ASA and not a particularly great looking film. There were other transparency films but they were used mostly for news gathering and documentary work.
I hate to see motion picture film go away as much as I'd hate to see still film go away. Sadly almost everything is digitally projected now and much of the depth and feeling of film is lost in the projection.
I will say that I'm very impressed with the new Arriflex digital equipment. The depth and brilliance is amazing. Color is spectacular and the sharpness and quality is approaching IMAX in quality.
I can't blame the studios as film stock, processing and release prints are over the top in cost. Costs will go down for production and production options will increase. It will be possible to shoot under conditions never possible before.
