Film has become vastly inferior to digital both in stills and cinema if we're talking about technical aspects like dynamic range and colour accuracy.
The problem is, just like with CGI which has gotten pretty good at modelling light transport, it feels off because it's too clean and clear. Digital it's too good at capturing reality. Film introduces a bunch of artefacts and limitations that 'look' nicer than accurately captured reality. In part this might be because most of us grew up watching cinema styled that way, in part because it leaves more room for the brain to compensate for those limitations with imagination.
With the advent of easily available stylisation AI trained on film, we should see digital close that gap any time now.
Yes? There's a ton of AI upscales coming out and they're becoming really good; plenty examples on youtube including iconic scenes from iconic movies. Perhaps another 12 months max before AI upscales go from enthusiast/amateur remaster community to commercial.
It's what most of those "HD remasters" of film are doing. (Well, sometimes it's a human or a chemical/mechanical process rather than an "AI", but either way you're fabricating details out of noise and/or thin air).
I suspect that getting objective improvements from a 4K to 8K film scan would require extremely well-produced film and probably a large-format film like 70mm.
The problem is, just like with CGI which has gotten pretty good at modelling light transport, it feels off because it's too clean and clear. Digital it's too good at capturing reality. Film introduces a bunch of artefacts and limitations that 'look' nicer than accurately captured reality. In part this might be because most of us grew up watching cinema styled that way, in part because it leaves more room for the brain to compensate for those limitations with imagination.
With the advent of easily available stylisation AI trained on film, we should see digital close that gap any time now.