John Carpenter's That Thing You Do

[Ferris]

I would imagine there must be some benefit to this though, maybe it makes for clearer projection?

The benefit is it makes a good anecdote and you look clued-up if the topic of John Carpenter's The Thing comes up in conversation (unless someone is able to offhandedly offer more information on it than you have).

Joking aside, yeah it's to make it clearer. It's like HD before HD, so you can really see the man in the silly giant hat operate a flamethrower, yeah?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Buzby can probably answer better, but basically the transfer processes and optical printing (used to make the film that went to cinemas) lose a lot in the process.

Optical printing can print about 2000 vertical lines before it just turns black, so basically is 2k/HD. Yet 35mm masters good enough for 4k. Similarly 16mm was often printed on 35mm, although that might just be because it was easier to blow it up due to the ubiquity of 35mm in cinemas.