It is unclear to me how viewing the originals, as opposed to these derived works, gives you any greater insight into the motives of those who made them.
The only corner-case I can think of is the erasure of obvious signs of faking, but that does not seem to be the issue that people are getting worked up over. Is anyone even wasting their effort on upscaling faked film?
I think it’s so strange to see all of the arguments saying “if this building is colored as gray instead of blue, then it is making it harder to understand the past”.
A layperson does not care about the exact color of a building or a jacket or a hat, and if it is really that important then it’s probably documented somewhere.
It might be important to historians and that is ok. But they are not the intended audience of these type of upscaled/colorized clips.
The only corner-case I can think of is the erasure of obvious signs of faking, but that does not seem to be the issue that people are getting worked up over. Is anyone even wasting their effort on upscaling faked film?