The Anne3 widescreen release seems to be pretty good. Overall, I still prefer the "Anne"versary (white box) edition. On the whole I think that the coloring is better in the widescreen release, but there are a few scenes here and there where the coloring is significantly worse- to the point of awful. I also dislike it that so much of the top and bottom of the film has been cut off. It wouldn't be so bad if the tops of their heads weren't cut off.
The restoration of the third film is much better than the first two releases, which is understandable as Anne3 was made just over ten years after the release of the first two films.
Sometimes the focusing seems to be softer in the widescreen edition than it does in the 'Anne'versary edition. Some of this may be due to using a feature called 'warm' as that often takes away some of the image's sharpness. I think that it may also be easier to notice a soft focus in the widescreen release because the background colors are much more vivid which would make a soft focus more noticeable.
The biggest con to the Restoration release of Anne3 is that the tops of heads are sometimes chopped off to the eyebrows (pictured below). The other con would be the odd, green lighting during the renunion scene (pictured below). Again, I still prefer the 'Anne'versary relesae of this, though I do have a much more difficult time deciding. If it weren't for the green tone in the reunion scene I think I could live through heads ending at the eyebrows.
What I've done below is taken comparison screen caps. The top image is the "hd" widescreen version. The bottom image is the 'Anne'versary edition. I strongly recommend clicking on the images and looking at them at a larger size. It makes it much easier to see the differences.
12.26.11