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Okay, let's explore the reasons why tampering with movies is a bad thing. Firstly, colourising old B&W movies is usually a commercial decision done to try and squeeze a few extra bucks out of an old IP. I've seen a fair few, including the Laurel and Hardy films (which I find utterly disgraceful to watch - so I don't any more), George A Romero's Night of the Living Dead (which is dreadful in fake colour) and my beloved 1933 King Kong. The coloured version of King Kong is a crime and the people who did it should HANG - slowly!
The problem is probably psychological. Old B&W movies, just like modern movies, are representative of their time, they reflect the culture, economical, political, and social climate of the era in which they were made. Even the mad sci-fi futuristic films from past decades say more about their contemporary era than the fictional eras they attempt to roll out into a narrative. In the very early decades of cinema, French film makers developed the earliest forms of narrative film but the camera was stood on a tripod and the point of view to the audience was similar to watching a stage play. Techniques improved, of course, as film makers explored close ups, dissolves, and the art of cinematography flourished. These techniques allowed better exploration of character and exposition, things we take so much for granted these days. But those earliest films are important and deserve to be respected. If we enhanced those early films to make them look more modern, then you may as well touch-up the Mona Lisa so that she wears a Burberry cap to appeal to modern chavs. Sure, that would be unacceptable. Why is it okay to do it to film?
Dragging an old classic into the modern world by enhancing it with digital effects, colour, or whatever, studios fuse a slice of real history with an artificial sheen of modernity. The net effects are highly incompatible. These "enhancements" actually do nothing (and I challenge anyone to coherently dispute this) - NOTHING - to improve the experience of watching the film. They add nothing to the narrative, they do not make characters any more engaging, they do not force the film's conclusion to be better, they simply do nothing. It's just pure modern eyecandy and is more often than not a distraction than an enhancement. The very fact that we talk about the colourising process before we discuss the content of the movie is proof of this.
Even directors messing with their own films is dodgy. Just look at George Lucas and his digital enhancements of the original Star Wars trilogy. These versions of the films are held in such low regard by film lovers, with demand being so universally high for the DVD release of the original theatrical versions, that Lucasfilm had no choice but to release them. Look at Steven Spielberg's E.T., a wonderful childhood fable that was utterly destroyed with a modern digital makeover, sinking the film into a CGI swamp that is intolerable to watch. And let's not forget James Cameron. Every film that bloke releases into the cinema ends up being nothing more than a long trailer for the forthcoming "director's cut" which gets released on DVD after sales of the theatrical release fall. The industry calls it a "double dip", and is pure and simple a money making trend. Movie "enhancements" do zero for the quality or validity of a film, they are pure commercial fodder designed to rake in the dollars.
You might call me a "purist" but cinema is a "pure" art form. The whole process is designed to suspend disbelief and tell a story. This can be achieved without the need for "enhancements". I'm not a huge fan of the modern era of film making as it is so heavily reliant on CGI (and I REALLY hate it when old films get CGI makeovers). Digital enhancements of old films undermine the historical values of an old film, they distract from the core values of the film, and they are often just crap. Seriously, don't you sometimes get a warm nostalgic glow watching an old grainy black and white melodrama or would you prefer to watch it through crisp digital filters, washed with unnatural colour, making the experience feel artificial and cold?
Remakes are perhaps a more acceptable way to engage a new generation with an old film. Although most tend to be rubbish, a few good ones have emerged over the years. If it's a great story, then it doesn't hurt to retell it every few generations or so. But if it's a great FILM, then enhancing it years later to appeal to a jaded audience of spaced-out CGI-heads is insulting.
Nuff said!