Re: "Why isn't ____ on Blu-ray"
Maybe some cool older films would look crappy due to the detail in BR. Its a valid question you have.
Hang on a second.
I think that's a myth. These were things that were shot on film, which -- as I understand it -- generally has a MUCH higher resolution than digital transfers.
My bet is that it'd be entirely possible to take, say, [INSERT CLASSIC OLDER FILM HERE] and make a fantastic looking Blu-Ray of it. The problem is that they can't do it on the cheap. They can't just take the DVD rips and copy them over and the source material may not be better than that as far as resolution goes -- without doing a full restoration and transfer of a film print. Depending on the film you're talking about, that may not be cost-effective. Sure, huge classics like
Casablanca make sense to transfer, but what about lesser-known films?
Is it really worth it to do a gorgeous transfer of something like, I dunno,
The Vikings? Sure the film's got fans, but...does it have enough fans to justify doing a serious transfer of the film? Probably not, or at least not right now.
My hazy recollection is that this is exactly what happened with DVD, too, by the way. Initially, you got either crappy transfers (IE: the old cardboard case versions of Blade Runner and The Road Warrior) that had no extras, a low bitrate, etc. and were little more than slightly better-looking laserdiscs (if not straight-up laserdisc rips). Over time, though, it got cheaper to transfer stuff and to code it for blu-ray, so you saw more older stuff popping up.
There's also the issue that it may be the industry looks at blu-ray as a middle point. Better than LD as a format, but not long for this earth as they shift to streaming content, which makes FAR more sense for them anyway. Why give YOU a copy of the film (which lets you rip it, pirate it, etc.) when they can simply say "Watch it from our huge archive of films on WB's new WBConnect streaming service!" or whatever?
So, they may only be releasing some stuff on blu-ray on the theory of "Why bother converting everything when BR players can upconvert, and we'd rather get this stuff switched over for streaming anyway?"