Oh, what a gray! What a lovely gray!
"Something about black and white, the way it distills it, makes it a little bit more abstract. Something about losing some of the information of color make it somehow more iconic. [...] Overall, for me, it’s the best version of the movie. It’d be interesting to see if you agree."
— George Miller on Mad Max: Fury Road: Black & Chrome Edition
A vast majority of visual media of the modern age is depicted in color, and for plenty of good reasons, but the appeal of a limited, Deliberately Monochrome color palette remains undeniable, resulting in some creators deliberately engineering either individual elements or perhaps the entire work to operate within limited colors, usually black and white. However, one newer approach to the trend, and one that gained increasing popularity starting from The New '10s, is the act of making and releasing a work in full color, then releasing an additional, optional version of the same work in monochrome, usually in the form of a "black and white edition".
Much like Deliberately Monochrome as a whole, there are plenty of reasons for why creators would do this. While a full, colorful palette can be appealing and beautiful in its own way that warrants the "main" work being released as such, perhaps there are certain aesthetic benefits that can only be achieved through monochrome. Perhaps by taking away the colors, the images seem more old-fashioned and invoke an inherently nostalgic atmosphere. Perhaps the emphasized contrast and grading can make it seem more raw, detailed, cinematic, or otherwise "artsy". Perhaps the work itself was strongly influenced by older monochrome works, and the option to stick to the same trend can make it feel even closer to home. Whichever way, while these versions are rarely treated as the "definitive" versions, they have become an increasingly popular option for creators and audiences looking for a means to view works they've already seen in a new, significantly different, artistically provocative light.
Note that this trope doesn't cover media that were always Deliberately Monochrome to begin with — this specifically covers works that were primarily made with full color in mind, but have the option to view it in monochrome. This includes Video Games that come with an in-game option to turn on a color filter, and can theoretically be played from beginning to end without colors.
Contrast with Colorization, which does the opposite approach of taking an originally-monochrome work and making it full color (something that tends to be far more controversial than an Alternate Monochrome Version, usually due to being seen as implicitly supplanting the original, unaltered monochrome work).
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Starting from the late 2010s, DC Comics has sometimes released "Noir" editions of their most popular stories in this mold. Recipients so far have included Watchmen, Batman: The Long Halloween, and The Killing Joke (Oddly, V for Vendetta has yet to receive such a release, even though it was originally serialized in black-and-white and many fans dislike the coloring on the collected editions).
- Done In-Universe in a Bartman story of The Simpsons, where Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney are working for a company that is printing comics. On the side they are dipping issues in chrome to make all-chrome "accidentally-made" variants to sell on the side, knowing collectors will pay top dollar for these rare, one-of-a-kind "misprints".
Film — Live-Action
- Doctor X was a complicated case: shot in 1931 for a 1932 release, the film was shot simultaneously in both black-and-white and two-color Technicolor cuts. When the movie saw syndication to TV in the 1950's, only the black-and-white version was present due to the color version appearing to have become lost, but a print was eventually found in 1978 and successfully preserved. For decades, this color version effectively became the definitive print of the film when it came to home media distribution, and it wasn't until 2021 that an HD restoration of the original black-and-white cut saw wider distribution as a Blu-Ray bonus feature.
- Godzilla Minus One: After the commercial and critical success of its release, Minus One would get a limited theatrical re-release in Japan known as Godzilla Minus One/C (ゴジラ−１.０／C)note . The deliberate monochrome was used to evoke the feelings of the original 1954 film, since Minus One was released to celebrate the 69th and 70th anniversaries of the Godzilla franchise.
- Johnny Mnemonic saw an alternate black-and-white recut in 2022 in the form of the Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White Blu-Ray. The original film was known to have suffered a lot of behind-the-scenes trouble, with tons of executive-mandated edits done to make the film more "mainstream", including rejecting director Robert Longo's desire to have it filmed in black-and-white (a tribute to classic sci-fi cinema like Alphaville and La Jetée). While not listed as a "director's cut", this recut is a version Longo describes as being closer to his original vision.
- Bong Joon-ho has done this with two of his movies. He's stated in interviews that he has a strong personal preference for black-and-white cinema, but the only reason he hasn't made a film specifically for black-and-white is the lack of financing in such an idea. Until then, he has alternate cuts:
- Mother saw a black-and-white cut being shown in select film festivals and seeing home media release around 2013.
- Parasite saw a black-and-white version, alternatively labelled the Black-and-White Edition or the Director's Cut, released in a limited theatrical capacity and later on home media.
- Logan, while a color film, was reportedly shot with an expectation that it would play well as a black-and-white film, and sure enough, it received an alternate black-and-white version titled Logan Noir. Despite having been re-graded and timed shot by shot, it managed to be released for a limited theatrical run only a few months following the main color version, and is available as a Blu-Ray alternative.
- Mad Max: Fury Road saw limited screenings and home media releases of a black-and-white version of the film, titled the Black & Chrome Edition. Director George Miller commented that the main version of Fury Road is already "monochrome" in spirit with its intense teal of the sky and orange of the desert, and that the black-and-white version is merely dropping the pretense and putting the appeal of that stark visual contrast at the forefront.
- The Mist saw a black-and-white version released as a DVD extra. Director Frank Darabont claims that he always wanted to film the movie in black-and-white as a Genre Throwback to the pre-color work of Ray Harryhausen and classic horror films like Night of the Living Dead, and — while it's not listed as a "director's cut" — he considers the black-and-white cut as his preferred version.
- 1976 Peter Bogdanovich film Nickelodeon eventually saw a black-and-white Director's Cut on a DVD release in 2009. Bogdanovich really fought for the film to originally be in black-and-white to capture The Silent Age of Hollywood the story takes place in, but amidst all the other production woes regarding creative direction and management, it just wasn't meant to be at the time.
- Nightmare Alley was shot in color, but true to its homage to classic Film Noir, the colors were already quite limited and dark, with director Guillermo del Toro going in envisioning that it would be easy to adapt into a true monochrome version later on. Said black-and-white version would manifest in a limited theatrical run and also become available for streaming.
- While not an official release, Steven Soderbergh did a Re-Cut of Raiders of the Lost Ark in 2014 titled Raiders, which both renders the film in black and white and strips it of its native sound, done as an exercise to emphasize how much of Steven Spielberg's directing abilities were shown off in the film.
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show was originally intended to open in black and white before switching to technicolor when Brad and Janet enter Frank's castle, in a parody of The Wizard of Oz. That cut of the film survived as a hidden Easter egg on the 25th anniversary edition DVD.
- Sympathy for Lady Vengeance has a downplayed case of this with its alternate "Fade to Black and White" version. In this version, the film starts in full color and with vibrant primary colors just like the main version, but slowly as it goes on and its Revenge fable gets darker and darker, colors begin to desaturate until things become mostly black and white, sans the violent Splash of Color here and there.
- Zack Snyder's Justice League came with an alternate black-and-white release not long after the main film's debut on Max, titled the Justice is Gray edition.
Live-Action TV
- Starting with "The Power of the Daleks" in 2016, official animated recreations of Missing Episodes of Doctor Who are made in full color to appeal to mass market audiences. However, home releases always include an alternate version in black and white to fit with the original episodes being monochrome.
Video Games
- The original release of the Atari 2600 had a B&W/Color switch on the system that changed most (but not all) games to a monochrome palette. This was because black-and-white televisions were still very common in the late '70s and early '80s, and merely playing color mode on a black-and-white set often resulted in poor contrast which made parts of the games hard to see. Using the B&W switch ensured that the game's colors remained sharply separated from each other. Later releases of the abnormally long-lived system removed the switch, however, as black-and-white televisions became exceptionally rare by the time support ended in 1991, though its loss caused other issues as a few third-party games which did not have a B&W mode used it for other game toggles.
- Batman: The Telltale Series includes an optional "Shadows" version that simulates the grayscale of a graphic novel with the occasional Splash of Color.
- The Windows version of Chip's Challenge has an alternate black and white set of graphics, since at the time of its release cheaper computers were supplied with monochrome displays.
- The reward for finishing the platformer levels of Cuphead in pacifist mode unlocks a black and white filter option for the game, as another homage to classic cartoons. This mode makes the game substantially harder to play, as it obscures the pink parry items.
- A select number of games for the Game Boy Color have black shells to indicate that these are games with alternate monochrome color palettes so they can be played on the original Game Boy and the Super Game Boy accessory for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. These include Beauty and the Beast: A Board Game Adventure, A Bug's Life, Conker's Pocket Tales, the 1999 color remake of Looney Tunes (1992), Mary-Kate and Ashley: Get a Clue!, and Toy Story 2. Pokémon Gold and Silver are also playable on the original Game Boy, but unlike these games, they have gold and silver cartridges, as was tradition with mainline Pokémon games for the first three generations.
- Ghost of Tsushima features an alternate filter titled "Kurosawa Mode", rendering the game in black and white while adding film grain, altering the sound mixing, and also adding in more Dramatic Wind to make the game resemble the many classic samurai films of Akira Kurosawa.
- L.A. Noire: The entire game can be played in black-and-white to match the 40s aesthetic.
- Some versions of Minecraft (between 1.7.2 and 1.9) featured a "Super Secret Settings" button that placed a filter over normal gameplay, originally done to test the functionality of "shaders" and alternate means to render the game. Most of the shaders range from subtle to silly, and among the more drastic ones was a "Pencil" shader that renders the game in black/white and ratchets up the color contrast, giving the game the general look of a pencil sketch.
- Pokémon Channel: Several of the different TVs available will apply a filter to the shows. The first one you get that does this is the Retro TV, which applies a black-and-white filter. It's given to you as an emergency replacement after your Pikachu accidentally destroys the set you start with, but even after you get a new one, you can swap back to the Retro TV at any time.
- Resident Evil 5: The unlockable "retro" filter applies this trope to the game.
- Retro City Rampage: The game settings allow you to choose from a variety of color palettes, several of which are monochrome to mimic specific retro game systems such as the Game Boy and Virtual Boy.
Western Animation
- Shortly after its debut on Netflix, the streaming service released a "Special Edition" of the Blue Eye Samurai episode "All Evil Dreams And Angry Words
" on YouTube that was entierly black and white except for the instances of the show's Motif Colors, blue (for Mizu) and orange (for Fowler). The special also features a different set of musical interludes compared to the original "broadcast" version.
Other
- Most major modern operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS / iPad OS, and Android, include a system-wide grayscale mode for accessibility reasons, both for people who need a Colorblind Mode and people prone to eye strain.
