No. How you convert a color image to black and white can have a huge impact on the aesthetic and emotional impact of the finished image.
Here’s a random found example of how simply adding a blue filter to the conversion process can dramatically change the look of things (straight desaturated first, then filtered):
I’m sure any film director would prefer their chosen colorist to consciously guide that conversion instead of letting luminance values fall where they may. And the type of fan who buys special editions is the type of fan that cares.
(Does every TV set even have a true “zero saturation” mode? I’d guess no, but I didn’t check.)
