[mikewarot]

There are lots of hidden dependencies in the world, who knows what depends on the reliable production of polymer/emulsion products.

It could be that we stop being able to make chips, or printers, or something else because of this as a second or third order effect.

[jjk166]

Presumably they wouldn't torch the equipment and shoot the engineers when shutting down. If some business unit within Kodak is producing something the world needs, then there will be money to restart that particular production back up again, either as a spun off entity or as new production by a different firm.

Losing a technological capability requires it to go decades without being practiced - long enough that those with the key knowledge die off. This can and has happened under the right circumstances, but probably wouldn't from a company going out of business.