You have MeTV, Turner Classic Movies and I Love Lucy on the Hallmark Channel. Outside of those places, I hardly ever see any black & white material in the 500-channel universe.
Why on Earth would I choose to watch a movie on cable in this day and age? Because I want a cut-down version with commercials inserted? Speaking of ways movies weren't meant to be watched...
Ideally, I'd own every movie ever. That way I could watch them the way they were intended. Since that's not really practical, I watch some things on cable. Plus, original aspect ratio isn't that important to probably 90% of the population. That's why I think it would have been great to offer audiences and content providers a 16:9 option.
Well, exactly...the way you're watching movies isn't the way you'd choose to watch them, but the way your circumstances limit you to watching them. I suspect OAR has become more important to the general public over time, but I admittedly don't have any evidence to support that (beyond the death of DVDs that had non-OAR versions of movies).
I wonder what those people that own hundreds of useless fullscreen dvds of widescreen movies are doing with them these days? Do they regret not buying OAR?
I presume they've held onto their 4:3 TVs so that they can continue to watch an image that fills the screen.
I don't own a single movie in fullscreen dvd. The only fullscreen dvds that I own are shows that were originally shown that way. In early 2000 even I realized all 4:3 tvs were eventually going to all be replace by widescreen in the very near future!
Hell, I've been buying OAR since the late '90s. Deliberately went for VHS tapes in letterbox when I could find them.
I admit that the movies I have on VHS are in fullscreen, but I didn't know any better and the studios didn't offer the customers any real choice. I got smarter after seeing Star Wars in widescreen VHS and learned about OAR, and have bought OAR ever since. It is impossible for me to rewatch a Star Wars movie in fullscreen nowadays knowing how much of the picture I'm not seeing. Those arguing about wanting TNG in widescreen are the exact same as those people that had 4:3 tvs demanding fullscreen dvds of widescreen movies, just so it can fill the screen.
Shoot, the main reason I went so heavy into laserdisc for the whole stretch of the 90s was for OAR (though having nearly twice the resolution was awfully nice too ... looking at 2001 or BLADE RUNNER in LD after VHS was a wonderful reminder of the theatrical experience, though we're kind of spoiled now that we can see movies looking about as good at home as in the cinema.) I remember trying to watch 2001 on its first (only?) network run, probably 1976 or 1980, and having to switch off, because it was incomprehensible visually with so much image missing. Worse than watching a cropped version of a threeway spaghetti western gunfight, about on par with RIVER KWAI, which had a seen on the cropped version that was about 2 minutes of the middle of a table, and you'd occasionally see either Obi Wan or Sessue's hand come into frame. Ridiculous. I think being able to see stuff, especially older stuff, in OAR is going to be a big benefit on films in the next decade with newer filmmakers who I hope won't feel compelled to continue with the ADD cutting that has gone from bad to preposterous in the last couple decades. Frame a shot properly to tell the story and you don't have to gimmick stuff up with ten cuts in twelve seconds, because what you've got up there is a strong enough visually you don't need those kinds of crutches.
I was thinking about that the other day, I remember being in a Best Buy when some old man was telling another he was buying the wrong DVD because if it didn't say "Full Screen" he'd have black bars. Of course, he might've died before regretting his folly.
In Australia they usually never bothered authoring multiple versions of most 'standard' issue movies on DVD. They only released the widescreen versions. I can only recall a few exceptions where two versions were released (for example the first Harry Potter movie was definitely released in both fullscreen and widescreen versions back in the day). But for the most part, the studios seemed to decide that the Australian buying public would simply accept the black bars as "preserving the original aspect ratio". Or maybe they just figured it was cheaper than having to press two different versions of the same product?
^^ I believe the US was slower adopting widescreen than other countries which may have been a factor. I'm going off memory and hearsay but I believe Europe had widescreen CRTs before HD but in the US widescreen only came with HDTV.
It was the same in the UK even though almost everything on VHS had been 4:3 pan & scan. I had a couple of older DVD releases that were double sided and contained both the widescreen and 4:3 versions of the movie but they were pretty rare.
Here in the US, Wal-Mart is a big player and they were also really into the full screen thing, and kept it alive long after it had died a natural death most everywhere else (in the US). There was a period of time though where one had to be careful they were renting/buying the right version. I only messed up once and bought a full screen (what a misnomer) version of Dogma. I have to laugh when the disclaimer says "This movie has been formatted to fit this screen.", not my screen buddy.
It was shot in 4:3, so I want it in 4:3. If I'm paying for it, I want all of it! If you want to see it in 16:9, just resize the picture manually. What's so tough about that?
As has been discussed that's a bit misleading, since it's safe to assume a decent 16:9 cropping wouldn't always focus on whatever was dead center. That said, I'm not interested in such a cropping in any case, beyond a certain academic curiosity.
TOS remastered has already been rerun in widescreen. Where is the topic discussing that in the TOS forum? Here it is: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=35852' Trekmovie articles: http://trekmovie.com/2007/07/31/tos-r-goes-widescreen-in-japan/ http://trekmovie.com/2011/09/28/tng-remastered-is-official/
Why release them in HD, doesn't your TV come with an upscaler? Just as good, right? EDIT: Y'know what, not a great example, and even if it was unnecessarily snotty, pretend I didn't write that if you could be so kind....
The first time I saw it just seemed wrong but it took me a minute to realise why. Everything looked too big and cramped in the frame as though it'd been shot too close. Cropping to 16:9 just ruined the composition of the frame and made me reach for my old 4:3 DVDs.