Disney's BLACK HOLE -- FX information?

It's less a feature, than an annoying bug on certain displays. Whenever a progressive signal is sent from a playback device, it locks the screen modes so I can't use the zoom function on my TV to "zoom" non-16x9 DVDs. So I get the lower left image on this page on my TV: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/anamorphic185demo.html and I can't zoom it. And using the zoom function on my DVD player leaves a "2X" icon on the screen all the time.

I can turn off progressive scan on my DVD player for those titles so I can zoom them, but then the image isn't as good, so what's the point? This is basically why I told Lucas a couple of years ago he could take his laserdisc transfer original version DVDs and stick them where the twin suns of Tattoine don't shine.

And BluRay is still a ways off for me. I've just yet to be convinced of the need for it, considering there's still so many problems with the titles (including the 4x3 transfers of the first season of the Dini/Timm Justice League animated series. Absolutely unforgivable).


Edit to add: just to clarify this is why I got rid of my non 16x9 version of The Black Hole DVD.

 

No, that's the way it's supposed to be. The first season of JL was actually shot in the 4:3 ratio and had the top and bottom cut off to make it widescreen, unlike the later seasons which were shot in the wider ratio. So with the first season, the 4:3 ratio is actually the full image, more than we got in its TV run. It's not pan-and-scanned. (However, the composition of the shots was designed with widescreen in mind, of course, so not much is going on at the top and bottom of the frame.)

 

Then please explain this short documentary about how the briefing was done by Larry Cuba (http://www.well.com/~cuba/Biography.html). More about his work on this web page.

 

The creators have gone on record as saying they wanted it widescreen from the start, but Cartoon Network was leery of doing a letterboxed show (afraid the kiddies would have Pokemon style seizures or something). They animated it at 4x3, but it is very clearly animated for 1.77.

From here:http://animated-views.com/2008/justice-league-season-one-blu-ray/

I can find more quotes from Dini/Timm later, but it should have been widescreen from day one and I will not purchase it any format until it's done right.

 

You may be able to set your DVD player so that it doesn't display onscreen messages like that.

 

I was always under the impression Dan O'Bannon did it - he certainly seems to think he did

 

Yes, that's exactly what I said. I don't know why you'd think it necessary to lecture me on the exact same factual information I just related to you.

I thought you were assuming that the Blu-Ray release had cut off parts of the image, and I figured that was what you considered "unforgiveable." Sure, CN compelling them to animate it in 4:3 ratio may have been a little bit less than ideal, but I can't comprehend calling it "unforgiveable." All the image information is there on the DVDs, nothing is missing. That's what matters to me.

 

The truth appears to be that O'Bannon did some of the simulated CG animations surrounding the Death Star, and supervised the Death Star targeting display done on a Scanimate system:

So, Larry Cuba did everything of the "rebel briefing" up to the last shot of the fighter dropping the torpedo into the shaft: which is O'Bannon's work. O'Bannon also seems to have been responsible for the cockpit targeting scope animations, etc., which would explain the confusion.

The link to the article quoted above.

 

That would explain it - I know Dan and he wouldn't have lied, and I certainly wouldn't have implied such.

Looks like all is sorted.

I still want to write a Black Hole remake someday.

 

Sorry, I think we were talking past each other on that point, I realize it's not a pan and scan job, but an open matte job. However, that's still my beef with it, it's all extra sky and feet. The composition and framing is for the 1.77-widescreen format and that's how I want to see season 1.

My "unforgivable" comment was regarding how they missed the opportunity to do the BluRay transfers in proper widescreen, after the DVD version was 4x3. It seriously set my enthusiasm for the Blu format back about a year.

 

I remember this film as a kid - the bit at the end where the robot/Reinhardt goes to Hell scared the bejesus out of me. When I was older and watched it again, I found it surprisingly mature for a Disney film, and I think it's one of the few Disney films that doesn't explicitly spell out that everything's hunky-dory at the end.

I also got it on DVD as well, but sadly the upscaling feature on my Blu-ray player is not kind to it. Is there going to be a HD release?