cafink
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 1999
- Messages
- 3,044
- Real Name
- Carl Fink
Okay. What's his number?Originally Posted by dpippel
Oh boy. Call him and complain then Carl.
Okay. What's his number?Originally Posted by dpippel
Oh boy. Call him and complain then Carl.
Originally Posted by cafink
I look forward to re-visiting Avatar in my living room, something on which I imagine we can all agree!
Don't worry, I am too.Originally Posted by Nicholas Martin
Some, like me, are probably looked at as being sheep for accepting those choices at face value, blindly following along without question.
So I'm a sheep. I'm fine with it.
Originally Posted by cafink
Good idea. Thank you for the helpful suggestion.
Oh, wait, it wasn't helpful at all, was it?
If you're not interested in defending your opinions on Avatar's aspect ratio (as you indicated in your response to Nicholas), that's fine. You don't owe me or anyone else an explanation. But there's no need to reply with snark ("why don't you call the director and complain, then?"), or to suggest that you're above anyone who happens to have a different opinion on the subject ("what was I doing?").
I respect your opinions on Avatar's aspect ratio, but I certainly don't respect your dismissive, holier-than-thou attitude. I thought the HTF was a place where my opinion, which I believe to be perfectly reasonable, would be respected, too. But "oh boy" isn't a respectable response.
The people in question are using "constant height" displays, which have an aspect ratio of 2.39:1, so that all movies completely fill the height of the display, but may not completely fill the width, depending on the aspect ratio of the movie. So, watching a 1.78:1 movie is no problem. It fills the screen in one dimension (height) but not the other (width), just as with any film whose aspect ratio is different than that of the display on which it's watched.Originally Posted by Nicholas Martin
Christopher Nolan wanted to preserve the effect of the more immersive IMAX presentation of his film and knew the only way to do so was to reformat the IMAX footage to a full 16:9 ratio.
This annoyed people with specific displays, wanting just a straight 2.35 presentation because the shifting would mess with their setups (so what do they do when watching 1.85 or 1.78 movies? Avoid them all? How does that work?) Others were worried about the shifting being a potential distraction. Fair enough. Understandable. A few said it was the wrong AR regardless of what Nolan decided. It's his movie, and he knew he had to make a subtle compromise.
Originally Posted by cafink
The people in question are using "constant height" displays, which have an aspect ratio of 2.39:1, so that all movies completely fill the height of the display, but may not completely fill the width, depending on the aspect ratio of the movie. So, watching a 1.78:1 movie is no problem. It fills the screen in one dimension (height) but not the other (width), just as with any film whose aspect ratio is different than that of the display on which it's watched.
The problem with The Dark Knight is that while the bulk of the film is 2.39:1, a few select scenes are 1.78:1. These scenese are "opened up," changing the height but not the width of the image. This works great on a 1.78:1 display, but not for a 2.39:1 one. Watching The Dark Knight on such a display would mean either having a large black border around all four sides of the image during the 2.39:1 scenes, or filling the screen with those scenes but cropping the 1.78:1 scenes.
A completely 2.39:1 version of the film was created for traditional (non-Imax) theaters, and would have been the perfect version of the movie to watch for viewers with a constant-height display. Sadly, Warner chose to omit that version from the Blu-ray. Inexplicably, it was included on the DVD, which is certainly not the medium on which constant-height display users would be watching the film.
Originally Posted by bgart13
Why not just have all versions available in the set? The theatrial edition was 2:39:1, IMAX was 1.78:1, so...have 'em both. Makes more sense to me.
Originally Posted by Edwin-S
This argument was lost on people during the original debate, so I doubt it will convince any of them now.
Really? I wish you'd have said something about this before (or did I just miss it?), because that makes a big difference. I have not checked myself, but I most definitely recall, back when The Dark Knight was first released on Blu-ray, people reporting that this was not the case. The 2.39:1 version of the Imax scenes, they said, were not created by simply cropping an equal amount from the top and bottom of the 1.78:1 frame.Originally Posted by Nicholas Martin
A lot of people said (without even trying it first) that it wasn't possible, but with The Dark Knight the 1.78:1 IMAX scenes could be cropped (or masked out) and it wouldn't look any different than the DVD's standard theatrical presentation. I tested it many times myself using the DVD as a template, and what's missing in the masked out IMAX scenes is what's missing on the DVD. They could easily have used a BD-J or subtitle masking bar on that disc.