Yet more pan and scan from good ol' DISNEY... (1 Viewer)

[margaret l]

Do Disney have any plans to upgrade the pan & scan versions of some their older movies? I would love to see an upgraded release of Blackbeard's Ghost. The movie was given very poor treatment. Hank Jones who made a number of films for Disney has said that it was the favourite movie he made for Disney.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

You know what's interesting here (and something we discussed
many times before) is that now that consumers are buying widescreen
HD displays, the complaints they made about the black bars on the
top and bottom of their screens is now going to bite them in the ass
as they see black bars on the sides.

All those consumers for years who complained to Walmart and other
retailers and forced the hands of the studios to go Pan & Scan are now
regretting that decision. Had they bought anamorphic releases back
then, their screens would have been perfectly satisfied today.

 

[Mark-P]

Unfortunately I don't think the non-HT entusiast crowd that shops at Wal-Mart gives a damn. Why? because with their old 4X3 TVs they couldn't eliminate the black bars, but with their new 16X9 TVs they can stretch the picture to fit. Trust me, just about every non-HT acquaintance whose house I've been in have their widescreen sets set up to stretch 4X3 material and none of them even seem to notice the difference. They think their watching widescreen!

 

[Robert Crawford]

Maybe, they haven't been properly educated to notice the difference?




Crawdaddy

 

[Joe Lugoff]

LMAO at "properly educated."

I've explained this over and over to some people, and they won't understand it no matter what you say.

You can talk an hour to someone about letterboxing, and they'll still say, "I'm not going to watch it with the feet cut off."

There's a great ancient expression, you know: "A word to the wise is sufficient."

I, too, have noticed that almost everyone keeps their new TVs on "Wide Zoom," and watch everything stretched out, and have no clue that it's distorted.

As for these Disney films: If they were open matte, I zoom them up to "widescreen" and put up with some loss of quality. If they weren't open matte, I'm up the creek and I'm back to cursing the fact that I live in a world where most people just don't care about things being done right -- and that's not just in the category of home video!

 

[Douglas R]

That fits my experience exactly of practically every house I visit. All most people want is to have their screen filled, even if it gives a distorted picture. Sad isn't it?

 

[Mark Cappelletty]

I switched my girlfriend's TV over from stretched 4x3 to regular aspect ratio and she's now angry that she has bars on the side of her screen. Sigh...

 

[Greg_S_H]

I haven't bought a DVD in a while. Is P&S still an issue? I remember when we used to sweat every announcement that didn't specify. "Is the box art up at DVD Empire yet? Is it going to be OAR?" I would hope those days are over.

 

[WillG]

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that even if these people do start buying Widescreen, 2.35:1 films are still going to be problematic for them. As well as 4:3 television shows and acedemy ratio films. But I guess modern 16:9 televisions have all sorts of zoom and stretch modes so that they can get around it. Like others have said, it's sad but true that with widescreen monitors rapidly becoming the norm, many people still don't have the slighest idea what it all means. Take some friends of mine for example. They bought a widescreen tv. Had it for months and then when I went to visit them, they had a film on and it was distorted. I had to tell them they had to change their monitor setting on their DVD player to 16:9. Most people have absolutely no idea that this setting exists on their players let alone know what it means. In fact even the labels 4:3 and 16:9 have no meaning to them.

I was with another friend of mine who had a 16:9 tv and was still had some fullscreen DVDs. I asked why they don't buy widescreen now and the response was "who the fuck cares" and was pretty much regarded as an idiot for even thinking about something so "stupid" (they also have some widescreen DVDs in the mix, so I gather they just grab the first version off the shelf they see for any given title.)

It is kind of sad that DVD and now 16:9 montiors have taken off so well, yet reletavely so few people really understand much about them at all (my father, after all the years there has been a dvd player in the house, still doesn't even realiably know how to navigate through meuns)

 

[Joe Lugoff]

In my experience, as soon as you start saying anything involving numbers, such as 4:3 or 16:9, most peoples' eyes glaze over. I got yelled at by an old friend for even daring to start to suggest that he had his settings wrong on his DVD player. He just doesn't care, and I don't mean "in the way we care" -- he doesn't care at all!

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Apparently he cared enough to get defensive and yell at you.

I saw a screening of "The Usual Suspects" at a theater where most of the first reel was shown with the incorrect "Flat" lens on the projector and was surprised that very few people seemed bothered by it. If you thought Benicio Del Toro looked tall and skinny in the version you saw....

Regards,

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Well, I can top that.

And it involved the same friend who yelled at me.

So he went to the movies to see something or other, about 3 years ago.

And there's no sound.

After about ten minutes, and no one is doing anything, he goes to the lobby and asks for the manager.

The manager said, "Yeah, we know, the sound isn't working, and we're giving refunds."

So when he told me this, I said, "Well, at least you got your money back."

And he said, "No, I stayed."

Yes. He watched the whole movie with no sound.

Well, after all, that's what people did until the late 1920s, so why not? :rolleyes

But it taught me, once and for all, that not everyone is like us guys here, who want everything to be just so. He told me most people sat there and watched the entire movie with no sound.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I'm picturing your friend played by Chris Farley.

"Did you eat paint chips when you were a kid."

"Ha ha ha. Why do you ask?"