A.I. Pan and Scan - LAME Spielberg, LAME!!! (1 Viewer)

[Nick Graham]

Spielberg tried to say this was his tribute to Kubrick, but as far as I can tell Kubrick din't use sappy melodrama in his movies. Spielberg is not an artist, but a business man. His interests don't lie with film and art, but with dollars...then again, it's been that way for years,

so I don't know why you are all surprised.

 

[TheLongshot]

Chicken Little strikes again.

Do you think there is a grand conspiracy to redo THOUSANDS of DVD titles in P&S only? Please.

I look at this for what it is, a company trying to maximize its profits with a film that is a little long to put both WS and P&S on, and underperformed at the box office. That is it. No grand conspiracy to replace WS discs with P&S discs.

Course what it does mean is that you'll probably find just the P&S copies at Cosco or Walmart or Blockbuster. That does suck, but it isn't the end of the world.

I mean, what are the numbers with WS vs P&S of the same movie? I don't know, but I would bet that WS beats P&S hands down, considering how many of each I find later on.

BTW, The Mummy eventually went to one release, instead of two seperate ones. Think they would have done that if P&S was more successful? I think not...

Jason

 

[Ted Todorov]

Spielberg is not an artist, but a business man.

I really am not much of a Spielberg fan, but I keep reading variations of the above, and I just don't get why people hate and slag the guy so much.

He has made a few movies that clearly were not ment as money making machines. If AI was sappy it is because Spielberg IS sappy, not because he thought the movie would make more money that way.

Ted

 

[Rob Robinson]

oh come on jason-

i'm not saying there's a conspiracy to replace all existing- but YES, it will curb the new ones.

it will start with universal- when walmart and every video rental chain buys only P&S, univeral will see that they can shave XX% off of production and manufacturing costs, while pissing off only _% of consumers. it's a numbers game, and if/when it boils down to that, (and it always does) we WILL lose.

Why should universal have to deal with twice (or 4 times) as many SKUs to appease whatever percentage of a minority we are?

everyone involved could have done more to educate. or laid down the law and just gone full speed ahead without educating. the public would figure it out. this is now no longer an option, and it's not to hard to see why.

The very few players who make these decisions and reap these profits see no reason to deviate from the status quo at all.

i suppose that makes me somekind of paranoid communist?!

whatever man, yeah, it's business, and once again buisnessmen are doing some stupid shit just because they're terrified to do anything thatmight possibly make their numbers hiccup.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Ted --

I completely agree with your point #1 but mostly disagree with number 2.

I think that means I'm doing better than 50/50. I'll take it!
We might even reach a greater level of agreement if I clarify that I meant "cultural elite" to refer to the audience, not the creators. Most of the arts (painting, sculpture, literature, even live drama) originated as something offered to a small, socially elite group. Film is one of the few artforms that was intended, from inception, for a mass audience. It's a simple point, but one that's often overlooked.
M.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Spielberg is not an artist, but a business man.

You're assuming the two are mutually exclusive, and they're not. Kubrick, by all accounts, was a pretty shrewd businessman, and he must have thought Spielberg had something artistic to offer the project, because he's the one who initially asked Spielberg to direct A.I.

But this has nothing to do with the topic at hand . . .

M.

 

[TheLongshot]

everyone involved could have done more to educate. or laid down the law and just gone full speed ahead without educating. the public would figure it out. this is now no longer an option, and it's not to hard to see why.

I think most of the public that owns DVDs are educated, they can't help not to be with the flood of titles out there. Those out there that don't like WS have their reasons. If it is to fill up their screen, or because their TV is too small, it doesn't matter. Some of us enthusiasts would say then, "why muddy up our territory with you unwashed masses? You can just buy VHS then." But DVD offers other things than movies in OAR, like a compact format and extras.

The question I would have is, how would you "educate" the masses? I think just by having WS as an option would be enough.

Jason

 

[MathewM]

Spielberg should be spanked for this. Seriously, WS or not people watching the film will enjoy it not based on the 1.85 masking on their 4:3 tv's but the story itself. This is simply appealing to those who don't like WS, and guess what, those same people who are close minded won't like A.I.. We're not talking about Jurassic Park 3 here where no intellectual thought is required, A.I. requires an open mind.

We should take this seriously. It is just one more example of the dumbing of America. Of course if you read the book 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls' (great read by the way) you'll find that the author believes that Spielberg is one of the key contributers to this.

 

[Rob Robinson]

"The question I would have is, how would you "educate" the masses? I think just by having WS as an option would be enough. "

hahaha...

Obviously it isn't, if the most popular retail channels are no longer stoncking the "option" when they have a choice.

How would I do it? Well, why not have a 2 minute "feature" on AI where speilberg HIMSELF extolls the virtues of OAR? Maybe Joe Public won't listen to the insane HTF'er with homemade OAR education flyers at Bestbuy, but they certainly would listen if the filmmakers they respected came out and explained why they are not chopping up their films in the digital age.

 

[Stu Rosen]

[sigh]

Educate the "masses"? Explain OAR to "Joe Sixpack"?

I'm an OAR-only guy. I'm not in favor of P&S. But, at least, consider the possibility that a lot of smart people understand what OAR is, what they're losing with P&S, and just don't care.

My own experience with lots of very smart people is precisely that.

As much as you may want to frame this argument in terms of right and wrong, it is to many people a simple matter of taste.

And spare me the cut-off-the-edges-of-the-Mona-Lisa arguments. I understand and sympathize with them. I'm only suggesting that there's a lot of wasted energy being devoted towards re-educating the educated.

I couldn't agree with Michael Reuben more that there's an unhealthy and unpleasant tone that pervades this forum's discussion about the "masses." (I don't even like to write that loaded word)

Any bunch of guys and gals who spend an inordinate amount of time rhapsodizing about the Mummy Returns, Stargate, Star Wars or any other number of lesser sources of system-demo material is hardly in the position to question the aesthetics of the "masses." When it comes to the actual content beloved by much of this forum, as opposed to the aspect ratio of this completely mass-market entertainment, I have seen Joe Sixpack, and it is us.

All of which is to say that I'm glad A.I. is coming out in OAR, and could care less if my next door neighbor will prefer the P&S.

 

[Jacob_St]

That's a nice argument Stu but it doesn't apply to renting. If I want to rent AI before I buy then I'm stuck with one option... P&S. Too bad Dreamworks didn't make this a two disc set and saved us renters from doing without.

 

[LarryH]

I agree that this is a bad idea, because even though I never rent movies, I deplore the loss of choice for those who do. I do doubt that widescreen presentations will disappear, but fear they may become harder to get or more expensive until such time as widescreen TV's become the norm.
What I do find intriguing is to contemplate a future scenario when 16x9 TV's are the norm, and our "J6P" friends are complaining about all those "black bars" on the sides of their P&S DVD's.:p)
P.S. not a new observation: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=32326

 

[Carlo_M]

I'm sorry, Stu, but my experience has been the opposite. I have converted quite a few people to OAR, and only one has truly resisted because he owns a 19" TV and refuses to lose any of that space to black bars.

Maybe it's just my demographic (I'm 27 and so most of my friends are under 35) but a lot didn't quite have a full grasp of OAR. They weren't necessarily against the black bars, but wondered why they were there. With the rise of DVDs, awareness has gone up as I haven't had to explain OAR to many people recently, but I did when I first bought my player in May 1997.

Most of the people I know weren't aware of OAR and have come to accept it. Sure there are people who know and don't care, we can't help them, but we shouldn't stop trying to educate (in a friendly and informative--not snobby manner) those who may not be in the know. Then once armed with the information, they can choose whichever way they want to go.

 

[Jeff]

Well Dreamworks is added to my shit list. Right next to Warner and Universal.

 

[Yohan Pamudji]

"Chicken Little"... heh, that's funny.

Anyway, continuing in my chicken-little-ness, widescreen TVs will not solve anything. Movies with larger aspect ratios will simply be pan-and-scanned to 16:9 instead of 4:3. Yes, not as offensive, but still not right.

I don't have a crystal ball, not a reliable one anyway. Whatever I say is speculation, same as Michael Reuben. None of us know for sure what will happen in the OAR vs P&S war. But whatever you think will happen, you gotta admit that there are some disturbing trends afoot. Within the last year we've seen many incidents that point to the P&S camp claiming more territory--Cats and Dogs, Grinch: SE, and Willy Wonka, to name a few.

I'd like to think that people will just get used to OAR and the studios will slowly move away from P&S, but I just don't know. Recent trends are discouraging, but perhaps they are temporary somehow--growing pains of the DVD format, if you will. We'll see.

 

[JohnFR]

"J6P" - I am also growing tired of the use of this cute abbreviation, which basically refers to the average working American as a philistine who lacks taste and refinement. We are talking about movies here, not fine art, philosophy or literature. If someone wants to argue and point to a handful of films that qualify as fine art, then OK. Movies are a mass medium produced to appeal to the masses. The "J6Ps" are the folks that buy the tickets to pay for the movies we like to talk about and collect, so why demean them?

Maybe I'm ranting too much, but I think I've seen the "J6P" thing one too many times. The effective way to promote OAR is to educate people as to why OAR is better and more satisfying, not to suggest they lack the taste to appreciate it.

JR

 

[Thomas T]

Excellent point, John R. It amuses me no end that many of those who constantly diatribe against "J6P" as philistines, then proceed to coo and rhapsodize enthusiastically about all the special feature laden editions of junk like Pearl Harbor, Planet Of The Apes (2001), Lara Croft Tomb Raider or The Mummy Returns and what a workout these films give their sound system. Now who's the philistine?
A P&S scan of crap like The Mummy Returns is an annoyance, not a crime. A P&S scan of La Dolce Vita, Il Gattopardo, David Lean's epics or Vincente Minnelli's carefully composed compositions for the Cinemascope frame in his work in the 1950's is a crime.

 

[Kwang Suh]

God, and once again the cynics of the HTF rise from the soil, and once again they whine and whine and whine...
:rolleyes

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

I don't have a problem with dual releases. It's not my cost burden to bear. If the studios want to appeal to all facets of the DVD market, so be it. There was a time, about 2 years ago that actions like this would have worried me. Not anymore. Studios have shown a commitment to healthy adherence, with obvious exceptions, to OAR. It's not the studios that concern me. It's the rental chains. They are the ones pressuring Hollywood to release these pan-n-scan versions, they are the ones maximizing profits, they are the ones throwing the jalepeno's in the chili. Studios aren't going to turn down a Blockbuster order of 10,000 P/S discs. It's that simple and that complicated.

Bruce

 

[Nick Graham]

JohnFR has an excellent point that we all should take into consideration.