Blockbuster's Widescreen Education Effort for Employees (1 Viewer)

[Greg_Y]

That's why they call it "Home Theater".

And, thus, the Home Theater Forum.

 

[Patrick Mirza]

I say we just give up.
Until 16x9 are the norm and every J6P has one in his/her living room, we're never going to be able to convince people of OAR.
I've almost come to the end of my rope with this matter. :frowning:
That and stopping the polluting/destruction of the Earth. Both are hopeless causes... I feel like I'm swimming upstream with both and I'm getting tired.

 

[John_Berger]

That and stopping the polluting/destruction of the Earth.

Whatever. :rolleyes

 

[Steve O]

Here's an update of my original post:
I rented a couple of movies at Blockbuster tonight, and a different store manager was working. I managed to get some of his time when he was stocking shelves. Here's a synopsis of the dialogue:
Me: I notice that you don't carry the widescreen version of Jurassic Park. Do you know if you'll ever be getting them in?
Blockbuster Manager #2: I doubt it. When there are two versions available, we only carry one of them.
Me: Why is that?
Blockbuster Manager #2: It's the studios. Blockbuster is currently working with them to see if they can split the orders and maybe get half full-frame and half widescreen. Right now, we're only able to get one or the other -- but not both.
Me: I just can't bring myself to rent the pan and scan version. You lose so much of the cinematography that way. It's like watching half of the movie.
Blockbuster Manager #2: Actually, a lot of people complain about that.
In retrospect, I don't know if he was referring to the P&S version or the widescreen version with that last comment. That is, does "that" refer to the butchering of a movie by panning and scanning or does "that" refer to the black bars.
It actually is painful for me to write that term, since I've never actually understood why people see them as "bars" at all. I've always just saw that space "as where the movie ain't!" There are not "bars" there, just like there are no "bars" on my refrigerator (another place where the movie is not) or on my driveway (another place where the movie is not) or on my roofing shingles (another place where the movie is not), etc. What if my TV was shaped like a big triangle? Should the picture be a big triangle? Did they see it in the theater as a big triangle? Okay, ... I'm getting carried away.
:b
Getting back to the analysis of the Blockbuster conversation -- I can't really know if the manager:
1. Was told this information by Blockbuster corporate and it was true,
2. Was told this information by Blockbuster corporate and it was false (a damage control measure), or
3. He was making stuff up to make me feel better about the situation.
If #1, I find that pretty amazing -- that the studios wouldn't allow Blockbuster to make a split order (at the same discount, of course, which would be good business). Personally, I think that they're just trying to force complacency on the issue by loading the shelves with P&S. If DVD owners don't get used to widescreen, they'll fall into their VHS viewing habits and be none the wiser, and Blockbuster doesn't need to change policy.
Just for reference, here are the recent films that have two versions available on separate discs (reprinted from The Digital Bits - the greatest DVD information site ever) --
1. 102 Dalmatians
2. Airport
3. American Pie 2 (R Rated)
4. American Pie 2 (Unrated)
5. Cats and Dogs
6. Charlotte's Web
7. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
8. Jaws
9. Jurassic Park
10. Jurassic Park 3
11. Jurassic Park Collection
12. Lost World: Jurassic Park
13. Mummy Returns
14. Princess Diaries
15. Remember the Titans
16. Santa Claus: The Movie
17. Silence of the Lambs
18. Stuart Little
19. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Blockbuster needs to step up to the plate and show its customers that it cares about preserving the integrity of film by stocking OAR versions of all movies where two versions are available. Based on the above list, this is hardly a difficult task.

 

[David Lambert]

Image Entertainment supplied those, but it was only a list of the ACTIVE titles with multi AR releases. They could have gone just a BIT further with supplying that info to The Digital Bits.

There's only 3 more titles worth mentioning, really!

1) A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is due 3/5, and will be released in two separate AR versions. We've already had a LONG thread about this!

2) The Mummy (1999 film; pre-Ultimate Edition) was released this way.

3) Bonnie and Clyde's most recent release is a dual P&S/WS release, that arrived in '99 as I recall. But two years earlier, WB releases a P&S-only edition of the film that has since been discontinued. Almost not worth mentioning, except to remind everyone that it did exist.

And yes, I checked: all three items are in Image's database! I used the "advanced search" function to find it!