Miracle - widescreen vs. fullscreen (1 Viewer)

My wife and I just finished watching the widescreen DVD of MIRACLE, but it took some doing to get it.

Initially, neither of us were all that thrilled with the idea of the movie. I'm not much of a hockey fan, though I do remember the 1980 Olympic Games and the US victory. My wife likes feel-good movies, so it was one that we were likely to see somehow. We missed it in the theatres earlier, so DVD would be the next best thing.

On Tuesday, we headed to the Disney Store to purchase the Walt Disney Treasures tins. The game plan was my wife would buy the Duck and Mouse ones, and I would buy the Tomorrowland and War set. The cast member in the Disney store pointed to a display saying buy anything in the store and get MIRACLE for just $17.99,

We were in the Disney Store in the first place because as Vacation Club members, we get a 10% discount on all purchases there anyway. Sam Goody had the tins for $32.99 - but Disney had them at the more reasonable $24.99. Minus the discount they were $22.50 or so.

So my wife though the MIRACLE disc was good idea, so I added it to my total - and got the 10% off of that price too.

As I sat entering the discs into DVD Profiler, I noticed it couldn't find MIRACLE at all. It seemed strange, but it's not the first time a new movie wasn't in the database.

Then I glanced in horror at the top of the front cover:

the dreaded F U L L S C R E E N !

Thankfully, we hadn't opened the thing yet, something we almost always do. I was so eager about the Treasures tins that I concentrated on those.

So today, we wandered back to The Disney Store to exchange it. Again in horror, I listened to the cast member tell me, "We didn't get any widescreen versions of that title."

So I had to take the money back and search elsewhere. Back down at Sam Goody, they had one copy of the widescreen version of MIRACLE. I used a $5 off coupon I had from their Replay program, and got it for $14.99 - and a free puck too!

Victory at last - the widescreen version won out.

Sorry for the long, rambling story, but only people here would understand!

Harry

Yup, I was in the checkout line at Target when I noticed I had a fullscreen copy instead of the widescreen. In the past, when both, widescreen and fullscreen dvds were sold separately, the widescreen designate would be in red, but not on this dvd release. In this case, widescreen was in blue while fullscreen was in red. I bet as a long-time dvd consumer I wasn't the only one fooled by the color switch. Anyhow, I need to pay better attention to the dvd cover by actually reading it, so I don't have to get out of the checkout line again.






Crawdaddy

It's funny because we're usually very careful about what we pick up in stores. Nearly everytime we pick up a DVD for possible purchase, I urge a double-check to make sure we've got the correct edition.

It was just the way this whole transaction took place. MIRACLE was a toss-in item at the register, and the cast member was the one that took it off of the display, so I never even looked at it until I was cataloging it in DVD Profiler.

As it turned out, the cast member wasn't at fault, since the store never got any of the widescreen edition in the first place.

I cannot imagine anyone even sitting through that 2.35:1 film butchered into 4:3. So many shots of Kurt Russell were close-ups, and in a 4:3 chop shot, we'd be focused in on his pores.

I wish this trend of dual releases would go away. Just issue both on the same disc if they must, but don't continue this confusion.

Harry

Well, I just watched this movie for the first time last night. Naturally I bought the widescreen version and viewed it on my 52" RPTV. Talk about absolutely stunning!! I couldn't even begin to fathom how this movie would look when butchered down to 4:3. There are a lot of incredible action shots which utilize the 2:35:1 frame nicely, especially the in-game footage.

I agree that both versions should be made available in one package. It can get confusing, especially when companies such as Universal don't make it more evident about which version is which. You have to read the extremely small fine print on the back of the case most times.

Anyway, this movie was a pleasure to watch. Being the hockey fan I am, as well as a fan of true stories brought to film, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Oh no! For nearly all movies of a feature length, that causes the quality to take a nose dive. It either causes a great deal of compression artifacts, or they have to filter it to death, and this is even noticeable on my 27".

I'd very much prefer seperate releases (although I really don't consider the "fullscreen" to be a release of the movie to begin with).

Looking at the the packaging does not confuse me very much.