Biggest Pan & Scan Atrocity? (1 Viewer)

[Clinton McClure]

Mr. Mom

 

[ScottR]

My Best Friend's Wedding and A League of Their Own have awful scanning across the frame...it looks animated...the worst in term of picture loss for me is Grease followed by The Graduate.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

. Shameful.

Another open matte film, not pan&scan. (I confirmed this with the laserdisc, which was letterboxed.)

- Steve

 

[Paul D G]

Well, not really a vote for Atrocity, but Die Hard was the movie where I realized the difference.

The hotel I worked at got movies for the video system while some were still in theatres, and always before home video. I remember watching Die Hard and really annoyed at how claustrophoic it felt. The opening scene with Willis in the limo... you see the tip of his nose in the corner of the screen with the limo driver out of focus in the background so they can show the credits on screen. I've been pretty much widescreen ever since.

-paul

 

[Mike Broadman]

Now that I'm getting into David Lynch, I really want to see and own Lost Highway, but it's only available in P&S. Damnnit.

 

[Jason Whyte]

The Sting is not P&S, it is open matte, as is Happy Gilmore. That still doesn't make it right, but there are far worse things than an open matte transfer - at least you are getting all of the image (at least the vast majority of it) that you should have seen, with more top and bottom.

These transfers are NOT open matte, especially Happy Gilmore. They both have exposed image area from 1.85:1, but neither transfer shows the entire 100% filmed negative. The majority of shots in all pan and scan transfers (yes, even scope films) have been altered in some way. They have to, to remove materials such as boom mikes, camera flaps (most present with stedicam) and other assorted wires, hands, etc. I know for a fact that Happy Gilmore's unmasked 1.37:1 frame had many of these.
Not to mention "getting all the image" is incorrect, because you were never supposed to see that image area in the first place.
All of this, of course, is not eligible to Mr. Kubrick's later films, which had different intended ratios for theatrical and video mediums.
(Side note: even 2.40:1 scope films can't escape the occasional boommike. When I saw a repeat screening of "The Royal Tenenbaums" at a terrible theater that shall remain nameless, the image was framed too low, pretty much at the frameline. Not only were there irritating negative flashes throughout, I counted no less than four visible boommikes. This is very similar to a 1.85:1 film being misframed theatrically. )
Jason

 

[Mark-W]

I gotta say that when a film is not available OAR, and
one cannot modify to such (like, sadly, one can still
"zoom" open matte films on widescreen televisions. Yes,
the image quality is not what one would achieve with a
matted OAR presentation, but you still get the film
close to OAR.
And films available in both P&S and OAR on DVD don't bother me...
But, as so many have already said, a film like
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is ruined on DVD
when it is only offered pan-and-scan, losing roughly
45% of the film because of its aproximate 2.35:1 OAR
being hacked. Dare I say, the pan and scan version,
pardon my crudeness, should be renamed
Shitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Mark

 

[Jason Whyte]

As for worst pan and scan transfers....I try not to remember that many, but I would have to say that All The Pretty Horses takes the cake; this has to contain the WORST reframing I've ever seen, from pans that make absolutely no sense (the last shot, for example, pans no less than four times), and a wide two-shot of Matt Damon and Henry Thomas had NEITHER HEAD IN THE FRAME! The telecine simply sat in the centre of the image with Damon's right cheek at the extreme left of the screen, and Thomas' left eye at the extreme right.
2001: A Space Odyssey's old 35mm print master (which I commented on recently in another thread) is also horrific, missing horizontal AND vertical information
The Odd Couple also has a terrible full-frame transfer, mostly because Saks' framing was so busy all the time, the telecine gun was skimming and editing on headache mode. I also saw some of the TV broadcast of Multiplicity, and the exact same thing.
Yikes.....
Jason

 

[Matt Meyer]

"A few good men" is another bad one in P&S due to all of the 3 way conversations in the court room scenes and not being able to see 1 of the people talking.
Matt

 

[Randy A Salas]

To me, it's a tie between Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island.

I vote for the latter. If you listen to the commentary track, Brian Henson actually talks about things that have been cropped out of the picture by P&S.

 

[MatthewA]

The existence of P&S is one great big atrocity. Period.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Not to mention "getting all the image" is incorrect, because you were never supposed to see that image area in the first place.

On a true open matte presentation this is indeed entirely correct, as all that needs doing to present the OAR version is to mask the top and bottom of the frame, so you are not missing anything. Of course, it is pretty rare that every shot in a film can have the mattes removed, so there will be places where side information is lost.

I am wondering why many of the films mentioned here - A Few Good Men, Grease, Muriel's Wedding, A League of Their Own - are being criticized, as they are all available widescreen on DVD.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Sad thing is that MGM has a nice new THX 16x9 WS anamorphic 2.35:1 Chitty Chitty transfer all ready to go...they just didn't use it for this "family" DVD title

 

[Eugene Esterly]

What's your vote for the biggest Pan & Scan only offense in the DVD world? The one that really ticks you off.

The Pan & scan titles which tick me off are Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Cujo, Dr. Giggles & Pumpkinhead (these are the only Pan & scan titles which I own in my collection. I would gladly rebuy these movies if they are re-released in OAR.)

Every title released in MAR when it should be in OAR really ticks me off.

 

[Tim Ke]

the one that stuck out to me that i remember is trying to watch a VHS P&S copy of Catch-22. Couldn't get through 20 minutes of it because of how bad it was...

 

[Paul W]

I'm suprised no one has brought up Christmas Story yet. I consider this to be a tragedy.

 

[DeanR]

Eugene, get the Dr. Giggles widescreen LaserDisc. I bought it used for $5. Well worth it for this guilty pleasure.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Just for the record, roughly 50% of the titles brought up are open-matte(Christmas Story, Happy Gilmore etc etc)

Is this a thread about the fact that it's a shame a movie is only available in P&S or the worst P&S jobs ever done?

 

[Josh Simpson]

I also love Dr. Giggles, and unfortunately it's the only P&S DVD I own because I found it used, and don't plan on seeing another edition of this anytime soon.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the 1978 movie starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton massacring Beatles songs, is one of the few 2.35 movies on my guilty pleasures list that has still not ever had a widescreen video issue. I just broke down and got a used copy of the original Discovision laserdisc release to tide me over until they finally do a DVD of this (please let Anchor Bay do this if MCA has disowned it!); since it's such an old video release I don't think buying it is as bad as buying a newly-issued pan-and-scan version if one existed.
"Up the Academy" is also 2.35, I don't think that even got released at all on laserdisc.