Biggest Pan & Scan Atrocity? (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

In the case of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the atrocity is made worse by the fact that a (non-anamorphic) widescreen master *was already available* at the time, and it went unused due to the "family title = full screen at all costs" BS.

Actually, they have a new WS THX certified *16x9 anamorphic* master.

 

[Robert_eb]

The title of the thread makes no mention of Biggest Pan & Scan Atrocity on dvd.

It states "Biggest Pan & Scan Atrocity".

I think The Mission and Once Upon A Time In The West would qualify for that.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. That movie used the whole width of the frame. The P&S often leaves the speaker off camera.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

My thought was that virtually *every* widescreen film has been released in P/S format at one point or another...be it on broadcast TV, Cable, VHS whatever. So in that sense it's not a very useful discussion to leave the gate wide open as you could basically say that all 2.35:1 or wider scope films have been chopped and cropped and compromised artistically (the real argument becoming which films made better artistic use of the aspect ratio and therefore were "more compromised" than others)...so it might have more relevance to discuss those compromises that affect us *now*.

 

[JohnnyHK]

For what it's worth, I did intend the thread to address titles that are only available P&S.
Now knowing that The Sting is at least open matte, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is now tops on my list. I love the film and I can't even bring myself to watch it all hacked to pieces.

 

[Nathan_R]

Christmas Vacation.
The dvd spoils the season.

Best regards,
~~Nathan

 

[Stan Rozenfeld]

How about Chariots of Fire? That's a widescreen film, but it's only available as Pan and Scan.

 

[Craig Robertson]

as Patrick mentioned way back on page one of this thread, the P&S release of Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang is atrocious.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I don't understand why they released "A Fish Called Wanda" in widescreen but didn't release "Fierce Creatures" in widescreen also.

A Fish Called Wanda is owned by MGM and they did a dual-sided (P&S on one side, matted 1.85:1 widescreen on the other). Universal released Fierce Creatures in 1997 or 1998, which is why it's not OAR.

DVD isn't controlled by one studio.

 

[GuruAskew]

I think you could probably convert the hardest of the die-hard Joe Six Packs by showing them a widescreen vs. pan & scan comparison of the "dropping off or picking up?" scene in "Ghostbusters".

 

[Aaron Cohen]

When I saw the Muppet Treasure Island dvd sitting on the store shelves I jumped for joy. When I picked it up and saw the word fullscreen on the back I wept......makes me sick!

Kids don't give a damn if the movie has "evil black bars", it's the stupid parents that think their kids don't want to see it. Utter rubbish. The muppets aren't exactly a hot property with kids these days but us older people certainly have very fond memories of the muppet films. What crap.

 

[Randy_M]

My vote is for The Sting , which I bought before I knew what widescreen was. I now call this disk The Stink

 

[Patrick TX]

My vote has to be Snow Dogs. How can a recent movie be only released in P&S? Gimme a break.