What's new

Can someone explain this to me? (re:Disney & WS)... (1 Viewer)

todd s

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 8, 1999
Messages
7,132
I just received Oliver & Company today. And I found it funny that they this "family" film is Widescreen only. Yet, a movie like Snow Dogs is pan & scam. Don't get me wrong I am glad that they released it this way. But, this policy makes no sense.

ps-I got my version from a Canadian E-tailer. It makes a big issue about having a french track. Are their any other differences between the US & Canadian releases?
 

John_Berger

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2001
Messages
2,489
My personal opinion is that Disney is and has always been anti-widescreen. They have proven, to me anyway, that they only release widescreen when they need to just to get us to shut up. The fact that they also actively censor their classic animations and movies to appease the politically correct also proves their disrespect for their own works.
When it comes to DVD, particularly in the earlier stages, it was safe to assume that most DVD owners were movie advocates who wanted OAR, so they went to that to avoid the backlash that would have otherwise occurred if they only release in pan-and-scan.
However, now they have their self-proclaimed statements about how the majority of calls that are coming into their hotlines are anti-widescreen because of the dreaded "black bars". That was the excuse that they needed to go back to their anti-widescreen core beliefs; therefore, they plan on making new and future DVDs pan-and-scan only.
That just my two cents. Your mileage may vary. :D
 

RafaelB

Second Unit
Joined
May 10, 2001
Messages
447
I don't necessarily agree that Disney is anti-widescreen. Ever since Laserdisc, they were the ones to release classic animation in it's OAR and they have stuck to that on DVD (at least on the animation front) for the most part. I remember in the beginning, the big deal was them not utilising 16x9.
I think that they just take special care about the animated films more than they do about the recent live-action fare.
All IMO.:D
Rafael
 

Randy A Salas

Screenwriter
Joined
Apr 25, 2002
Messages
1,348
I found it funny that they this "family" film is Widescreen only. Yet, a movie like Snow Dogs is pan & scam
You think that's bad. You should hear them try to explain why Three Men and a Baby is widescreen, while Three Men and a Little Lady, released the same day, is P&S. Or why White Fang is P&S with two-channel sound, while White Fang 2--again, released the same day--is anamorphic widescreen with DD 5.1 audio.
:rolleyes
 

Ken_McAlinden

Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2001
Messages
6,241
Location
Livonia, MI USA
Real Name
Kenneth McAlinden
There is no real rule of thumb, but they seem to be more worried about the new release shopper not liking widescreen than the catalog title shopper.

I would certainly not characterize Disney as anti-widescreen from the beginning. They experimented with non-OAR early on some family titles, but have been predominantly widescreen with very little pan & scan until recently. Their biggest early sins were support for DIVX (which was almost all pan & scan) and lack of anamorphic enhancement prior to sometime around when Shakespeare in Love was released.

Regards,
 

John_Berger

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2001
Messages
2,489
I would certainly not characterize Disney as anti-widescreen from the beginning. They experimented with non-OAR early on some family titles, but have been predominantly widescreen with very little pan & scan until recently.
Sorry. I was thinking back to their VHS days.
For example, the one instance where I am firmly convinced that Disney is anti-widescreen was their first real widescreen VHS release, which was the live action "The Jungle Book." Nothing against the movie, but Disney has other movies that at the time were far more in need of a widescreen release, like "The Black Hole", "The Three Musketeers", or even "The Rocketeer".
I cannot believe that they actually expected "The Jungle Book" to be a high-demand widescreen release, which leads me to believe that they wanted an excuse to back off the widescreen expectation and say, just like they're doing now, that people don't want widescreen Disney movies.
Now they finally have their excuse to revert to pan-and-scan.
As far as I'm concerned, the fact that they're not at least doing the right thing by offering a dual-format disc or a 2-DVD set with one version on each (aka "Shrek" or I believe "A Bug's Life") and instead going to pan-and-scan is only more support for my anti-widescreen theory. I also recall their big bitch-and-moan session when Pixar said that they wanted "A Bug's Life" to only be widescreen and Disney basically went ballistic.
Again, that's how I see it. Disagreements are expected. :)
 

DaViD Boulet

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 24, 1999
Messages
8,826
I know everyone in this thread has called and emailed Disney :) to express your displeasure, so I won't repeat that plea here...
Now you can also contact Walmart if you haven't already:
http://161.165.200.61/wmstore/wmstores/HomePage.jsp
(click on "contact us" at the bottom and then click on on-line form)
Go for it folks. They have a nice little 1-800 number too. Remember, this whole P/S Disney thing is because of 2 things:
1. consumers calling and complaing about "black bars" to Disney
2. Walmart told the studios they want P/S bcs their customers "hate the black bars".
go and let your voice or reason be heard...
-dave
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Forum statistics

Threads
356,814
Messages
5,123,672
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top