Dear UNIVERSAL... If You Really Need To Go Full-Screen Crazy... (1 Viewer)

[Dick]

Word is you are about to release a bunch of very desirable titles in pan-and-scan format at a low (i.e. Wal-Mart-friendly) price, including COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT and CHARLY VARRICK.

Well, almost no one here, out of many thousands, will be buying those. Multiply us by those belonging to other forums and those who much more quietly abhor the emasculation of art. COLOSSUS, especially, relies upon its entire 2.35:1 frame for providing details. I've seen a pan-and-scan version of this. It is worse than horrible, it is a travesty! If you really feel the need to go full-screen crazy, why not release these :

TARANTULA
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN
THIS ISLAND EARTH
NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AND EVEN BREAK
IF I HAD A MILLION
DOUBLE INDEMNITY

and the list goes on and on...
PLEASE RECONSIDER PRESENTING ALL YOUR FILMS IN OAR, or at least in both OAR and widescreen on separate layers. Don't shoot yourselves in the foot the way Columbia and Disney do.

Damn, we were starting to believe you people were coming around, too. Why not prove us right?

 

[Bruce Morrison]

Damn - I was looking forward to Charley Varrick (it's been on my list of wants for some time), but if it's going to be a full-screen travesty, there's no way I'll buy it.

 

[Bruce Morrison]

Just clinging to a ray of hope - I'm wondering whether Charley Varrick might have been filmed in Academy ratio (i.e. 'open-matte') and then matted off at the top and bottom for showing in the cinema. This was true of a number of films made in the 70's such as 'The Sting', 'Shampoo' and 'Coma' (just to name a few examples off the top of my head).

If this is the case, issuing it in full-screen, while still very undesirable, wouldn't be a total disaster. The image wouldn't be cropped at the sides, so, with a wide-screen TV, it could be watched in zoom mode (called 'cinema' mode on my Toshiba TV) to replicate the theatrical aspect ratio. Of course it wouldn't be as good as an anamorphic presentation, but it would still be better than nothing.

Can anyone confirm whether Charley Varrick was shot open-matte or hard-matte?

 

[Dick]

Well, Charly Varrick may have been filmed flat, but COLOSSUS was most definitely 2.35:1. The laser disc preserved this. It is important to preserve the film's composition as there are computer monitors everywhere and people on both left and right sides of the frame and much going on across the entire width. Cropping this is like cropping BEN HUR in terms of what information is lost. Universal will never redeem itself in my eyes if they release this pan and scan.

 

[Charles_Y]

Anyone think it would be worth starting a petition for Colossus as was done for Charly?

I don't know if the effort will pay off, but I would feel happier knowing I participated in an effort to redress a clearly inane release.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

This is a 1.85 film - I ran it theatrically two months ago.

 

[SteveK]

Without commenting about these particular films, I just cannot understand why studios continue to go down the "fullframe only" path. Widescreen continues to outsell P&S by a wide margin on most titles, yet studios continue to think that everybody wants "fullframe". At the very least, do two-sided discs and offer both options. Is that really so difficult?

Steve K.