Does anyone here enjoy the films themselves? (1 Viewer)

[Bob Turnbull]

And if people continue to buy the MAR versions of these films, you'll probably never find out what you're missing.

I think that's the main point. Yes, the big Corporations don't really care whether you personally plunk your money down. But they do care when lots of people don't plunk their money down. So if we all care about getting them to notice that MAR versions aren't what we want, shouldn't we all contribute to that end? Or do we assume that everybody else will take care of that for us?

I don't mean to be on a high horse or anything (I admit to probably not being 100% consistent across all my belief sets either), but if MAR versions continue to get bought and the best we can do is "hope" they release something better, should we really be surprised when they don't?

 

[Shad R]

yea, I'll give anything a chance. I even gave Electra a chance...man oh man...that's about 100 minutes I want back...I would have turned it off if I didn't have friends over...
anyway...
OAR is the way to go. I only have two movies that are not OAR, both accidental buys. OH well, what can ya do?

 

[JohnMor]

Okay, I'm defintely in the OAR camp, but I have to jump in with a couple of brief comments:



As has been said, many of us fell in love with most classic movies on TV and video. OAR *is* the way to go, but it doesn't really have anything to do with whether you love a film or not.

As far as not wanting to watch or own a film except as "the filmakers intended it", that can be a slippery slope. Most classic filmakers didn't intend us to watch a movie out of order or start and stop it at will, but I wouldn't want to see the removal of chapter stops and disabling of the fastforward and rewind buttons. So there is always somewhat of a compromise between filmakers' intentions and audience preference.

 

[rich_d]

Filmmakers also don't intend you to go to the men's room during theatre screenings either. Point is that that's not the point. Filmmakers intentions begin and end on what they present to the audience not what we do with it.

 

[JohnMor]

Really? It never occurred to me why there were no men's rooms in movie theaters or why longer movies never had intermissions. But now I know.

 

[george kaplan]

I'm not all sure that it's true that we're outnumbered. As Rich points out, widescreen dvds routinely outsell their pan & scan counterparts.

However, it might be true that we're in the minority. But if so, then the following is also true:

On average, we buy a hell of a lot more dvds. Those people at your work who hate widescreen - how many dvds do they buy on average per month? How many do you?

And we're much more passionate. Most of us won't buy a pan & scan dvd if that's all that's available. But lots of dvds have come out only in widescreen and sold like gangbusters. Some of the people might have prefered a pan & scan version, but they still bought the widescreen when that was all that was available.

Bottom line: in terms of sales, even we are a minority of people, we're a majority of sales, and any dvd company that puts out pan & scan only product is going to sell less than any company that puts out OAR only product.

 

[george kaplan]

And John,

I'm not doubting your statement about the people you know, but no one in my family or that I know at work HATES widescreen or even dislikes it.

I've had lots of people from work over to watch movies. Many have been older ones that are 1.33:1, but on my tv set have black bars on the sides. Others have been 2:35:1 that on my tv set have black bars on the top and bottom. Not a single person has ever even commented on it, much less complained about it.

In other words, if you were to take a truly random sample of the entire population, I suspect that animosity towards widescreen would be a lot less prevalent than you think.

 

[JohnMor]

Hey, I am in no way defending MAR, just calling some things as I've seen them in my experience. According to Billboard, Variety & Entertainment Weekly, Widescreen doesn't outsell P&S by much. They are almost always neck and neck per title. In fact this week Ladder 49 P&S is outselling WS. I'd be very happy to never see another P&S offered.


Unfortunately, none of those kind of DVD buyers view their DVDs as investments. That's a home theater lover's view, not the view of someone who just wants to watch You Light Up My Life or Mean Girls.

And, George, you're right that I buy many more DVDs than my co-workers and family members, but not more than all of them combined. (Although some times I feel like it looking at my shelves.) And it's possible that as more and more huge screen & 16X9 TVs are sold that WS will be less of an issue for people like my brother (he's the most vocal one I know about "hating those black bars.")

 

[rich_d]

No. It would be fortunate if everyone knew that DVDs are not an investment. Because they are not and I think that most HT DVD purchasers realize that.

The point is that no one wants to see the things they buy worth less than a similar item.

New legitimate R1 copies of The Incredibles (Widescreen) can be had on Amazon Marketplace starting at 14.70. Their Foolscreen counterparts starting at 12.94.

The marketplace has spoken.

 

[Dane Marvin]

I'm weird when I buy a DVD; I gotta have it all. I rarely buy a DVD if it isn't absolutely loaded with extras and equipped with features like anamorphic widescreen and DTS -- even though I don't have the hardware yet to exploit these to their fullest extent. The last time I didn't do this was with "Eternal Sunshine..." (which had a good number of features on its single-disc release), and I got burned. This leaves my collection with a ton of Warner Bros. Two-Disc releases, Criterion Collection titles, box sets & and the like. 52 out of the 132 titles in my collection are blind buys. There are around 15 that I still haven't watched yet and am waiting for a rainy day ("Bringing Up Baby", for instance). I don't blind buy something without having heard rave reviews over it, but I'll admit that I sometimes enjoy extra features as much as the films themselves. Case in point: "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn. Great & fun early Technicolor film. Beautiful restoration work. But I loved the doc about Technicolor as much as the film itself. In fact, I've watched it more than the feature.

 

[Edwin-S]

If he doesn't like black bars now then he is really going to be pissed when he upgrades to a 16 X 9 set. Not only will he be seeing only 2/3 of the picture due to P&S, but he will have to watch that 2/3 of a movie with big fat vertical black bars. Unless of course he stretches the picture and then the actors will all look like characters from a Jack Kirby MARVEL comic book.

 

[Anthony Neilson]

Funnily enough, last night I decided to watch an R2 MGM copy of EXODUS. It was actually on TV a week ago, where it would have been routinely chopped down from 2.35 :1 to 1.85 :1 but, having the DVD, I ignored this.

The EXODUS dvd is one of the WORST I have EVER seen. It is an absolute disgrace that MGM released it in this condition. The print is badly damaged, the transfer is absolutely dismal and the film is non-anamorphic.

I gave up a third of the way through, wishing that I had had the foresight to tape it from the televison. I'm sorry but I would rather have watched this film cropped and in decent condition than watch this travesty of a dvd.

I'm not using that as the basis of any argument, so please don't infer one. The ideal situation is that EXODUS had been remastered and presented in its OAR, in an anamorphic transfer. But it raises, for me, these two questions /comments :

a) If forced to choose between a terrible transfer in OAR, or a cropped but flawless print, which provides the better viewing experience ?

b) Having a 16 : 9 TV, it is ALMOST as much of a deal breaker for me that a 2.35 film is non-anamorphic. I feel like I'm not seeing the film in its OAR, even though I am.

 

[Simon Howson]

I agree with you that the DVD is a very poor transfer. I still recommend you watch it though...

The film was photographed in Super Panavision 70, I have the region 1 DVD copy that looks like it was from a (faded) 35mm reduction print. The aspect ratio looks about right - for a transfer made from such a print.

However! The film was directed by Otto Preminger who is one of the very best widescreen directors of all time. Films like Carmen Jones, Bonjour Tristesse, River of No Return, Bunny Lake Is Missing, and The Cardinal are some of the best widescreen films one will ever see. So without hesitation I would say that the current DVD of Exodus is far superior to any pan and scan copy that could ever be produced! Even taking into account the fact the current DVD is one horrible transfer.

Ideally I would want a new DVD made from restored 65mm/70mm elements, with the correct 2.21:1 aspect ratio. However that seems unlikely considering it wasn't a very popular film. If it was ever reissued from a restored print in pan and scan (God help us), I would not buy it, because that wouldn't actually amount to a proper restoration.

I think film restoration these days should imply restoring the actual film elements, but also the production of an original aspect ratio high definition video transfer in order to make the film easily available in high quality.

 

[Eric Peterson]

I haven't seen this movie, but it's on my list. That said, if I had to make the decision, I would take the terribly transferred OAR disc ten times out of ten. As I stated in an earlier post, I find cropped movies impossible to watch, and haven't watched one for 8+ years. Even catching part of one on TV makes me turn in horror.

 

[Anthony Neilson]

Another point : a friend of mine made a film in the 2.35:1 ratio but protected for 1.85 (a condition of the financiers,who had to tie-in a television broadcast).

When the film went to DVD, it was presented in open matte. No information was lost but it was not presented the way she shot it. She wasn't consulted by the studio about this.

She was understandably pissed off but, frankly, the film - whilst good - is unlikely to ever be released in another format. It received a very limited cinema release so very few people would necessarily know that the original ratio was different. As appalled as she was by that decision, she'd probably prefer that people see the open matte version rather than not at all.

So should she advise people not to watch her film ? Even if she knows that the only way it's ever likely to GET a proper release is if it gets popular enough for people to demand one. No viewers = no demand = no OAR release.

 

[JonZ]

If a DVD is released in pan & scan, I wont buy it, but I wont support P&Sing DVDs - we believe in OAR.

However I have no problem watching a VHS copy Ive had for years if its the only way for me to watch it.

If I want to watch Dont Be A Menace To South Central, Up In Smoke,Hannibal or whatver else,I have the VHS. Not every film I may have the itch to watch sometime in the next few years warrants a DVD purchase.

I just dont have the money to watch everything on DVD. And I dont rent.

Most of my 500 DVDs are "must haves",about 85%. The titles I listd above arent, but I still may want to watch something I havent seen in awhile every now and then.

I just dont believe in "If I cant watch it on DVD, then I wont watch it". To me thats silly. Of course I want to watch my films with the best video and audio presentation, but oh well.For years I watched crappy old copies of some of my favorite films, the old 70's Shaw Bros martial arts films. Terrible audio and video, dubbed and P&Sed. Sure it sucked but my enjoyment of the films was more important to me.(THe R3 Celestial Releases have been a Godsend)

I been a OAR advocate for over a decade, since I discovered the remastered letterboxed LDs in the early 90s and Ive done plenty of OAR preaching over the years. It would be nice if I could watch everything I wanted that way, but sometimes in life you just have to settle, you know.

Cable needs to bring in more HD channels. I only have 3 movie HD movie channels at the moment.I have noticed theyre playing more older films, as well as stuff you wouldnt expect to be in HD on their HD channels recently which is nice.

 

[Simon Howson]

In my opinion if she protected for 1.85:1 then she didn't really make a film in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

 

[Jon Martin]

I don't think they think that way. If a certain title doesn't sell, they blame it on the film, not on the way they released it. They won't remaster it to rerelease it again.

Look at the VHS industry, all the minor films that got released in the early days, never to be rereleased again. There was no interest, so the studios felt no need to revisit them. The studio just thought that no one was interested in the title.

But, if a title turns out to be popular, sell a lot of copies, the studio immediately thinks "How can we get them to buy it again? How about widescreen with extras!". Like the recent KARATE KID release.

Look at OFFICE SPACE. A film that bombed in theatres and became huge on video. Now, they are working on a special edition. If the film hadn't done well in theatres, or on video, it would have disappeared.

Or the recent MGM or Warner chats. Certain titles are asked about and they answered they aren't in the works because they aren't popular enough.

 

[JohnMor]

I didn't phrase as well as you did, but that's what I meant to say. He'll see how good looking a proper anamorphic WS DVD would look, it would "fill up" his screen, and he would no longer have a problem with it. But, hey, in his defense, at least he's not one of the many people I've met who refuse to watch B&W films.

 

[rich_d]

I wondered about that too Simon.

Anthony,

Are you sure that she didn't shoot in a 1.85:1 ratio to "protect" for a likely TV presentation?

For example, David Lynch's film Mulholland Dr. was originally planned as a TV project. He shot for a 1.85:1 film presentation and protected for the initial TV presentation by centering the action to one side during scenes. He didn't vary the prominent side much either but I forget off hand whether it was the right or left side.

He was asked about whether he did this to eliminate or reduce pan & scanning of his film and ... I don't remember what his answer was.

I don't understand this process of "protection" so if we have some knowledgeable folks around I'd love to learn more.

Btw, (and this might start some trouble) I'm not really a big fan of the 2.35:1 ratio. Certainly it has its place in films (Lawrence of Arabia certainly comes to mind) but I think it's over-used. I agree with Fritz Lang who said (I'm paraphrasing, don't remember the exact quote) that 2.35:1 was good for parades, trains and funerals.

For example, Jackson's LOTR films would have benefited from a 1.85:1 ratio as the films (in my view) were more about the majesty of height than width/range. Also, I thought all the cut off tops of actor's heads (in close-up) was noticeably distracting.