New Disny Live-Action Titles Coming (1 Viewer)

[Jeffrey Gray]

BTW, the Absent-Minded Professor was definitely made for Academy ratio (or at least shot flat and intended for any ratio between 1.33:1 to 1.85:1, like many flat films of the era), so it's definitely OAR (or at least one of the OARs, if it wasn't intended to be shown in any one ratio).

And kudos to Disney for (apparently) giving us the great (black-and-white) restoration (by Scott MacQueen?) that has appeared on The Disney Channel over the last 5+ years, but has been a no-show on video...now here's hoping that the other unseen-on-video Disney restorations (including the uncut/Technicolor restoration of Treasure Island) make it to DVD soon...

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

I would buy all of these if they are OAR, even though most of them are pretty cheesy. Bits has cover scans of a bunch of them now, but there are no details about aspect ratios that I've found yet. They are priced pretty cheap though.

 

[Darren_Fu]

INCREDIBLE JOURNEY: The original from the 60's
This should be a VAULT Disney Classic
All they release is Homeward Bound and that isn't even any good with its sorry P&S Release!!!!!!!
ARGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!:frowning: :frowning: :frowning:
DF

 

[soop.spoon]

Just because Absent Minded is 4:3 doesn't mean its open-matte... see Blackbeard's Ghost for a pure hack job by Disney.

 

[Jeffrey Gray]

The Absent-Minded Professor was made in 1961...it must have been intended to be shown at anything between 1.33:1 to 1.85:1, so why would they crop it if they could just put it on DVD in open-matte form? (I think there was an argument over this when another 1961 Disney film, Babes in Toyland, came out on DVD...has that ever been figured out yet?)

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

so why would they crop it if they could just put it on DVD in open-matte form?

Because 1.33:1 isn't the theatrical aspect ratio? This is the same for every film matted to 1.85. I'm not sure where your assumption comes from that any aspect ratio can be arbitrarily assigned to these films and have them be the intended theatrical ratio. Films are composed for specific ratios. Deviating from those is not presenting them accurately, and Disney is no exception.

 

[Jeffrey Gray]

Well, during that time, there was no one ratio for flat films. There was 1.33:1, 1.66:1, and 1.85:1...so a lot of 50s/early-60s flat films were probably composed to work in multiple aspect ratios. I dunno, I just find it hard to believe that they'd crop a flat film from 1961 instead of doing it open-matte...

 

[soop.spoon]

I dunno, I just find it hard to believe that they'd crop a flat film from 1961 instead of doing it open-matte...

Hard to believe, I know... but again I'll refer you to Blackbeard's Ghost.

 

[Jeffrey Gray]

Yeah...I can see that it's POSSIBLE that they'd crop these films instead of opening them up...and if that happens, I guess it's no sale for Absent-Minded Professor (and a shame, too...Disney Channel's B/W print was open-matte...)