What movie changed your mind first about widescreen vs. pan & scan? (1 Viewer)

[Douglas Kalon]

For me the answer is the original Star Wars.

After seeing it in the theater and coming home and looking at some of the souvenir magazines I immediately saw that the pics had missing picture information than what I remembered seeing in the theater.

I was around 10 years old at the time and even then I saw the difference.

Of course I know that a mag is different than the TV version, but when you see a pic that is nearly the same aspect ratio of a TV screen and compare it against a widescreen theater screen you can notice the difference.

And of course seeing the film years later on TV in the pan and scan version, I already knew that something was missing.

What was the first film that changed your mind about OAR and pan and scan?

 

[JonZ]

Last Action Hero.
In the early 90's,I pulled my mothers Laser Disc player out of the closet and rented some LDs from a local Mom & Pop store.
The difference was very clear.That was the movie that changed my mind becuase it showed me how drastic a difference between the 2 formats.
After that I started my own LD collection.

 

[Kristian]

For me it was The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Without knowing it, I had picked up the widescreen version on VHS. When I saw how much better it looked, I was hooked on widescreen.

 

[Bjorn Olav Nyberg]

For me it was Young guns II.
In my younger years I was pretty obsessed with westerns, westerns was also about the only kind of "grown-up" movies I was allowed to see. So when Young guns II was out, I was getting riled up for weeks before at the chance of seeing it in a cinema.
Some weeks later I see a clip from Young guns II on TV, a clip where Emilio Estevez is shooting out the candles on that seven armed candelabre, but in the TV version I only saw 4 or 5 arms, I distinctly remembered seeing the entire candelabre in the cinema.
That was how I discovered the difference anyway. Price and availability was also an issue for me though, so it has only been in the later years I've had the luxury of availability to become a snob about it

 

[Jefferson]

I guess I became aware of the difference about ten years ago when AMC started showing a lot of comparison shots during one of their film preservation weeks. I remember seeing childhood favorites on laserdisc (Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) in widescreen for the first time and being blown away by the things I hadn't ever seen.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Ben-Hur

I hated this movie for the simple reason of the P&S version being so claustraphobic! When I got to see the LBX version on TV (probably TCM), I was totally convinced that OAR versions were superior.

I'm pretty sure videos of It's A Madx4 World, Lawrence of Arabia, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail helped reinforce my preference for OAR.

 

[LarryDavenport]

I wouldn't say it changed my mind as much as it opened my eyes, but before I had access to a laserdisc player, I attended a midnight "widesreen" festival during the 1988 Seattle Film Festival where they showed The Hidden Fortress, It's Always Fair Weather, The Parallax View, and The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. I had only seen the last two on TV before.
Though all the films were better widescreen than their P&S counterparts, the difference in the Good, Bad, & Ugly was eye opening. Besides the spectacular three-way gun fight at the end, the fact that there were a lot less cuts (do to the P&S jumping from one side of the screen to the other) turned one of my favorite "movies" into one of my favorite "films."
A couple days later I bought a Pioneer laserdisc player, the Criterion The Graduate (great commentary track)< Help, A Hard Days Night, Pink Floyd at Pompeii, and North By Northwest and as soon as it came out, I bought The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly.

 

[Zen Butler]

The Good, Bad and the Ugly on LD

 

[GregoryM]

Two movies, actually. The first was Always, which Steven Spielberg insisted be released only in widescreen. It just looked more movie-like than full screen movies. The second was Silverado, which ends with a gunfight between Kevin Kline and Brian Dennehy. In the theater, the showdown is a single long shot with the two combatants at either end of the screen. The full-screen tape had to cut from one to the other then back again. It ruins the sequence, robbing it of much of the drama and tension.

 

[Bill J]

Lawrence of Arabia

 

[Justin Doring]

Lawrence of Arabia

 

[Scott_MacD]

Star Wars.. After seeing it for many years on television, I saw the SE rereleases. I could have sworn that there was more in the cinema version than on video. A little research later and seeing the widescreen laserdiscs, I quickly replaced my P&S videos with new widescreen versions.

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Blade Runner, one of the first DVD's I bought, a double sided one so I could flip between the two versions and look at the scenes and see just what was missing, made a believer out of me...now I'm waiting on the GOOD one to be released...
G2

 

[Calvin Watts III]

The Empire Strikes Back .
After learning about what I was missing, & watching the WS version,& seeing the hologram of the Imperial Captain scream & disappear after his Star Destroyer was hit by an asteroid...
Well,that did it
Calvin

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I think the very first was "Monster Squad", since it started out letterboxed in 2.35 so the credits would show properly, then zoomed in to pan and scan (the black bars moved up, instead of just cutting out, so you could tell the picture was being zoomed in)- after that I couldn't enjoy the movie knowing how much picture was being cut off. The end credits start rolling when there is still action onscreen, so the picture zoomed out again when they started. I thought why didn't they just leave it that way through the whole movie???

 

[Blaine Skerry]

For me it was ALIEN. After going through two P/S VHS copies, I purchased the CAV box set on laser. I think I became giddy while watching it on LD for the first time. I gave away the VHS copy.

 

[Denward]

I can't point to a specific movie. I don't think anyone should need to see an example to convince them that P&S causes image loss. It should be ridiculously obvious that what you see in a theater is wider than your typical TV screen. The only way to fill your TV screen is to chop off the sides (or stretch the height).

 

[SteveA]

Wild Things. This is one of the first DVDs I ever bought - about 2 years ago. At the time, I preferred pan & scan, but once I flipped this disk over and watched the menage-a-trois scene in all it's widescreen glory, I was converted!

 

[Joe McKeown]

Innerspace.

It didn't change my mind, it was the first movie I saw letterboxed. (and on a very small screen too.)

Once I new what the issue was, I was hooked.

 

[Richard Travale]

I can't say exactly but I have an inclination to say Last of the Mohicans on widescreen VHS.