Well, Cecil invited film fans to rise up in protest, so I suppose I must… I won’t list specific films ruined by Pan and Scan. I don’t need to - I can just use Cecil’s primary example:
<<Let’s take a dialogue close-up in which the actors are at the far right and left of an 1.85:1 frame. If you ran the shot at the original 1.33:1 (assuming this were even an option) you’d lose the close crop and thus some of the scene’s intimacy and intensity. So instead lab magicians cut or pan back and forth between the two actors. Only one appears in the frame at a time, but if you do it right you retain the impact–well, some of the impact–of the theatrical release.>>
Note that the director put both characters on the screen at the same time. He/she didn’t just do a close-up of one of them talking. Why? Presumably because the listener’s reaction is important - sometimes slightly less important, sometimes as important, sometimes MORE important than the talking character. If you can only see one of them, you’re only seeing half the movie - and not necessarily the right half, either (this is why some directors insist on the right to work with the pan and scan technician during the inevitable film to video transfer). The same can be said for any scene with action on both sides of the frame, and any visual scene (landscapes, special effects, etc.).
Now, it’s true that on a small TV (say, anything under 25"), letterboxing is actually worse. Sure, you get everything the director intended up on screen, but everything is so small that you lose almost all the impact.
It’s pretty elitist to say, “That’s too bad. Get a bigger TV,” but (fortunately?) that’s pretty much what happens with DVD. The assumption seems to be that DVD owners have larger TV sets, and studios are releasing most movies on DVD in their original aspect ratio (sometimes with extra resolution for folks with 16x9/HDTV sets). I think that’s great, but then I have a 53" TV. Dual layer DVDs have plenty of storage space - if studios wanted to put full frame and widescreen versions on the same disc, they could. (So far, most have chosen to use the space for extras that help sell more discs to film buffs).
-avi