If you have only seen a movie in pan and scan, do you fell like you have really seen the movie?
I do not.
How about you?
It depends on the severity of the panning and scanning. Wild Things is so bad that it looks like you’re watching someone play Doom.
Oh. The OP is one of those people.
Sure, I’ve seen it. I watch widescreen versions when I can, but I don’t think people are philstines for preferring pan and scan.
I’M one of *those * people, too. No, you have not watched it. Sometimes, the effect the director was trying for in the blocking is completely undone by that Pan and Scan crap.
You’re damn right I’ve seen the movie if I’ve seen it in Pan and Scan. Granted, I generally pick up the widescreen releases these days, but never once have I ever derived any more enjoyment from the wider aspect ratio than I did when watching it in 4:3.
Honestly, I don’t think people would (in most case) enjoy a movie any less if they didn’t realize they weren’t viewing the movie in its non-native format. Speaking of which, I wonder how many people realize that the 4:3 version of Terminator 2 actually shows more of the movie, and is the director’s preferred vision?
It’s all about the intent of the director. The 4:3 aspect ratio isn’t evil if it was filmed that way. But if a movie was filmed in widescreen but is viewed at the wrong ratio, then yeah, it sucks donkey balls. Try watching LOTR in 4:3 aspect ratio. The eyes will hurt and the goggles, they do nothing.
You have a very incomplete understanding of “shows more”. Cameron does shoot his films with the framing set so that they can open up the matting and have it in 4:3. The problem is that they do all of the effects at the theatrical aspect ratio and don’t redo them for home release. So all of the effects shots (and there are a lot in Terminator 2) in the 4:3 version are pan and scanned.
See, I personally think this viewpoint is way overblown. Not for you, perhaps, but the public at large has simply bought into the hyperbole, without really being critical of the entire issue.
I honestly don’t think people would think less of pan and scans if they weren’t made aware that they were not watching the film in its original aspect ratio.
The Die Hard: 5-Star Edition DVD has an excellent special feature describing pan-and-scan and why it sucks.
That said, many movies utilize what’s called “open matte” – meaning, they are filmed originally in fullscreen (4:3) and later block out the top & bottom to achieve 16:9 widescreen. So, in these cases, the fullscreen version actually does show more information than the widescreen version.
A skilled director (such as Cameron) will shoot a movie that looks good in both widescreen & fullscreen, but most of the time that extra space is just that – extra wasted space. Revealing the full frame also can reveal goofs like boom mikes & camera cables, which would not be visible in widescreen.
Conversely, there have been some films originally shot in 4:3 (especially made-for-TV movies and documentaries) which were artificially cropped for widescreen DVD, and this can be equally heinous – for instance, The Black Sabbath Story was cropped on DVD which resulted in many shots of Ozzy Osbourne’s head lopped off!
I ordinarily won’t even watch a movie on TV if it’s one I really want to see (obvious exception, if it’s appearing on Turner Classic Movies). Counter-intuitive? I don’t think so. If I really want to see it, I’d like to actually see it. All of it. And properly. And when you mix pan and scan, commercial breaks and “formatting for time and content” (i.e. cutting a bunch of stuff out), I’m not seeing all of it.
If a movie is just starting, AND I don’t really care to see it all that much (not that I don’t want to, just that it’s not on my hypothetical list of “Make an effort to watch this movie sometime”), AND there’s nothing better on, I’ll watch it. And I count that as “having seen the movie,” inasmuch as I probably won’t intentionally make an effort to watch it again, unless it was better than I expected.
The only movies that I think are acceptable in Pan and Scan are the computer animated films. Many of them are changed so that things fit into the middle better.
Other than that, it does not count.
Pan and scan is the tool of the Devil.
Did you really see Starry Night if you only saw a poster of it?
Did you really read The Odyssey if you only read a translation?
All of those questions are going to have different answers for different people, depending on what they want to get out of it. If you mostly consider movies a plot-delivery system, then pan-and-scan probably won’t bug you much. Depending on how much more you want out of them, you’ll settle for different compromises: no pan-and-scan, not on DVD, not on anything other than HD, nothing other than a theatrical presentation.
(Me? Yeah, I’ve seen the movie, but I’d acknowledge that it’s hardly an ideal situation and unless I hated it I’d be open to seeing a better presentation.)
A better analogy would be if you only saw the middle section of it, not the top and bottom.
Anyhoo, I think it depends on the movie- if you’re watching some Jean Claude Van-Damme movie, did you miss anything- probably not. But that TCM progarm on the subject shows clearly on epics like Gigi, Seven Brides, Ben-Hur and
Lawrence of Arabia you absolutely miss out on key aspects of the movie.
I don’t understand why anyone, if given a choice, would prefer a pan and a scan movie? The only reason I’ve ever seen it doesn’t take up the full screen, which I don’t see why that’s a problem. The only exception would be if you’re watching on a set smaller than 25"- you don’t want to have to strain your eyes to watch a movie, for sure.
Hardly – the amount of non-FX shots far outnumber those with FX. Plus Cameron has gone on record as stating that he prefers the 4:3 versions.
Of course you’ve seen the movie. You can discuss the plot, the characterizations, and just about everything else. You’ll be missing some of the peripherials, but nothing all that important.
I prefer widescreen, of course, but pan and scan is still the movie. I’ve only seen one movie where the pan and scan hurt it (Jacques Tati’s Playtimd), but it wouldn’t have been much better on a TV screen in letterboxing (since everything would have been smaller). Since it was filmed in 70 mm, you need to see it projected.
How do you know if you’ve seen it in pan and scan?
Well, if you’re watching the art of the film, yes it does matter. I’d say that you missed a lot of what makes, for example, Lawrence of Arabia great if you only see the middle part.
I don’t think pan and scan is inherently evil, but even if it doesn’t affect the plot, if you’re dealing with a scene that uses the whole width of the screen, it can be detrimental (such as having one person on either end–that doesn’t do well under cropping)
Nope, no butcher-y “pan and scam” for me, thank you, widescreen/letterboxed all the way…
and I’m even watching it on a mere 20" TV, I like seeing the film the aspect ratio the director wanted it to be seen in