I hate it when you push menu and this big animation comes up to get you to the index. It was cool the first time, now just take me to the menu, don’t make me wait 15 seconds so I can watch some cartoon.
Schoolhouse Rock and The Simpsons Season 2 both do that–really annoying.
“People may prefer pan& scan, but they are not getting a better picture, or a just-as-good picture; they are getting an inferior picture.”
Nonsense. If the widescreen version is so small that you can barely make out what’ s going on then that becomes inferior. If the bars are a distraction and impede viewing pleasure, for a particular viewer, that is inferior. It is a matter of personal preference. You are just giving your personal subjective preferences an objective basis that they don’t have.
Nonsense back atcha. You might as well make the same objections in favor of dubbing versus subtitles (I don’t wanna read at the movies!), and they would be just as wrong.
Pan and scan is inferior to widescreen because it slices off a full third of the picture. That is an objective basis. If the widescreen black bars are genuinely causing you to get too small a picture on your set, then I suggest going to your local electronics retailer and buying a bigger TV.
Watching a widescreen epic like Lawrence of Arabia in pan and scan is nothing less than a sin against art.
I am not going to continue with this tedious discussion. The bottom line is that people will want to watch whatever format gives them maximum viewing pleasure given their equipment and their tastes. There is no other basis for calling a particular format superior or inferior.
But CyberPundit! Isn’t it reassuring to find that a substantial number of those combating ignorance don’t care that others prefer fullscreen, and have valid reasons? Study them! It’s live ignorance in flower! Solid, adamant ignorance, not just the wishy-washy, laughable kind coming from uneducated hicks, but willful ignorance seeking to strike down rival opinion!
Of course . . . there are – you know – reasons for subtitles. Like: Some people have poor hearing. And sometimes one can’t make out what’s being said. And it’s a useful way to study foreign languages. But to the truly, consumate, ignorant person these are just . . . excuses!!
ENJOY IGNORANCE TODAY!
People may watch fullscreen until their eyes bubble, but I don’t want their embrace of an inferior screen aspect to screw up the market demand for widescreen.
Where does this come from? Both CyberPundit and I favor subtitles over dubbing of foreign language films.
I’m right there with you, gobear.
I’ve heard people at Blockbuster complaining to the clerks about getting widescreen versions of movies…complaining that the top and bottom of the picture were cut off. Blame some of it on sheer ignorance. I know some people understand the difference and just prefer pan & scan, but there are still some who cannot comprehend what “widescreen” means.
Press “menu” for the latter and the chapter up button for the former. Speaking of the former, I’m glad Disney allows you to skip the previews at the start-I heard they didn’t at one time.
I hate when the DVD maker blocks the switch-audio button just for the hell of it. I want to be able to switch between the commentary and the real audio without going through three-deep special features menus.
Another pet peeve is not labeling the discs in box sets well. IIRC, the Buffy DVD’s don’t even have the episode titles that are contained within. You can’t tell what disc to put in without reading the booklet.
Am I the only person who wants the 2 hours of my life back that I’ve wasted reading the SAME FRIGGING FBI/INTERPOL WARNING? Can’t they figure out a way to recognize that the warning has been viewed in that player and skip it?
Mojo–do you have the Fight Club SE (Which the Fox bastards don’t even make anymore)? They actually have a parody FBI warning when you load it.
And please, people. Do NOT let anyone con you about widescreen. Don’t be mad at movies for being too big for your TV, be mad at TV for being too small for movies (of course, HDTV will fix that). Pan and Scan is WRONG. Just check out this link.
Yeah. on almost everyone of the DVD’s that have those long menuy movies, like Monsters Inc. for instance, you can hit the chapter forward button to skip straight to the menu.
As far as Pan and Scan vs. Widescreen, I prefer widescreen by far, but I do like having the P/S version on the cartoon discs too. Like Jimmy Neutron and Monsters Inc. etc… When my little girl watches them she likes the whole screen full. They are her movies so who am I to fight her on it.
One thing about the site mentioned by ElwoodCuse is that it scales the widescreen images to be larger than the “full screen” images. Although that’s technically accurate, widescreen images are smaller on a standard TV.
There are also films that can be displayed in open-matte format, showing more picture in a “full screen” version. The site below has examples of both types, and the images are sized as they would be on a standard TV set. But scroll down to the bottom to see why open-matte isn’t a good thing, either.
The reason I do not like pan and Scan is the damned panning!!! There is movement on screen where there shouldn’t, it ruins the mood and feeling of a scene. The elevator scene in Pulp Fiction is a prime example!.
That being said I agree the FBI warning should be put at the end of the feature not in the begining.
I’m one of those people who is more likely to buy a regular release than an special edition. I know there are people out there who swoon over comentary tracks, but I never listen to them. Maybe I would have gotten more out of renting Donnie Darko had I listened to the director’s comentary, but the way I look at it, if he or she has to spend the whole movie explaining to people what they were doing in order for viewers to get it, then they didn’t really acomplish what they claim they did. And if anyone can help me figure out how to keep the director from drowning out the alternative endings to Suicide Kings I’d be grateful. He babbles through them so much louder than the scenes I can’t even make out the differences in dialogue.
Anyway, as long as a DVD has these things on it, I’m happy:
- the trailer(TV series on DVD should have the commercials somewhere)
- deleted scenes
- subtitles in English
I might occasionally watch the “making of” specials, like on LOTR or my X-Files sets, but that’s about it.
My biggest pet peeve is that some of the deleted scenes/“extra footage” are so difficult to find on some DVDs. I got the X-Files movie in April, and I’ve yet to find the promised “extra footage” on it, and then there’s Harry Potter- a friend and I resorted to getting instuctions off of an easter egg site, and it still took over 30 minutes to access the scenes.
Those goddamn easter eggs bug the living crap out of me. Just put the material on a menu. It’s not fun to have to find out about this stuff on a website, nor is it fun to have to go through all this rigamarole whenever I want to look at it.
I have a really petty peeve about DVDs that I’ve never seen mentioned elsewhere: chapter lists.
See, sometimes you just want to jump to your favorite scene. And if you’re like me, you don’t want to bother going to the “Chapter Search” menu, you’d rather just start the movie and skip to the part you want.
Now, pretty much all DVD producers put a chapter list in an insert in the DVD case, which can help you jump right to the scene you want. It would sure help if they put the list of chapters on, say, the back cover of the booklet. All too often, they print the chapter list somewhere inside the booklet and put promotional photos on the back cover. Hell, I know what movie I’m watching, so I don’t need those photos, just tell me the chapters! I prefer it when I don’t have to take the booklet out of the case and flip through it to find the chapter list.
About widescreen versus fullscreen: I’m all for widescreen. The only fullscreen versions I can support are those such as A Bug’s Life, where the filmmakers went back and rearranged digital elements, opened the frame, or used other tricks to make sure everything you were supposed to see was still in the frame. They did a hell of a job. Apart from that, I refuse to rent or buy fullscreen DVDs. Many video stores near me stock only the fullscreen version of certain movies, which means there are some movies I won’t be seeing at all in the near future, apparently.
If you want an example of how changing a movie from widescreen to fullscreen can change the whole feel of the movie, watch the scene in Alien 3 where the alien is menacing Ripley up close. In widescreen, you get the whole picture, and you cringe. In fullscreen, it cuts back and forth several times and just breaks up the whole scene.
I could have sworn there was an option for commentary off and on right on the screen for the alternate endings, but if I’m not remembering correctly jut hit the audio button on your remote.
Re: different versions.
I don’t care much about the extra features. Sure, some may be interesting, but as long as it is the actual movie the director intended and a good quality tranfer, I’m good to go. Unfortunately, what happens is that the first release comes off an old print and then the Special Edition is remastered/restored. So, to get the best quality, you have to pony up again.
Of course, there is the opposite problem. From what I understand (reading several reviews on DVD talk/review sites), the Special Editions for Reservoir Dogs and True Romance are of a lesser quality print-wise than the original. Now, these are two movies I would like to get the bonus features. To do so, it seems like I will have to settle for a second-rate print. Seems counterintuitive, but it does happen.
And I have a problem many of you may not have. Most of the movies I like are made in Hong Kong. I love HK action/drama; kung-fu; wire-fu; Category III, etc. How do I know which version is the best for a given title?
For example, The New Legend of Shaolin has been released by at least three different labels. In these instances, typically, one version is a okay print (but with the subtitles burnt in [bad]); one looks like they picked the print out of the garbage can (but at least the subtitles are removable); and yet another version is the full deal: excellent print, restored sound, choice of 6 removable subtitle languages, etc…
It takes a bit of detective work to make sure you get the best one. But of course, you will have already bought a crappy version before the excellect version comes out. Pony up again.
Now, here is a real pet peeve of mine. DISNEY/MIRAMAX/BUENA VISTA is releasing bastardized versions of Hong Kong movies in the U.S. They chop them up, cut scenes, add rap music or other soundtrack, and then rename them.
So, My Father is a Hero becomes The Enforcer. Bodyguard from Beijing becomes The Defender etc etc etc.And these movies have been cut. (The attitute that these movies are “too Chinese” with their original titles is extrememly patronizing. “The Enforcer” sounds like some Steven Segal reject.)
Did you see Iron Monkey? Well, if you saw the version released here in the States, you saw one that was 11 minutes shorter and missing a fight scene. To make matters worse, the powers at Disney are seeking to restrict the sale of all other versions of these movies in the U.S. (Exclusive distribution rights).
I am getting these movies direct from Hong Kong, and probably the print quality is not as good. I’m sure Disney is putting an effort into cleaning them up and giving them the full Dolby treatment, but fans like me want to see the actual movie!
There’s on on-line petition to try to get Disney to stop. I’m not sure if it is within the rules to post it, so I won’t unless someone tells me I can.