Cornelius1047

Hola. I hardly start threads around here, so you know I must be desperate. Here's the deal. We all know the Star Wars Trilogy comes out on DVD tomorrow. I work at Best Buy and I just know I'm gonna get a lot of people wanting to know the difference between the gold box (full screen) and the platinum one (widescreen). However, when they opt for the gold one or inquire further, I'd like to have some visual example to show people. If someone can actually see the difference between widescreen and full screen, I'd think they'd be more inclined to choose widescreen. Yes, I'll still get people who don't care and just want to fill their screen. But right now, I'm mainly interested in actually making the effort to show people why there are two versions and the benefits of widescreen.

Okay, so last night, I was searching for some side-by-side widescreen vs. full screen shots of the Star Wars movies, and I was only able to come up with two sites that had what I was looking for. One was the official Star Wars homepage and it only has shots from Episode II. What I'm specifically looking for is shots from the original trilogy. The other site has its images copyrighted (well, probably not the images themselves, as they're not theirs to copyright, just the screenshots they took or whatever).

I'm choosing Star Wars cuz it's gonna be a huge release with a lot of people coming in the doors. My last chance was Return Of The King. However, since that one was Super35, I believe, I realized it might be difficult for the average consumer to see the benefits of widescreen when both versions are losing something. "What you're meant to see" doesn't always cut it, especially for people who are looking for any excuse possible to avoid those "black bars". Star Wars is pretty cut and dry. You have widescreen and you have pan and scan. You lose nothing in the former, while the latter obviously crops the film.

So, to make a long story somewhat shorter, I need some decent quality comparison shots from the original trilogy. If anyone can point me in the right direction (website) or even send me some, it would be greatly appreciated. Since I plan on printing these, the better the quality, the better the chances of converting some of the flock. Many thanks.

K

Mopower

Theres a web page that shows the difference. Search google. It's been posted a million and one times.

Cornelius1047

I searched Google and the only one I came up with that was helpful was www.widescreen.org and I can't use those pics.

K

chanster

Buy yourself a full screen copy and take screenshots. I'm sure there are pictures on the Web of the widescreen version.

Also, don't take your job at Best Buy so seriously.

LBCrazyFool

It looks like if you credit www.widescreen.org then you could reproduce (print-out) the images. At least that's the way I read it at the bottom of the webpage.

By the way, I wish there were more Best Buy workers like you!

Cornelius1047

I'm not buying a full screen copy of this set. That would be taking my job seriously. It's not the job I take seriously. It's the position I'm in to educate people, should they want help.

K

chrismcg

Come on guys - someone help this guy out - he's doing a good thing... If only... i had... full screen... dammit

Randy Miller III

What, are you crazy? Compared to your average Best Buy employee, this guy deserves a gold star for his efforts.

Mopower

Why not? Just print them out and use them. You won't go to jail for it. I promise.

Artman

Yeah, those screenshots should work good enough. Use em.

icruise

Care to elaborate on that?

Maxflier

If it was filmed in Super35 then you lose picture on the sides on foolscreen,but you lose picture on the top/bottom in widescreen.

Fok

If I was a director, I'd only make my movies in Widescreen, problem solved

buckee1

For those of us, who never come in contact with informed and enlightened BB employess like yourself...I salute you.

Thanks for trying to make a difference.

Matthew Chmiel

Super35 has a negative aspect ratio of 1.33:1. During filming, the DP usually frames the film in a 2.35:1 ratio (few films shot in Super35 are not 2.35:1). When a film is shot in Super35, all the framing choices are usually made on set, meaning OAR is the only way to go (and shouldn't it always be)?

glasschicken

Damn, K. You've got quite a following here. Maybe I'll come in and see this display of widescreen-education in action. Hope it works dude.

DouglasRobert

Kind of related, but in regards to the commercials.

It's kind of strange that the commercials for the set show clips in Pan and Scan and then at the end show the silver Widescreen box.

The only commercial I saw that actually showed scenes in widescreen was shown on the History Channel when they were running a documentary of Science-Fiction a few days ago.

Matthew Chmiel

Ironic, don't you think?

Even more ironic, VH1's When Star Wars Ruled The World special the other day played clips in pan and scan from the original 1997 special edition. People are going to be shocked when young Ani makes a cameo at the end.

Alan Smithee

Thank you George Lucas for approving a pan & scan version for the black-bar-haters, but forbidding the original unaltered movies!

This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit George Lucas's brain.

Cornelius1047

Well, I'm not so worried about doing jail time and how my crazy misadventures of dropping soap will lead to years of therapy... My printer unfortunately isn't hooked up, so I wanted to be able put some pics on a disc or diskette and print 'em out at Kinko's or something. I can always use the "Print Scrn" option, I guess (which is probably what I'll do), but it would've been nice to have a more professional looking print-out. I wanted to add the "This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit your screen" tag to the top, a nice way to get into the whole debate. I don't know. If I was serious about my job as a Best Buy media specialist, I'd be getting people to sign up for Netflix and Rhapsody and Napster and Gamefly, etc. What I'm doing won't really benefit the company at all. Well, it might get people interested in widescreen televisions, but I doubt it. I'm just kinda passionate about educating people who don't know any better when it comes to stuff like this.

K

Get Me Coffee

Star Wars was the first VHS movie that I watched in Letterbox. Since then I could never go back.

Willh51

People not taking their jobs seriously is probably why the staff at my area Best Buy are morons...I applaud him for actually giving a damn.

If I was trying to tell them about it, I'd do what one smart employee did. They just said how full screen really just takes a "square" out of a "rectangle" of the image and you are actually losing some. Simple, yet effective, IMO.

devynal

Hope you convert some people, Cornelius! Whenever a good movie is out and is available in both WS and FS, I give them the ol' speech. I've actually had people say, "Oh..hmm", and they pick up the WS instead.

LBCrazyFool

hugo1000faces

Could you covertly hook up two of the display televisions to two different DVD players, and play the widescreen and full screen simultaneously?