bluetoast

Well the most prominent example I can think of is the FS VHS of Mrs. Doubtfire. It had the whole "modified for home viewing" screen, but then the opening few moments are in Widescreen. The only reason I can think that they did this was so they don't crop out any credits. Anybody have a reason for this?


Speaking of which, were there even that many releases of WS VHS movies? I remember a handful, and of course, the Star Wars sets.

I'm also interested in any side-by-side video playback of FS vs WS. I've seen comparison shots, but it would be interesting to see a P&S shot compared to the WS.

Apone

If you have Die Hard 2-disc release, they have a lengthy demo of WS to P&S on disc 2. Check it out.

CharlieK

I think you're right. Guild rules or something probably require the opening credits to be shown in their entirety and the way some of them are art directed keeps them from being P&S.

In the tail end of the VHS dominance more and more widescreen editions were released, but they were mostly 'special editions' of the movies.

rw2516

I remember hearing something about the unions/guilds getting them to letterbox the credits so none were chopped off.

marty888

Yes, because of the credits - you need to know the names of all the people whose concept of what the movie should look like ends up being something you would not get to see thanks to pan-and-scan.

Bill Needle

There are many time you will see and opening/end credit scene of an older film on television and the credits/actors behind them are very tall and skinny. That's what it looks like when they don't keep them displayed in widescreen. As much as the actors may like the "tall & skinny" sound of things, it doesn't complement them as much as they think.

bluetoast

Ah that makes sense then. I guess it could also be done for last scenes too, I remember the last scene of Star Wars when Han/Chewie/Luke are on the stage, it's in Widescreen to show everyone at once. It would look pretty bad in P&S.

Imail724

I once ordered Die Hard On Demand and it was in full screen, but up until Mclane gets out of the limo, it is in widescreen, at the end of the movie when the credits start rolling, it goes back to widescreen. I also had a tape of The Mark of Zorro, years ago that was in widescreen.

TomOpus

I remember Fox was pretty good about release WS VHS movies. I bought a good number of them. Plus I liked the clamshell they used.

DonnachaOne

Anyone ever watch the VHS of Mickey Blue Eyes?

No? Well, that puts you in an exclusive club of about six billion.

It was FS, but the credits which would have been immediately visible on either side of the screen in a WS presentation were cropped.

That was amusing. And probably missed some people off.

jjcool

Got a bunch of those black clamshells with the bronze colored inserts.

dentam

I had quite a few ws VHS in addition to Star Wars - the ones that come to mind are Apollo 13, Pulp Fiction, and The Usual Suspects (it even came with a second VHS tape which had the director commentary on the audio track).

Julie Walker

I remember Die Hard used to have cropped/pan and scan opening credits in the early VHS days. It wasn't until I caught bits of it on tv that I noticed the widescreen credits. Though there is a chance the credits were 'squeezed' in the P&S version originally. But I don't know for sure,since I got rid of the original VHS release years ago.

The guild rule doesn't make 'that' much sense though. If say only one credit is onscreen at a time. Since they could easily pan over to that side of the frame I'm sure. I do remember some names hanging off the side credits though. The main ones I recall are True Lies and Nightmare on Elm Street 1 with John Sax.

In fact, I think having names hanging off the screen credits is good. Since it would show people "Hey something is not right here. The framing seems to be off". So at the very least,even if they still sit back and 'enjoy' the film. Something may eat away at their concious that something is not quite right with the movie.

SuckaMC

I think its simply a fact of showing the begining credits in widescreen is cheaper than re-doing and re-formating the credits so they can all be seen in p&s. $$$

Nick Martin

"ID4" and "StarGate" had widescreen credits (ID4's end credits were wide as well) on the VHS tapes, yet when StarGate airs on TV, sometimes it's the same as the VHS, and sometimes it has full screen credits, depending on the channel it's being broadcast on. "The Perfect Storm" full screen version (never on DVD thankfully) had the credits themselves squeezed into the cropped frame, while the image itself was cropped only.

marty888

..... and I thought I had seen all the Die Hard movies!

bluetoast

Coincidentally, I got the Die Hard Collection (for $7.50!) today and saw all three. Unfortunately they're all disc 1 of the SEs so I won't get to see the P&S/WS comparisons.

shyguy1083

The only two WS I ever got to purchase were Jurassic Park and Scream.

As for the credits themsleves, it always annoyed me when it made the jump from WS to FS right after the credits finished in the beginning. I don't think it happened too often, so maybe that's why I never really got used to it. It would just throw me for a second.

bluetoast

Yeah when I was a kid watching Mrs. Doubtfire, I used to wonder when they would shift...then I realized they did it during a scene change. : /

rw2516

Starting around 1996 most all new releases from the theater were widescreen for sell through. Those released for rental only at 99.99+ were full screen but both versions would be available six months later for sell through. I had Mission Impossible, Twister, Goldeneye,Independence day, ST: First Contact and several others. Most Anchor Bay releases were widescreen(Hammer, Halloween, The Car, I Saw What You Did). All the Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Bond, Pink Panther, Man With No Name, Die Hard, Aliens, Jurassic Park, Planet of the Apes were available. As for classics there was Ben Hur, Ten Commandments, Cool Hand Luke, It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World, Bullitt, Bonnie and Clyde, Psycho, Vertigo, Poseidon Adv, Towering Inferno, Jaws and dozens more. Best Buy had a whole widescreen section for vhs.

Clayman32

Speaking of this WS/FS switch,I was watching Thank You For Smoking the other day on HBO or Cinemax(can't remember)and all throughout the movie it would switch back and forth between WS and FS.That was the first time I had ever seen a movie do that all the way through.Really weird and kind of distracting to have one scene be WS and the next be FS.

DealMan

There were lots of WS VHS movies. Those of us not lucky enough to own Laserdisc players had to buy WS VHS if we wanted to see the OAR. However, a lot of 2.40:1 movies were slightly cropped to around 2.20:1 or so because of the resolution limitations of VHS.

bluetoast

Oh yeah I had another question along these lines: The academy standard was around 1.37:1, and for Disney movies 1.66:1 was often used, but 'FS' is 1.33:1.

Now, aren't we losing a little (or a lot if it's Disney) bit of picture due to this? Unless you have a WS TV and the DVD is enhanced so that it that somehow puts up vertical bars at exactly the right width. The other option is very slight horizontal bars on a FS presentation which I haven't seen before.

davidh777

Sleeping Beauty has a WS/FS comparison

Drexl

Disney's 1.66:1 titles Aladdin and The Lion King use small bars on the sides of the 1.78:1 frame to preserve the OAR. You may not see this on a TV with enough overscan though. Beauty and the Beast is kind of weird in that it's supposed to be 1.66:1 but is really about 1.78:1 with tiny bars on all sides.

As for the other option of non-anamorphic 1.66:1, there have been some titles that have done this from MGM and Warner, among others. See A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, and Barry Lyndon from the Stanley Kubrick Collection.

1.37:1 -> 1.33:1 is insignificant.