Spottedfeather

I was thinking of getting Return Of The Joker, but I'm a bit confused. I know that the blu-ray is 4:3, but that it includes a dvd copy of the movie. This is where the confusion comes in. The original dvd was fullscreen, but people were mad so they did another version that was widescreen. Is the dvd copy that comes with the blu-ray the newer widescreen version ?

TheMovieman

Yes but it's letterboxed widescreen...

Spottedfeather

Weird. You'd think that with square tvs no longer sold (at least very rarely) that they'd make the blu-ray anamorphic. Or is the 4:3 picture of the blu-ray in the middle of a widescreen ratio that will fit properly on a widescreen tv or does the 4:3 picture have black bars around all for sides if viewed on a square tv ? Sort of like the original Star Trek series.

Adam Tyner

I'm pretty sure that (1) for whatever reason, it was animated at 4x3, and (2) it was done digitally too. The only way for Return of the Joker to be widescreen on Blu-ray would be to take a hit in resolution, so what Warner did actually makes for the highest quality presentation, even though it otherwise really doesn't make any sense at all.

kefrank

So, just to clarify, the original animation cells are 4x3? So the widescreen version people were clamoring for is matted/cropped? I'm still trying to figure out the "best" presentation of this movie.

Adam Tyner

Yeah. The animation was done at 4x3 but framed to be matted to 1.78:1. Because it's all-digital, the only way to get it to a screen-filling 1.78:1 would result in a loss of resolution. (It's not like transferring from film where there's potentially more detail to resolve...pixels are pixels are pixels.) That's why the DVD wasn't in anamorphic widescreen. Why this workflow was chosen, I have no idea. It doesn't make any sense to me either.

kefrank

Ok, I gotcha. I assume from your statements that the 4:3 digital animation was originally rendered at only 640x480? If so, I'm in full agreement that it was a terribly short-sighted approach.

Adam Tyner

I'm pretty sure it was animated at 1440x1080. That leaves the letterboxed version with an effective resolution of 1440x810.

kefrank

Ah, ok. I missed that you originally said only the Blu-ray would take a hit in widescreen. The anamorphic DVD wouldn't have lost any resolution, but the widescreen Blu-ray would. Yeah, pretty dumb that they didn't give more forethought to an eventual HD release, but I guess it's not too surprising for a straight-to-video release in 2000.

Adam Tyner

It definitely would've been possible for them to take that 1440x1080 HD master, crop it, and rescale it to make an anamorphic widescreen DVD, but I'm not surprised that Warner went the easier route and just matted the 4x3 version. They probably did that for the same reason the movie wasn't animated in widescreen -- not ideal but just fit easier into their usual workflow.

milo bloom

I'm torn on this. I had the letterboxed DVD for a longtime, and for a while it was one of my "wishlist" Bluray upgrades for 16x9 widescreen. I don't have a problem watching 4x3 stuff on my widescreen set (we watch Trek, Spongebob, classic Doctor Who, etc, all the time on it).

I guess it just feels weird going from a 1.77 DVD to a 1.33 Bluray...

RocShemp

Except the DVD wasn't anamorphic so your going from a 1.33 DVD to a 1.33 BD. And both are letterboxed.

PhantomStranger

Both the picture and sound quality are huge improvements over the DVD. Passing on the Blu-ray makes no sense for fans.

Adam Tyner

The Blu-ray disc isn't letterboxed.

RocShemp

Isn't the BD the director's cut like the DVD? Because that was letterboxed per the director's intention on DVD.

Adam Tyner

It is the director's cut, but the BD isn't letterboxed.

Anubis2005X

Maybe he means to say that it's "pillar boxed?"

milo bloom

Still thinking about this, read some reviews here and other sites and there was mention that the first DVD (with the cut version of the movie) had a different commentary than the one on the later uncut DVD. What exactly is on the DVD version included with the Bluray? If it's the 4x3 edited version with a different commentary, that might make it worth buying for completeness' sake.

TheMovieman

Well, I would have to check the discs themselves to be sure, but IIRC, the DVD has "Uncut" on it while the Blu-ray disc does not.

Jay G.

The uncut version is rated PG-13, while the edited version is Not Rated.

Back of the Blu-ray, with PG-13 rating:
http://images2.blu-ray.com/movies/covers/20237_back.jpg

Back of the uncut DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-me...e=UTF8&index=1

Back of the edited DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-me...e=UTF8&index=0


This review of the Blu-ray mentions it's the uncut version of the film:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Batman.../20237/#Review

Spottedfeather

Is there a dvd copy in the set ? It doesn't mention it in the pictures.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Yes

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

The review says the edited version is PG

Jay G.

That may be. I was going with the back of the original DVD, which says "Not Rated", although it has a Canadian "PG" rating (but then, the uncut version also has a Canadian "PG").

Searching the MPAA CARA database, only one rating comes up for this film: PG- 13 for the "Director's Cut", leading me to suspect the edited version has never been rated:
http://www.filmratings.com/filmRatings_Cara/#/home/

Maybe the Canadian rating threw people off, or they just assume that since the uncut version has a MPAA CARA rating of PG-13, the edited version must've also had a rating but lower, and PG seems like the most likely rating for that cut.