I can only hope 'appropriate' means OAR and not something else. Thanks for the OAR info...keeping fingers crossed here...

Yup, IMDB says the The Forbin Project was shot in anamorphic panavision 35mm.

That means that there's no open matt option. The only way to derive a full screen 1.33 AR would be to do the old pan and scan treatment.

"Private School?"

I've been waiting ages for this one.

Six words: Betsy Russell riding a horse topless.

I emailed Universal about this P&S vs. OAR...this was the reply...

Frigging idiots. :(

They released the LaserDisc in widescreen 10 years ago. But the DVD gets the P&S treatment?!?

Universal is practically dead to me. I've never seen a company with such a valuable product mishandle it so badly (Not just talking about Forbin here... but their DVD policies in general since the start of the format.)

Any word on a non-R1 release for this that'll actually have 100% of the picture?

Know anybody that's got it? I'll be happy to, uh, address this issue.

I still would wait before deciding that they have screwed up. They may just be referring back to the press release that may have an error about this. Wasn't the Ella Enchanted uproar about a non-widescreen release the result of a bad press release, and the widescreen was planned all along?

I am still going to wait for a definitive answer. They have screwed up either way ... either the press release is wrong or the DVD's AR is. I hope it's the press release :(

Sigh. This doesn't give me much hope for Charley Varrick, high high up on my want list, which is listed on their site for release in December. It also is listed as foolscreen.

I don't see how they've screwed up, they've consistently said Fullscreen, on their webpage, in their email, and almost assuredly in the original press release. It's others who appear to have assumed OAR.

What I don't understand is why they would do this. This is a catalogue title, and obviously, you don't want to spend much time on it. So why do P&S? Isn't that much more time consuming, having to carefully watch how each scene is mastered? With OAR, you just dump it on the disk, no intervention needed.

There is at least one item from DavisDVD.com that says:

All these Universal titles come with new anamorphic or appropriate fullscreen transfers and retail $9.99 apiece.

So I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. I could be wrong.


If there is an existing P&S transfer for TV, VHS, laserdisc, etc., it would be cheaper in the short run to re-use it for the DVD. If they were doing a new transfer it would make sense to do a proper OAR anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer as you say, since (on the surface) it would appear that a P&S transfer would take more effort.

Of course, I would expect some sort of outrcy about this a la Castle Keep, perhaps more, since I would guess that the cult following for C:tFP is bigger than for that film. And look at the bad publicity that that release garnered for Columbia, though they did come out and schedule a proper 'scope anamorphic release of the movie. That's why I said in the short run, since I wouldn't be surprised if a P&S release of C:tFP inspired the same type of outcry, necessitating public relations effort and a 16x9 widescreen release to quiet the complaints.

$.02

That's what I mean. Davis says anamorphic, I think they just misread, or assumed it applied to all.

Bboisvert said the laserdisk was widescreen, so it still appears the easiest, fastest, cheapest route, not to mention most satisfying to the fans, would have been to simply re-use it.

Note the reply from Universal that Private joker got, quoted just a couple of posts above.

I also wrote to them about this and got the exact same reply, word for word. Could be as simple as a CSR being lazy or it could be that this is a form letter type reply that they have prepared. Either way, it looks to me like a pretty good bet that it's going to be full frame. Damn fools.

***k Universal. :mad:

They are the worst studio in releasing DVD. They still haven't release Harry and the Hendersons out yet. I give up on them. :(

As I mentioned near the top of the thread, I have the widescreen laserdisc and am now damn thankful for coughing up the bucks for it. I'd really like to get this on DVD, but there is no way in hell I'll watch the full frame version (and it will be P&S, as the VHS was).

Ever think about posting it to Usenet? :D

I've been waiting for this one from Universal for a long time - the only one left they have I've been waiting for is If Looks Could Kill - The French Teacher alone is worth buying the DVD for.

Odd they would make brand new widescreen masters of open matte films like SSSSS, SENTINEL (they could have just used the old Goodtimes fullframe transfer), LEGACY but decides to use a pan and scan of FORBIN PROJECT or open matte of CHARLY VARRICK when a widescreen masters of both exist thru the laserdisc that they put out.

Now that they released the full screen version of Colossus - isn't it about time for the WS? So far every movie I've ever bought full screen eventually came out WS - I'm hoping they release this on WS soon.

I wonder how the FS version is doing in sales? Miserably, I hope, and I hope the studio is listening to the fans who want this in widescreen. I looked forward to this one so long before it came out, it's so sad.

I wonder how many messages they got. If anyone would like to give me an e-mail address of people at the studio who might actually read the message, I'll be happy to add my 2 cents.

The problem with studios releasing a P&S (POS) release like this is they wait to see how sales are. Gee not as many peole bought it as we thought (not figuring those of us waiting for a WS version) so they say - OK, no need to release a good (WS) copy of this, sales weren't where we wanted them. I'm guessing the marketing department hired their relatives who went to community colleges and failed statistics and survey courses to develop these strategic plans.

This is just a guess but I'm guessing Colossus is not an ideal candidate for the Walmart (married to your sister) crowd of movie viewers who like movies to be P&S.

I'm still holding onto the dream they will release this WS. By the time (if) they do, it may be an HD or BR version I buy. Then again they may play this same horrible joke on us and try and get us to double dip by releasing a cropped version on BR.

AUGHHH!

My library feels naked without this. As far as a proper release with the next format....it will still be years and years....if ever.

I know what you mean - my library really needs :) a few movies
Colossus the Forbin Project
If Looks Could Kill
The Soldier