Dear pdinosaur,
How exactly did you take offense to Libby's post? It was quite clearly saying, "Way to go [converting two people to widescreen]"... How the heck did you read it? Not trying to start anything, just wondering how you made that mistake. Other than the fact that the post came directly after yours. I just fail to see how you could possibly think it was directed at you. Maybe you thought the "way to go" part was sarcasm?

K

Big deal:

I converted 2 truck drivers to cars, 2 hot dog lovers to hamburgers and 2 Wendys eaters to McDonalds.

No, you're wrong. The reason people are against FS is because it's somebody other than the director messing with the movie, true, but the reason people are against Lucas going back 20 years later is that Lucas has become essentially a different person. The director releases the movie based on the person he is at the time he does the movie; obviously, a person 20 years older might've done things differently, but that person 20 years older has no right to change the kid's movie even if he is the kid 20 years later. (Putting that aside, there are also quite a few people who object to Lucas unilaterally changing other people's work and taking all the credit.)

Are you familiar with the old robot expression "Does not compute"? Allow me to point out your logical fallacy: You are using your belief that FS/pan-and-scan is "not that big a deal" to prove that FS/pan-and-scan is "not that big a deal". Which, among other things, begs the question, "How can you know whether the pan-and-scan of a movie is not that big a deal until you've seen the movie in WS?" (Since a movie could *either* be badly shot and well pan-and-scanned or well shot but badly pan-and-scanned.)

i was just contrasting from personal perspective/experience with basically the existence of the option to buy a full screen dvd. it's a small assumption, but i think reasonably safe to say that some people don't mind having a FS cut of a movie.

but personally, for clarity, i seem to notice panning pretty well. and it really disorients the crap out of me.

hehe. one day i'll learn to convey my meaning clearly on dvdtalk. one day.

What did Lucas unilaterally change which wasn't a movie he created?

Two problems with this:

1) Lucas has stated very publicly and clearly that there are many things that he had wanted to do but money, technological limitations, and schedules kept him from making them upon first release. Once those were no longer any issue, he changed them. Those changes had nothing to do with "who he was" 20 years earlier.

2) Why does a person have no right to change something that they did 20 years earlier? I have many artistic hobbies (photography, writing, sculpting, etc.) and over the years I have created many things. I have also gone back and changed things that I did years before because I realized that I liked it better a different way or I had access to new "tools" that allowed me to do something the way I had really wanted to do it. Artists do that all the time . . .

He's refering to the stance that some people take that the movie also was created by the actors, sound people, special effect staff, grips, best boys, etc. and so the director doesn't have the right to change their work.

Personally, I don't see how it is any different from what goes on in the editting process during post-production, but others don't agree.

Two people, well it's a start. I don't even bother trying to persuade somebody towards WS anymore.

Not to mention the even more salient point that George Lucas didn't direct THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK nor RETURN OF THE JEDI!

And here I was thinking we were finally over all of this WS/FS evangelising... silly me