I have to edit this post; I had previously been informed that the Region 3 Korean disc was the proper ratio and was NTSC; apparently, neither of these things is true (it's NTSC but derived from PAL). At the time when a known NTSC copy in the proper ratio existed, that certainly seemed like valid evidence against Thinkfilm but, without that, it's a lot more up in the air.

That's true, but the Dreams summation does not have every statement they've made; for that, you should check out either the forum, or the website www.filmick.co.uk ... the Dreams website just summarized the "where it stands now" information.

Well, grammatically speaking, they repeatedly say "faux 2.35"; I don't see what else "faux" could mean, other than that it's not 2.35 and is pretending to be.

I should point out, that "Dreams" summary has been updated since the last time I read it [either before or after I made that post]; the new post where Gilliam explains why it is 2.1:1 was not there until very recently, and it replaced a post where Gilliam said (I have to slightly paraphrase from memory) "Statements by Thinkfilm are misleading and false." I believe he actually said the word "lying", but, without the post in front of me, I can't be 100% sure.

I don't give Thinkfilm the same benefit of the doubt because they have a history of doing this to other movies, and because while Gilliam has constantly changed his story by saying "Okay, it looks like I was misinformed, but here's what I found out...", Thinkfilm has changed their story every time somebody points out a part of the previous statement which doesn't make sense, at which time they issue a new statement ... like, for instance, if the PAL thing was an issue, why did they wait to explain that until people had already called them out on the fact that Gilliam himself had prepared the 'faux-2.35' transfer? (their initial claim was that they did not receive a proper 2.35 transfer and, thus, could not release the "faux-2.35" they had; people pointed out that Gilliam had prepared it, and, further, it makes no sense to feign support of artistic integrity [by not releasing the 'faux-2.35'] as a justification for why they *only* released the compromised fullscreen version.)

The PAL issue would be a perfectly reasonable explanation if they said it in the first place; by waiting until their first explanation was a non-starter, it calls into question every subsequent reason.

Your explanation is reasonable, but the fact is, the order of that chain of events is contradicted by many things Thinkfilm has said. Which is not to say you are wrong, but it again goes back to the question of "Why isn't Thinkfilm willing to openly discuss what happened?"

For instance, Thinkfilm claims to have received both the 1.78 and the "faux 2.35" at the same time. Or, at least, that's one thing they've claimed, before saying that they didn't receive the "faux 2.35" in time to produce the DVDs, and before then saying they didn't receive the "faux 2.35" in NTSC.

It's weird to me that you're listing that under criticisms, as if you're disappointed that the movie showed restraint and that people over-reacted to that stuff.