Yeah, I know....work with me dude. It just sounded better then Indiana Jones is the Winning Raider of the Lost Ark. Now that would just be plain silly.

no, that's just lame

I read an interview with Nolan a while back that indicated that they were planning to include the IMAX portions of the movie in their original aspect ratio on the disc (which is, I believe, close to 4:3), with the rest of the film presented at 2.35:1.

Of course, plans may change, but that is what is Nolan wants to do.

Unless this is a BD-25 with 5.1, count me out!

Yikes. The aspect ratio changes worked fine in the IMAX environment. But in a home theater -- especially in one with a constant image height display -- the shift from 2.4:1 to IMAX's 1.44:1 would be completely underwhelming. Plus, you'd have the black-bar-haters griping about how distracting it is to have the bars moving around from top and bottom to the sides, and then back again.

I hope they just release it 2.4:1. Or, if it's such a huge deal for Nolan to have the AR shift, go from 2.4:1 to 1.78:1.

Then again, who am I to second guess the director's wishes?

In theaters the switch didn't bother me, at home is a whole nother story.

I thought I read somewhere that this was the plan, but I don't know if that was official or just speculation.

*edit* Here it is:

*edit again* Apparently we can't link to blu-ray dot com to cite the source.

^^^That doesn't sound quite as bad, but i hope it isn't too distracting. I'm sure Warner has the sense not to mess up one of the biggest releases of the year.

I think I'd heard that as a possibility, too. I hope that's what they do.

In IMAX, the shift was so dramatic, I'd want to grab the armrests of my seat. There aren't many home theater setups that are going to even come close to that power.

I hope Warner also makes a bundle with Batman Begins and/or Gotham Knight available at retail. I've been holding off on those two titles hoping that the release of The Dark Knight in December would mean a price break when buying them all together.

That aggrivated me when we were leaving the IMAX auditorium and I heard saying stuff like "so what's the big deal about watching it on the IMAX screen? It's just bigger." I think many people didn't notice the sometimes quick changes from IMAX to the regular presentation. I was greatly surprised they inserted so many IMAX filmed footage in so many places, rather than having them as whole sequences only. Either way, you're right - home theater will never capture that feeling again. And my ceilings aren't that high.

I asked Nolan during a Dark Knight Q&A how he was going to handle the IMAX ratio on home video, and he said on Blu-ray the image would shift from 2.40:1 to 1.78:1. This would fill the screen for the IMAX sequences and he also mentioned that Blu-ray is capable of resolving the differences in film stock from 35mm to IMAX.

Why can't film makers trim the video? I mean honestly, it doesn't seem like True HD to me when it has black bars.

Directors shoot for different scopes, 2.35:1 (Ben-Hur (1959) actually takes it a step further, that movie was shot in a super scope of 2.76:1) has been around for ages, it'd be a damn shame to see them Pan and Scamming it to 1.77:1 (much like they did for 1.33:1 on 4:3 TV sets). The scope of the image changes the feel of the picture and sometimes 1.77:1 just isn't enough.

But, just like 4:3 TVs where people didn't like the black bars, some people won't like them on 16:9 TVs either. I can't stand seeing movies improperly framed, it annoys the piss out of me.

that said... 2.35:1 is enormous on my setup though, so I can't complain .

How many IMAX sequences are there? Its going to be kinda odd to go to a ratio that fills the entire screen one moment to one that adds black bars the next. Is this going to be forced or can we simply watch it in 2.40:1 the entire time?

As cool as the Prologue was on the Batman Begins BD, I'd much rather have the option of choosing what "version" of the film I am watching even if it means two different BD versions of the film.

With seamless branching, I'd imagine that the BD could offer both versions. If not, it may be IMAX only, as Nolan seemed pretty keen on the shifting ratios. There's only one instance in the film where I found the transition from full screen to widescreen bothersome, but it may be more noticeable at home.

Hmm. Well, I'm going to buy it either way, I'd just like a choice on how I want to watch it.

Given that the compositions in the 35mm version were painfully cramped to my eyes (this was having seen the IMAX already), I really can't imagine watching the film in a constant aspect ratio, but to each his own.

They should retitle it to The Dark Knight and the Joker or just The Joker or Heath Ledger IS the Joker.

Either one of those titles works.

There are only a handful of whole scenes in IMAX. However, there are numerous instances where a scene will open with a single establishing shot in IMAX even though the rest of the scene is 2.35:1.

I saw this in IMAX this past weekend. Although the IMAX footage itself looked good, the 35mm footage looked like complete garbage. It was DNR'ed and edge enhanced to hell during the IMAX "DRM" process.

The novelty of watching selected scenes in IMAX didn't make up for the fact that the rest of the presentation was crap. The fact that the crap was blown up to such large proportions only made it worse. With this movie, I am officially done with the IMAX-ification of 35mm movies, which I suppose is the exact opposite of their intended effect.

Looks like the Blu-ray will be 2 discs and we may be getting a steelbook Blu-ray release as well, if the news here is true. I'm torn on steelbooks myself, as the hubs are usually pretty tight, and I love the ease and secureness of the regular Blu-ray case hubs. Plus the whole overlapping disc thing. But we'll see.

I was also underwhelmed by the IMAX version when I saw it last month.

The shifting ratios are pretty distracting when it's just for the establishing shot.

Also, the non-IMAX stuff seemed to be stretched a bit as well.

I'd much rather have a constant 2.40:1 version.

I thought the IMAX scenes looked great, but the non-IMAX scenes seemed fuzzier than my first (non-IMAX) viewing of the film. I was expecting the aspect ratios to shift but I didn't expect them to use so much IMAX-filmed establishing shots, that lasted a few seconds, before transitioning back to non-IMAX footage. Still, I got used to it after a while, mainly due to the large screen size.

On my LCD though, I know that the shifting aspect ratios will bother me a lot more. I too would like a consistent aspect ratio throughout the film's entire run-time. But why not the option, through seamless branching, to have both IMAX and non-IMAX versions on the disc?

We saw it at the WGV IMAX on opening day - the IMAX sequences were amazing and felt seamless with the 2.4 ratio material. Of course this was in a dark theater where there was no definite border to sort of box in the experience.

I'd say just about every major exterior establishing shot (particularly those with "vertically intensive" content like buildings, etc.) were in the IMAX ratio. So it's a decent amount - according to online resources the consensus seems to be ~28 minutes.