According to the Blu-ray.com update, it is also 1:78:1 instead of 1:85:1. That makes me wonder if I should pass on this release altogether... and I was planning on picking it up tomorrow. I find this very disappointing if true.

The audio is Dobly TrueHD (should be a 5.1 mix) for those curious.

That's really nothing to get worked up about. Every Warner 1.85:1 title is like that, and Paramount does it too. They just open the mattes slightly, and it has little effect on the image. In fact, if your display has overscan, you won't notice any difference between 1.78:1 and 1.85:1.

A lot of 1.85:1 movies are opened up to 1.78:1 for Blu-ray. It's barely perceptible.

I know, but the thought still bothers me. I may or may not be getting this tomorrow based on my mood. I'm certainly going to pick up Wizard of Oz, but this was a guaranteed purchase bumped down to a maybe over this issue and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way about it. Warner Bros should take note.

To be fair, though, that mindset would kind of prevent you from ever seeing a movie theatrically too. There's more variation from one theatrical exhibition to another than the handful of scanlines that separate 1.78:1 and 1.85:1, and no information is actually lost in this process. I understand the sentiment from a purist standpoint, but honestly, I've pretty much devoted my life to writing DVD and Blu-ray reviews, and if it's late enough at night for the faint letterboxing to blend into the bezel on my TV, I can't pick out 1.78:1 from 1.85:1 at all even with my Kuro in dot-for-dot mode. Sometimes I won't know if a movie's 1.78:1 or 1.85:1 until I put the disc in my BD-ROM and play it in a small window. I don't like the idea of a Super 35 movie being opened up or even a 1.66:1 European film being reformatted, but opening up 1.85:1 to 1.78:1 seems more like a slight rounding error in my favor.

Actually, I think there's a very strong possibility that you are the only person who'd refuse to buy a disc over this.

Warner, Paramount, and several other studios open the mattes on all 1.85:1 movies to 1.78:1 as a matter of policy. Have you boycotted all 1.85:1 movies from these studios?

A 16:9 HD image has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. A letterboxed 1.85:1 image uses 1920x1038 of them. The letterbox bars account for only 21 pixel rows each on the top and bottom.

A "full frame" 16:9 transfer exposes additional picture information from the camera negative to fill the void.

1.85:1


Open-matte 1.78:1


A difference this small in no way affects the compositional intent of the photography. You are certain to find more of a variance than that at any theatrical venue. This is also less than typical TV overscan. If your TV has more than 2% overscan, you'd never see those letterbox bars in the first place.

This is not worth getting worked up over.

Exactly.

But The Wizard Of Oz is also likely reformatted slightly. The aspect ratio of an Academy ratio film like The Wizard Of Oz is actually 1.37:1 whereas home video releases change it slightly to match the aspect ratio of SDTV, 1.33:1. It's likely that the Blu-Ray of The Wizard Of Oz is still 1.33:1 matted inside the 1.78:1 frame.

It boils down to the same thing in both cases. Are you going to not pickup The Wizard Of Oz? Either you reject both or accept both.

Eh, I guess you guys are right... I'll just buy both on Tuesday.

Just the thought of an aspect ratio change always bothers me, but when it's such a minimal change as to not really affect viewing the film, I understand that it's not such a big deal. In fact, I already knew the difference was that minimal in the first place - I just wanted it left intact 100% just the same. I realize that my complaint is somewhat ridiculous but oh well.

I'll get it anyway. And the Wizard of Oz.

That's interesting. Is that a new commentary? I only remember one commentary on the DVD.

The 2002 special edition included both of those commentaries.

1.85 to 1.78 is not that big of a deal to me, although I don't think studios should change OARs at all. I did buy the DVD of "Traitor" which opened the picture up from 2.35 or 2.40 to 1.78, but I doubt I would do that again. I don't want to support that, for fear of it becoming the norm. The Blu-ray got the correct AR though. *Shrug*

Do you guys think stock on Gremlins is going to be tight? i was thinking of getting this after work on Wednesday, but I could go during lunch today if there is a chance they might run out.

My store only had 6. I'm waiting to see some reviews before I take the shrinkwrap off my copy

Maybe the first week or two. Target will get more and more instock as time goes on. There are idiots buying up all stock of this and Oz thinking its a 1 print thing.

As am I!
Sorry folks, but I'm not volunteering to be the guinea pig on this one either...
Especially since there is a question of whether or not this will be the transfer the director/producer wasn't satisfied with, or if they actually did take the time to make a brand new one as mentioned...
I'm sure Gizmo will be picking it up and will have some thoughts on it anyway!

Somebody on another forum said it showed up as "BDMV" on the PS3 XMB rather than "Gremlins." Could be a bad sign, or it could be nothing.

Eh, just means it probably doesn't feature BD-Live, no big.

I have had other discs that do not feature BD-Live come up with their title and the small graphic before on the PS3, so that has nothing to do with it....
The title and graphic will come up on the PS3 if the disc is encoded with this tiny bit of required data, which is pretty much ubiquitous for all studios now....older Warner discs did not include this, so this throws up a red flag that this disc may have been finished for awhile and will not feature a remastered and improved transfer (as was the reason given for its delay)....

Regardless, this will be the Blu-ray version for some time. It won't be "remastered" and released wide in a few months, Target just a few months head jump on other retailers. Shame they didn't offer up any new features either.

My shrinkwrap is already off and I'm not even at home.

As Giz said, this is it for a while. It's going to be better than the DVD. I'll probably pop my in to check out scenes tonight. I just watched the 20th Anniversary DVD last Christmas and it actually didn't look too bad to me. Assuming this is based on the same master, I think it will be about what you'd expect for a 25 year catalog title.

I miss the cover art from the first release DVD. With the reported "eh" picture quality on this one, not to mention the fact that this film is merely a film in the "good" pantheon to me rather than "great" among the Spielberg canon, I'll just wait for the eventual double dip, whenever it comes.

I picked up my copy this morning, along with The Wizard Of Oz (Emerald Edition). They only had 6 copies of Gremlins, which they actually had to bring out from the back. I still have the shrink wrap on mine, waiting for someone to give us some information on the picture and sound quality!

That re-master stuff was likely just BS. They tend to do that alot. Anyone remember Twilight was suppose to make the 'sparkly' look better on Blu-ray? Or Mummy 3 would be optimized? It's just talk.

Oh well. I'll be at Target on my lunch break.

Stopped by Target before work. The lady working at the electronics department said she didn't have Gremlins yet, and Wizard of Oz might be in the back. I specified which version of Oz I wanted, and she went to look for it. When she came back, voila!, she had both discs. I'll watch them when I get home.