Wow! This might be a first huh? A "letterboxed" Blu ray? (Not counting movies wider than 1.85:1 of course). If this is true, wouldn't it seem like more of an up convert of the old letterbox master? Because if they did indeed make a new HD transfer surly it would either be 16x9 or 4x3 (depending on which aspect ratio they decided was better, but in this day and age I assume they would pick 16x9 just to fill the screen.)

What the fuck, Warner Bros!? What year is this again?

The very question I asked?

This is the problem with this movie:

Technically it's 4x3 or 1.33:1. The problem is that the end credits are 4x3 and the rest of the movie is matted to 1.78:1. If you were to look at the entire video file from an authoring standpoint it would be a 4x3 file, it's just that 95% of the movie doesn't use the whole 4x3 frame.

Warner Bros. could probably easily chop the credits off and make a 16x9 transfer by windowboxing the end credits but they're obviously just pulling an existing transfer off the shelf and slapping it on a Blu-ray.

So they don't even look at a playback monitor when they start putting these things in the Bluray transmogrifier thingy?

Or they did and just don't give a damn?

I don't know which answer is worse.

I wish I could say I'm astounded at this level of stupidity, but after seeing their treatment of Justice League on Bluray, it's just another case of "different day: same shit".

i was excited, then i was not. no sale.

No sale.

Even though the details are a little sketchy as to whether or not this will be in the original aspect ratio or not I'll probably still pick this up when it hits Blu-ray as I don't have the original DVD version. Although if they don't include the uncut version of the movie I may just pass altogether and pick up the DVD. Either way I hope this is a sign that WB may be considering re-releasing the other Batman: The Animated Series movies.

I'd strongly hesitate in assuming that WB's going to release what's essentially a non-anamorphic Blu-ray. I'll eat my words later on if it proves true, but I'm leaning towards a miscommunication.

I don't think it's a miscommunication.

I just watched the uncut "Return of the Joker" a few weeks ago because I'd been watching the complete series of "Batman Beyond" that came out in November and that's why I noticed what I said above about the fullscreen credits. I literally thought to myself "if they ever wanted to do an anamorphic transfer they'd have to re-do the credits" and here we are with the Blu-ray announced with the specifications that would result in them just leaving it as-is.

They did the same thing with the "Justice League" Blu-rays, it was an opportunity to go to 16x9 but they just released the same 4x3 transfers.

So yeah, mark my words: the credits of this movie will be properly windowboxed in the 16x9 frame.

Ugh. No sale then. Shame, I was looking forward to this...