Sub-Zero

Based on the negative responses about the Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray not having shifting aspect ratios, clearly it is something that many people seem to like. Just out of curiosity, what other movies on Blu-ray actually use this feature? Of course The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises Blu-rays use shifting aspect ratios to more closely match the Imax presentation. Do any other movies on Blu-ray present their movies with shifting aspect ratios?

Pizza

Didn't Transformers 2 do that too? Tron 2 I believe also did this.

TheBang

Looks like this is a pretty comprehensive list:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=220176

fitprod

For the type of film you are thinking of, Imax films with an alternate aspect ratio, here are the titles:

Dark Knight (2008)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Big Screen Edition - Walmart Exclusive) (2009)
Avatar (2009) - Technically no shifting aspect ratio, was shown constant heights of both 2.35 & 1.78 theatrically. - Cameron wanted constant 1.78 for the home video release.
Tron Legacy (2010)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

That's it. I don't count the other titles listed on Blu-ray.com, those are artistic choices to alter aspect ratios in a film, not a technical reason (Imax).

fitprod

Josh Z

You can take Avatar off this list. The movie wasn't shot with any IMAX film and (as you say) never had alternating aspect ratios. It was released to different theaters in different ratios, but each copy was constant in its given ratio.

There are only four Blu-rays that expand in height for IMAX scenes: The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Walmart "Big Screen Edition" only) and Tron Legacy. Tron wasn't shot with IMAX film (it was all digital), but the aspect ratio did alternate between scenes.

Both Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and Star Trek into Darkness were shot with selected scenes on IMAX film (like The Dark Knight), and had alternating aspect ratios in IMAX theaters. However, the Blu-rays for both are constant 2.35:1.

Life of Pi is primarily a 1.85:1 movie with selected scenes that reduce in height to 2.35:1 letterbox for effect. You are meant to see the black bars. That's intentional. In the 3D version, pop-out effects (such as jumping fish) bounce up into the letterbox area.

A small number of movies (Enchanted, Brother Bear, Galaxy Quest, The Horse Whisperer, Oz: The Great and Powerful) open with footage in a narrow ratio (either 1.85:1 or 4:3) pillarboxed in the middle of the screen with black bars on all sides, then expand horizontally to 2.35:1 for the remainder. Brainstorm has a similar effect (from 1.66:1 to 2.35:1) but jumps back and forth between the two repeatedly throughout the movie.

mrhan

The Le Mans DVD was similar. Was it like that in it's theatrical run?

Sub-Zero

Thanks for all the replies. For some reason I thought that there were more movies released on Blu-ray that used shifting aspect ratios. Anyway, thanks again for all the replies.

Josh Z

Nope, it's a very tiny minority of movies.