Yes! Intelligence won a victory!! At least one DVD not avail as FULLSCREEN

[Rabrrrrrr]

YAY!!

I was at the video store today, returning that abominable FULLSCREEN version of Thunderbirds (abominable for being designed for stupid ignorant useless people who shouldn't vote - that is, it's in fullscreen; not abominable because of the movie, which was pretty cool, or at least the 27/43 of it I was allowed to see was pretty cool) and noticed that the movie Collateral had a big sign on the shelf saying "This movie avilable only in widescreen format".

WOO HOO!!! I thought.

Then I just checked it on Amazon, and looks like they didn't make a fullscreen of it at all!!


hahahahahahaha!! YAY!!!

Fuck you, all you FullScreen assholes! You shall soon no longer be able to continue to bring down America's collective intelligence! (at least, not that way - I'm sure you will find another way to do it. Stupid people might be stupid, but you seem to be awfully damned clever at finding new ways to be stupid).

[Placebo]

1. People who like Fullscreen should be rounded up...

stripped of their rights, and put into camps where they spend all day making Widescreen DVDs for the rest of us.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Only if you sterilize them first

if you aren't willing to sterilize, then they should just be executed.

When I'm president, there will be a special cop assigned to every video rental place and every store, for just like a month, and their only job will be to put a bullet in the head of anyone who buys/rents a fullscreen video.

And I will pass legislation making the manufacture of fullscreen a treasonous offense.

[Crunchy Frog]

21. How about adding execution

for the crime of colorizing old black and white films. I've been pissed off ever since someone, (Ted Turner?) got that bright idea.:grr:

[Placebo]

31. YES.

If it was originally black & white, it shall f'n STAY that way!

[Placebo]

32. Sometimes it takes a tyrant...

to nail the right way of doing things into the peasants feeble minds.

[Cobalt Violet]

41. I hate that cable movies are almost all fullscreen.

:wtf:

[Placebo]

51. Because idiot Amurka would be all...

Hey! Why am I paying to have black bars covering half of the picture??? I want the whole screen full of stuff, that's what I paid for! :dunce:

[Cobalt Violet]

61. It's such a slap in the face to us with spatial intelligence .

:D

[Placebo]

62. I guess we really are pompous, elitist libruls.

:D

[tjdee]

3. I have yet to see one picture where it matters what size.

Movie snobs (in other words, all my friends) swear up and down by widescreen, because that's what the director blah blah blah.

I'm a poser in this area, because I only buy the widescreen when I do buy dvds. I keep hearing they're "better", and dammit, don't I deserve the best!

But really, fullscreen does the job too. So what if I don't see the edge of someone's hand or the tippy top of their head?

[Merlot]

6. Oh but the directors vision...

blah blah blah.

Films are framed to be viewed in both FS and WS when shot. You don't loose any part of the story by watching the FS version. That being said, the WS version offers an elegance and viewing pleasure that is unsurpassed. Cutting a film to fit a TV sized screen is like pouring ketchup on top sirloin steak. It can be done, but why?

If given the choice, I'd much rather watch a FS version of a film than something shot on video, or written for TV.

[LiviaOlivia]

4. Have you seen this site?

The Letterbox and Widescreen Advocacy Page

http://www.widescreen.org/index.shtml

informative stuff

[DS1]

11. If you look closely, their examples page has been doctored to make

the Fullscreen images look crappy/washed out/blurry next to the widescreen versions on the 'examples' page

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/amadeus/index.shtml

It's a pretty underhanded thing to do, like those ridiculous before-v-after photos in muscle-building pill ads in magazines.

[LiviaOlivia]

13. I read the commentary.

Don't give a fuck about the pictures. Geez

[DS1]

16. Still, it makes the site less credible, regardless of your giving a fuck

:shrug:

[xultar]

48. Thanks for the link...I love that site. n/t

[ashmanonar]

5. only if you have a big enough tv to play it

is widescreen better...we FINALLY got my parents a good tv, so that widescreen movies don't look like we're watching a tv from the 50's...

[Kellanved]

7. I am with you on this

While I live in a full-screen-free country, I was not amused to discover that the "Lost in Translation" DVD I had bought stateside was encoded as 4:3 Fullscreen - until then I hadn't even known that there are such things as fullscreen DVDs.

[Az]

8. You'll be happy to hear

That in Japan there are already TV shows regularly broadcast in Widescreen format.

[Kellanved]

12. err...

Aren't there widescreen shows stateside? I am pretty certain that I saw widescreen shows stateside. Anyway, they're pretty common in Europe, with most new TVs sold being 16:9.

[Kahuna]

9. Whatever! If "widescreen" gives you a feeling of superiority...

And you feel the need to "dictate" to the rest of us what is good and beneficial for all of us, you need to get a. :eyes:

[ET Awful]

10. The way I see it is this . . .

Any quasi-decent DVD player has a zoom feature which will allow a person to watch fullscreen (or damned near full screen) if they so choose.

So why not make only widescreen DVD's and teach these fuckwits how to use their equipment? :)

[Kahuna]

14. Because even though * is the president, it's still America, pal..

And I don't need you or anybody else dictating to me about something as trivial as FS or WS. How about, you watch what you want to watch, and I'll do the same. I don't see where somebody watching FS harms you in the least. :shrug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. FS harms the world because it's a dumbing down of art, that's why

It's the same as buying a Van Gogh or other great artwork and saying "I don't like the red - take it out" or "I don't like the blue - make it green".

Either watch the movie (or enjoy the art) as it was intended, or leave it alone.

Don't hack and slash artwork just because you can't "deal" with it as made.

Does it physically hurt anyone? No, of course not. But it's a spiritual and a psychological and, especially, an aesthetic hurt.

And ALL of those kinds of hurt are equivalent.

If you can't respect a director/artist enough to accept their art as they made it, then don't fucking bother with it at all. At least have some integrity.

[Kahuna]

18. Well, it's been dumbing down the art for over 50 years. So it sounds

stupid and pretentious to pretend now that <shudder> life as we know it will come to an end unless we ALL watch movies in widescreen. Sheesh. :eyes: I've heard some phony overblown crap in my time. But this takes the cake. And for the record, watching TV isn't spiritual to most folks. Really, it isn't.

[Rabrrrrrr]

25. Actually, no it hasn't

50 years ago, the aspect ratio of films was what TVs are now - that's how the TV screen ended up with the ratio that it did - that's what movies were shot at.

But starting in the 60s, and especially kicking into the 70s, with better film and lens technology, movies have gotten wider and wider.

[Kahuna]

26. Oh please. Give it a rest. I was watching TV 50 years ago..

And you're going to tell ME how they were????! :eyes: Even though movies were shot in panavision, they were shown on full screen all these years. And nobody died from it. I don't see what you personally get from insulting people and calling them names over what their TV watching preference is. I really don't.

[Rabrrrrrr]

p.s. - would you ever say "I don't have room for the full artwork,

so just give me the bottom two-thirds"?

I would hope not.

So don't support the vivisection of the artwork of directors.

[Kahuna]

28. Don't tell me what to do. How's that? Can you live with that?

I can live with you making whatever choices float your boat. Can you do the same for me? And I thought we were all Democrats. :shrug:

As per your question about artwork, no I would never say it. But if I bought a piece of artwork, it's my choice as to what I do with it after that. I could set it on fire. I bought it. I paid for it. It's mine now.

[Rabrrrrrr]

64. LOL!

I love it - the total American consumerist vision of artwork. "I bought it, I can do whatever I want with it" or even (and I know you didn't say this, but the fullscreeners imply this) "I am going to buy this, so you, the artist, must make it conform to what I want". Art as another commodity, like a roll of toilet paper or a box of cereal.

I also love the use of the line "I thought we were all Democrats", a good old bogey-man line to bring out against anyone with whom one disagrees. "We're all democrats here, so you can't naysay me, blah blah blah." Well, sorry, I don't believe in one over-arching Democrat truth to which we all must adhere - and if I think something is wrong, I am going to speak out against it, even if I know that others think it is okay or right.

So, if you want to watch your movies in Fullscreen, then that's fine - that's your choice. I don't agree with it, but I'll affirm your right to it, even while, perhaps, snickering in the background and silently shaking my head in bewilderment as to why you would want to and, perhaps later, attempting another time to offer an education as to why the fullscreen versions of movies is the equivalent to chopping a third of your Van Gogh off the top.

But in the meantime, I'd be happy to sign a petition to all the movie studios to stop making fullscreen versions available. And no, that isn't "anti-Democratic". It's preserving the integrity of an artform, and preserving the vision of the artist who made it.

[tuvor]

36. Oh, please don't compare this to animal abuse. n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

63. Well, I'll be damned. Learn something new every day.

You forced to take a look at the dictionary and lookup "vivisection". I'll be darned - it applies only to living animals.

I just thought it meant "gutting", applicable to the dead, whether animal or human or otherwise.

Now I know.

You're right - bad choice of words. Certainly FullScreen, though an abomination that hurts art, isn't as bad as cutting up live animals just to run experiments so that vain idiots can have cosmetics or whatever the hell reason they're cutting the animals up for.

I should have used the words "dismemberment" or "debasing" or "bastardization".

Thanks for teaching me a new word! Well, not a new word - I knew the word. Thanks for teaching me how to use it properly!

[tuvor]

35. Speaking of "integrity"...

>>If you can't respect a director/artist enough to accept their art
>>as they made it, then don't fucking bother with it at all. At least
>>have some integrity.

Notwithstanding my opinion that only about 1% of movies released constitute "art" great enough to respect the director's "vision," how much integrity does any director have if they allow their art to be sullied thus?

Their ability to tell a story well (and really, they're nothing more than storytellers) shouldn't be significantly constricted by the proportions of the screen. And as someone pointed out earlier, directors know to shoot for widescreen as well as for fullscreen. A good director should be able to do both.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. Well said!

Of course, the problem being that fuckwits are fuckwits, and thus, untrainable. At least, not in anything intelligent. Fuckwits can understand the whole voting/ranking process for American Idol, or remember every intricate rule for Survivor and give you a total shakedown of the differences in rules bvetween every season as well recite the names of all the players and where they're from and what their jobs are and the order in which they were "voted off", but they'll never understand anything like what you propose.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

23. My $30 DVD player doesn't have a zoom option. n/t

[ET Awful]

30. Thus the term quasi decent.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

37. Decent enough for me. It plays movies.

[Kahuna]

42. But, don't you understand??? You're a cretin unless you..

view it in widescreen!!!! Afterall, THAT'S the way the director intended it. :eyes: BTW, as another poster pointed out, the only way to see it the way the director intended is in the movie theater.

[ET Awful]

44. No the director intended it to be seen in a certain aspect ratio

with a certain sound (usually DTS or THX certified digital surround these days).

[Kahuna]

46. And??? Like I said, you're only going to be able to view it

like the director intended on a movie screen. Last I heard, a widescreen TV is still not a movie screen. I know I'm right about that.

[ET Awful]

49. You don't know too much about home theater do you?

Using your "logic" a movie is not seen as intended in a smaller theater, only in the largest of theaters, that's bullshit.

The vision of a director is obtained by seeing everything the director intended on screen, this is entirely possible on a television of decent size. However, it is NOT possible with a cropped image.

[Kahuna]

50. Do you have a movie theater your house? Yes or no?

:shrug: If not, save your pithy insults.

[ET Awful]

54. LOL . . . Once again, you're missing the point entirely

If you see the entire image on the screen that the director intended, you are seeing the film as the director intended.

You are NOT seeing it as intended when viewed in pan and scan. You are missing about 1/3 of the image that the director intended. The director did NOT shoot the film to be displayed in 4:3 aspect ratio, period. Any suggestion to the contrary simply shows an ignorance of how films are made.

Whether I have a theater in my house is irrelevant, it doesn't change fact, nor does it change reality.

On Edit: There are certain exceptions obviously, like Blair Witch and Open Water which were designed to give the appearance of having been shot with home equipment (at least in parts).

[Kahuna]

56. Okay. My point is, I don't believe that I'd truly see the entire picture.

or that if I did the depth of the picture on the screen would be too much for my old eyes to handle. I'd have problems with the depth of the picture on the small (say 50" screen) tv screen. Whereas, on a hugh movie screen the depth of a wideshot wouldn't bother me. Kapeesh? :D

BTW, I have two fullscreen biggies. I have the luxury of being able to watch both formats. Lucky me!!!!!!

[ET Awful]

58. When you consider distance from the screen, a large screen in a living

room (say a 50") is plenty sufficient to see the entire image as intended.

[Kahuna]

59. For YOU, it's sufficient. You can only speak for yourself...

When you join the bifocals crowd, come back and talk. Your eyes don't see what my eyes see. I'm surprised I have to tell you that.

[ET Awful]

60. LOL, my eyes aren't exactly perfect there buddy

I can't even see the damned remote control without my glasses or contacts :).

[Crunchy Frog]

19. I recently bought a movie that I wanted, on DVD,

only to discover when I went to watch it that it was FULLSCREEN. I was so pissed. It had actually said so on the front, but treated it like it was a selling point, and I'm sure that when I saw it, my brain read it as saying WIDESCREEN.

Now I know that I have to be really careful when I buy a DVD and check to make sure it's in widescreen. No more impulse purchases.

My mom and I even rented a copy of the original Manchurian Candidate to watch over the holidays, and that turned out to be in fullscreen too. Really pissed me off.:grr:

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

20. If you have a small, old, crappy TV set like we do, you'd

love fullscreen too.

Being stupid has nothing to do with liking full screen, but thanks for the insult anyway.

x(

[Radical Activist]

22. But don't you like sitting five feet from the TV and squinting?

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

27. Yeah, I love it.

:crazy:

I can never read the subtitles on movies with subtitles because the text is too small on our screen. Thankfully, you can change the language to English on most DVDs.

[Crunchy Frog]

33. It has been pointed out

that DVD players come with features that enable one to reproduce the effect of fullscreen without messing with the DVD. Why not just use that feature?

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

38. I already pointed out that my DVD player

doesn't have that feature.

It isn't an incredibly big deal to me. I'm not going to buy a new tv or new DVD player so that I can view wide screen movies better. I just think it's nice when I don't have to watch a wide screen movie. I like the DVDs that give you a choice to view either wide screen or full screen.

[Kahuna]

39. A "choice???" On a "democratic" message board. How original..

:eyes: </sarcasm>



:yourock:

[Crunchy Frog]

47. I like the ones with a choice too.

I actually don't know why they don't make all of them like that. Maybe they're too cheap to bother. I think that really is the best solution.

Edited because I can't fuckin' spell.

[Kahuna]

52. I think so too.

:D Nothing like a business catering to what consumer want instead of forcing their choices down our throats.

[tuvor]

24. Fullscreen is still a compromise if you have an older TV

What director intends for viewers to be distracted by black bars?

As long as my movie choices entertain me, I don't really care.

[asthmaticeog]

29. How are the black bars distracting?

Are they more distracting than the TV appliance itself, or the surroundings of the room? I'm not snarking at you, I swear, I just never could understand that line of reasoning - letterboxing never bothered me.

I love your Devo avatar, BTW - that new?

[tuvor]

34. It's distracting because the resultant picture

reminds me that what is normally a decent-sized screen (27") is woefully inadequate for widescreen to be effective. Can I digress and be a picky SOB for a second? If you want the "director's vision" I half-seriously submit that you can't do that anywhere but in an actual theatre. Take that! (Not you, asthmaticeog, just the overall tone of some of the posts.)

I wonder how the purist "experts" feel about CGI movies like Finding Nemo being able to adjust for the proportions of both widescreen and fullscreen without any loss of picture.

Thanks for the comment about the avatar. I've had it since I finally donated about a month ago. Was thinking about changing it, but haven't decided yet.

[asthmaticeog]

55. I get what you mean now.

My roommate sprung for a 36" flatscreen TV last year, on which watching a film from the couch is not unlike being in the middle row of a theater. The other night I was watching the new ROTK DVD at my GF's apartment on her 17" TV, and yeah, it was a little insubstantial looking. I'm spoiled, I'll admit - if one of us ever moves out, I'm back to watching DVDs on my 12" laptop computer screen (I don't have a TV).

BTW, though I far prefer widescreen AND I've been burned by accidental pan-and-scan purchases, I'd never impugn the intelligence of someone who simply expressed a contrary preference. The tone of a lot of this thread is fucking ridiculous.

I think it's highly cool that Pixar re-configures their framing for fullscreen releases. They CAN, so why shouldn't they? It's great that in a wide shot, they don't have to decide which character to drop from the shot, they can just reposition them both to fit the squared-off aspect ratio. I've noticed that a lot of the purists who drone on about widescreen reflecting the director's wishes are the same people who complain the loudest about George Lucas altering his own films in accordance with his wishes.

[sundog]

40. I really hate it when the local video store...

takes it upon themselves to order only full screen format of a rental movie :grr:

[Kahuna]

43. I hate it when they take it upon themselves to order ..

only widescreen. :shrug:

I've got a newsflash for all the widescreen purists out there. The eyes work a little different after you turn forty. The added depth that a widescreen picture has, can be hard to focus, when you're used to watching widescreen for 40 plus years. Give us geezers a break.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

45. The Blockbuster in my area only carries wide screen or

the DVDs that give the option to watch either full or wide screen. The majority of the movies are only wide screen.

[supernova]

53. Are you still on this tangent?

Man, Rabrrrrrr, you've ripped on this subject all damn day.

[Kahuna]

57. I understand Rabrrrrr, is an artist. However!

Art does not trumph democratic values. PERIOD. It doesn't. The most oppressive societies have art. I'm sure if they had a choice between art and democracy, I know which they would chose.

[Midlodemocrat]

65. I like fullscreen

...my eyes are too poor to see the widescreen on the size TVs that we have.


Okay, I am going now.