Widescreen?


Does anyone know if this movie is available on DVD in widescreen?

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Sadly and surprisingly, it is not. I've always wondered why myself.

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widescreen was not a DVD standard until about 2002

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No, it's because this movie wasn't FILMED for traditional widescreen, according to the IMDB specs listing - check out the aspect ratio. It's listed as 1.33:1 (which basically equates to fullscreen). Most widescreen movies are 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

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"It's listed as 1.33:1 (which basically equates to fullscreen)"

Or you could just say 4:3, which is more commonly used in computer circles.

And what's "full screen", depends on the shape of the screen, of course. So what 'equates to fullscreen' is not so clear-cut and simple (though I know that there are so many warped definitions of things these days, like 1080p and 720p, that don't always make any sense - 'fullscreen', 'widescreen', 'letterbox', and the like are examples of confusing terminology that replaced what was once clear and precise - that's marketing buzzwords for ya..)

Old CRT monitors were mostly of the 4:3 shape, like some earlier TFT (etc.) ones. Nowadays there are things like 16:9 and 16:10 TFT monitors, among other things. So back in the day, 'full screen' would have meant "4:3", because any other ratio would not have filled the whole screen - that's not true these days necessarily. On a 16:9 monitor, a 4:3 video does not fill the whole screen, so calling it 'full screen' would be a confusing lie.

Btw, even the 1.85:1 you mentioned, is close to 16:9 actually.

Ratios can of course be expressed in various ways, which tends to confuse things. But it's interesting that a movie was actually filmed in 4:3! How often does that happen nowadays?



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Late reply here, but the "full screen" DVD is still the only one available. However, the movie was shot in 4:3 aka 1.33:1, then cropped to 1.85:1 for theatrical presentation. So, the "full screen" version of this film gives you the biggest picture. Some filmmakers still use the old 4:3 filming style every so often. Movies shot in Super 35 are shooting in 4:3, then later cropped to either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 for theatrical presentation. Air Force One was done this way, just as an example.

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