I don’t follow here, Paramount agreed to an S-VHS LBX but not a VHS LBX release? According to this interview, Spielberg states that Paramount were convinced to release Last Crusade in LBX on VHS alongside the P&S version.
http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/spielberg-turns-letterboxing-into-crusade-with-new-tape
It doesn’t look like that actually ended up happening. A Los Angeles Times article a month later mentions seven different versions: VHS, Beta, P&S LD, LBX LD, Video-8, S-VHS, and VHS subtitled in Spanish. It specifically mentions the S-VHS being LBX, but nothing about a regular VHS in that format: http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-02/entertainment/ca-1301_1_indiana-jones
I can find no evidence of a LBX regular VHS release until the 1999 THX remasters, so if there was supposed to be an LBX version originally, it looks like Paramount backed out at the last minute.
Again, thanks for the information. The OT received an LBX Japanese LD release in 1986 that still remains highly regarded, all these decades on.
Yes, I thought maybe that was one of the earliest post-Manhattan scope LBX releases anywhere in the world, but searching LDDB shows evidence of other letterbox LDs (including 1.85 films) going back to 1982. I cannot determine how many of them actually were letterbox, or whether their given release dates are accurate. I did find a Japanese site with some release history for the 50s/60s Godzilla movies on LD, and translated it in Chrome; going by the Google translation, the 1986 LDs of the scope entries indeed letterboxed, but were zoomed “midway between Cinemascope and Vista” (so probably around 2:1?) As I said before, the history of widescreen releases in Japan is unclear.
This is all a digression from Raiders/Indy anyway.