Thank goodness I wasn’t going crazy. I’ve noticed this ever since DVD. I saw this theatrically, but don’t remember that, but I sure remember it on every video release since. This is the first time I’ve seen anyone else mention it.

Stretching the video vertically and then cropping it introduces the issue of chopping off the top of people’s heads. IMO that cure is worse than the disease. If I had to choose between stretching vertically and cropping OR squeezing the video horizontally and having black bars on the sides, I’d choose the latter.