Johnboy3434 said:

Companies have been known to put out garbage DVDs, but I just found the fact that they didn't trim 12.5% off the top and bottom of the picture an act of unusual laziness, and wondered if they've even acknowledged questions about this.

Here are 2 possibilities:

1) In 2006, they're about to convert the laserdisc master to DVD. Some tech notices that the laserdisc master won't support anamorphic without upscaling, and mentions it to his superior, since ANAMORPHIC IS THE STANDARD. Word comes down from on high that the GOUT will be non-anamorphic. End of discussion.

2) Here's another possibility. Maybe the GOUT was made years ago, in the late 90s, when non-anamorphic was still common. For some reason, GL sat on this for years. (We all know George has a tendency to finish things and then sit on them, like the cgi yoda in TPM). This probably cost something back when it was done, so GL decides in 2006 to just use it as an "extra", and make some money off of what was otherwise a bad investment. Again, some tech probably mentions that ANAMORPHIC IS THE STANDARD. Word comes down from on high that the GOUT will be non-anamorphic. End of discussion.

Either way, someone has to make the decision that they're going ahead with the non-anamorphic version. I suppose that's a form of laziness.

I believe Steve Sansweet discussed the issue at a fan conference in 2006 (possibly ComicCon?). There used to be a video of it online somewhere. He basically tried to discredit the criticisms, saying that the transfer on the GOUT was very good, and that only a very small number of people were making a big deal out of really tiny black lines that you could only see if you look real close. This made no sense to me, since it sounded like a description of interlacing. I lost a lot of respect for Steve that day.