erri_wan said:

If I'm not mistaken Lucas said in some audio commentary that 2.35:1 is the only format that preserves the original proportions. I never really investigated on it but I'm supposing that if Laserdisc has a different ratio (for example 1.85:1 or other) then it would necessarily have something cropped.

It depends entirely on what format the film was shot in, it doesn't have anything with the media it's stored on.

erri_wan said:

myscamore, I've got a little trivia about Italian 4:3 movies for you. Movies altered to fit into letterbox format often kept the ending titles in widescreen. I never understood why. Usually you would see the black orizontal bars coming in at the end of the film. The most noticeable I remember was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade because the ending credits roll in without cuts or fades to black so you see these two black bars squeezing the film. Was this procedure done also in other countries or did we only have the pleasure?

In the era of only 4:3 TV's, the only way to preserv the full aspect ratio of widescreen films was to have video transfers in 4:3 letterbox, black borders at the top and bottom of the frame, way back when most films were mostly presented in fullframe or pan&scan, many opening titles and end titles was often presented in letterbox or slightly squished to fit the screen. So what you describe is not something that was unique to Italian audiences, this was the common practice in the earlier video age.