TylerDurden389 said:

Another one that got a very odd re-time is Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. The bluray (which was only released in european markets but is region free and can be ordered to North America) its timed to be VERY cold. The detail level is very high, and its especially nice to see some of the old videos (namely Thriller) in HD since they have yet to get proper remasters, but the blue colour cast is distracting.

They may have remastered the pq, but it wasn't the entire picture. Do a side-by-side comparison of the old tapes (or dvd) and you'll see that they zoomed in the fullscreen video until it fit the entire widescreen window.

Pause at 0:09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntgq6qy1hyA

Pause at 0:59 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceU4ANZKdOM

Such a shame. All that time, money and effort goes into making those sets and costumes to provide a visual depiction for us, and it's partially lost due to laziness (and greed) in the editing rooms years later.

There was some back and forth about this in the fan forums for years... it did certainly appear that the film was cropped on the top and bottom but in some other shots it appeared there was more picture information on the sides.

So I don't think the bluray was simply a cropping of a full frame image. I think it was shot open matte. But who knows, no one actually involved with the process/film has ever weighed in.

Here's a post I found online discussing the AR:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-rays-dvds-download-services/1250818-mjs-moonwalker-now-blu-ray.html

IIRC there was a DVD release that was nothing more than a cropped full-frame but this appears to be legit.

Of course it *is* the UK edit of the film which means it's been censored. So it's got that against it.