TServo2049 said:
I am absolutely sure, this was documented in he late 90s/early 2000s. For example, the IMDB trivia (which has been there for years):
The Region-1 DVD actually contains two different versions of the film. The fullscreen version is the theatrical version, the widescreen version has one brief shot replaced. It is a small scene near the end at 1:14:06 just before Batman fights the Joker in the Clocktower. In the fullscreen version Vicki Vale gets a disgusted look when she kisses the Jokers jacket and pulls a lint out of her mouth, however in the widescreen version she really seems to like it.
In 2001, someone else on another forum said this:
on the DVD version, this shot is replaced with her still kissing the jacket, but she no longer looks disgusted, nor does she pull out the lint. In fact, she kinda looks "into it," for lack of a better word.
From Home Theater Forum in 2004:
on the widescreen side of the Batman DVD, the scene at the end where Vicki Vale is kissing the Joker's jacket and pulls lint off of her tongue, is changed slightly. I think it shows more kissing and she doesn't pause to remove the lint. The correct theatrical footage is on the pan 'n scan side.
And the widescreen version on the 1997 DVD was anamorphic, so unless it was an upscale, it wouldn't have been the LD master.
And from where comes this presupposition that all WB launch titles were from LD masters? I'd buy the fullscreen sides being dumped from LD, or maybe those notorious full-frame-only releases like Caddyshack, Vacation, Fierce Creatures, et. al., but I thought the anamorphic releases were supposed to be demo discs for the format, wouldn't they have thus been new masters made specifically for anamorphic?
I also can't find any mention of the "no lint" version showing up on any widescreen LD. But it most definitely was on the original widescreen DVD.
You know you can make any non anamorphic master anamorphic and vice versa, and this version does not exist that I know of on any format.
I have that disc somewhere and know the film by heart and I have never spotted that. That would be the worlds oddest change ever
Their early discs anamorphic or not were of appalling quality it was not until the matrix in 99 they stepped it up.
It is well known they used the LD masters for the first discs