SilverWook said:
The bottom line is, Lucasfilm took the cheap lazy way out in the hopes fans would put up and shut up. The "bonus disc" designation being part of the excuse.
A non anamorphic DVD did not meet the minimum standard for a release from a major studio in 2004, and it's sure as heck doesn't meet it now. It was roundly criticized on all the major home theater websites at the time, and not just by fans.
It's been a running joke on this site noting all of the low budget obscure cult films that have gotten better treatment on DVD/Blu Ray than the OT.
Fox itself cheaps out on it's Made On Demand releases today. Ancient letterbox and even pan and scan masters are being foisted on movie collectors. Thankfully, Warners does an excellent job with their MOD program.
As for the convenience issue, I can't even zoom a letterbox image coming through HDMI inputs. I have to have the Blu Ray player do it, and I'm not certain all models do that. And there are some early DVD's that look much worse than the GOUT. Even more so when zoomed in.
Maybe one can zoom via component inputs, but players with component output have been phased out, thanks to the MPAA.
16:9 was settled on years before DVD came out. That's why there were widescreen tv's and even anamorphic Laserdiscs in the 90's. (And forward thinking tv shows began to shoot in 16:9 as well.) For the studios to save a few bucks, and use old masters on DVD was disingenuous at best.
I don't disagree with any of that, but none of that makes the GOUT "terrible" or "horrible". If we place the GOUT on the "horrible" scale, then all of the LaserDisc releases were what? "Extra horrible"? And all of the LaserDisc transfers (TR47, Moth3r, Dr. Gonzo, etc.) were what? Extra extra horrible? And all of the VHS releases? Extra, extra, extra horrible?
A good word for the GOUT is "disappointing", i.e., at the time of its release, it didn't meet general expectations from a major company releasing some of the biggest movies of all time. And George Lucas is to blame for that, obviously. However, given that its quality was better than anything else we had prior, it makes no sense to call it "horrible" when a lot of the stuff we had prior was held in high regard (i.e., the 1993 and 1995 LDs, and some of the LD-to-DVD transfers from those LDs; all of which are inferior to the GOUT in terms of video quality).