Scenes in movies that look better panned and scanned...

My first exposure to the star wars trilogy was in pan and scan. Nowadays I know better, and for the most part prefer seeing the films in the original widescreen format. In ROTJ, during the scene where R2 cuts through the Ewoks net, in the original widescreen, you see the ewoks immediately when our heroes (for lack of a better phrase) fall down. In the pan and scan version, the heroes fall down, and the Ewoks come out of nowhere and walk over. I prefer the delay of the Ewoks apperence the fullscreen cut provides, but I doubt that I would want to see the whole movie like that. Do any of you prefer certain scenes in movies panned and scanned?

I think you were supposed to be able to see the Ewoks. It's called hiding in plain sight.

It's been so long since I've watched a pan and scanned film in it's entirety, it's hard to recall a specific shot that looks better that way. Many scope films from the 80's onward were composed with a "safe area" to make them more home video/HBO friendly. Actors standing closer together with a lot of empty space on either side of the frame is usually a dead giveaway.

I suspect that had the effect of making the pan and scan version of such a film to look more "tight" in it's shot composition.

I do like some movies open matte. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid looks more like the film noir mysteries it's gently spoofing in 1.33.1.

Weird Al's UHF looks overcropped to me on DVD for some reason, so I tend to prefer the Laserdisc better. The LD actually has the tv sequences shot on video from video as opposed to film. (The "full frame" version on the DVD is cropped on all four sides to allow a sight gag with the commentary track to work.) Haven't seen the Blu Ray yet.

I suspect when I saw it in a theater back in '89, the aperture plate in the projector wasn't in place. This particular theater screwed up fairly often at the time. ;)

The main issue is until digital projection came along, most theater chains were incapable of projecting films in the old Academy ratio. I was pretty amazed I saw Singin' In The Rain projected properly a couple years back, as this was in an 80's era mulitplex.

When they ran a 35mm print of The Shining, it was open matte, but zoomed in, with the extra picture information barely visible on the curtains above and below the screen.

Disney theatrical reissues were routinely cropping the likes of Snow White, until Roger Ebert criticized the practice. The print I saw of Pinocchio in the early 90's was windowboxed on the sides in a 1.85 frame. Not sure if the theater forgot to close the curtains a little more to hide the sidebars, as they did Fantasia right.

The recent film The Grand Budapest Hotel used multiple aspect ratios (including 1.33) to represent different eras.

I love RotJ, but I think the whole movie is better in P&S.

Why do you say that?

Danfun128 said:

Why do you say that?

The camera is pretty static in RotJ. The panning in the P&S adds something to the film that I feel is missing.

Plus nostalgia and all that.