Shifting aspect ratios is quite senseless, IMHO. Christopher Nolan started it; no reason for other directors to follow in his footsteps.
It’s not senseless: he wanted to use as much screen real estate as he could with the IMAX scenes which are more of a square than the long rectangle of the 2.35 aspect ratio.
So he had three choices:
- Crop (and letterbox) the IMAX scenes to 2.35.
- Crop the IMAX scenes to 1.76 (less cropping. No letterboxing. Uses all available resolution of your television)
- Letterbox the IMAX scenes to 1.43 (you get the entire IMAX frame but you have big black lines on the left and right side of the screen)
There are pros and cons to each of these choices and Christopher Nolan picked the one he felt was the best to display the large format photography.
PS: Did anyone see the Dark Knight in 15/70 IMAX? I didn’t care too much for the film, but the EXPERIENCE was out of this world. The detail was jaw-dropping.