Widescreen vrs. Theater

[Aragorn*9]

Do you think that the widescreen dvd is the same as what you saw in the teaters? It seemed like the tops of head were always cut off. It probably just looks different because it's on a tv and not a huge screen, but I was just wondering what you thought.
Julie

[Anamatar IV]

i saw a few extra scenes. Like when gimli is explaining what they're gonna meet across the anduin and some scenes after moria. That first war is longer. You get to see gil-galad hack with his spear. Lots of cool stuff.

[Talimon]

Both of those bits were in the theatre, probably didn't notice them because of the big screen though. It's easier to catch stuff on a smaller screen, especially with the close-up-quick-cut style PJ has.

[Anamatar IV]

ive seen the movie in the theatres 9 times. I dont remember seeing aragorn running across a river after moria or any of that. I remember the scenes when they are 1st coming into lorien. I guess i just missed gil-galad and i think that in the theater they were a different spot when gimli started talking about the emyn muil and the marshes

[Aragorn*9]

Everything you guys said I remember from the theaters, I guess different people cetch different things. But is it the exact same veiw and everything, like were the heads cut off that much before?

[PRH]

I don't know about heads being cut off, but it won't be quite as wide if you watch it on a regular tv. The picture is overscanned on the screen and part of it on the sides is not visible. It should be 2.35:1 aspect ratio but due to the overscan it's about 2:1, so you're still missing a little on the sides even with the widescreen dvd. Watching on a computer or a projector or a special tv without overscan you would see the whole width.

[Mindy_O_Lluin]

I just watched the widescreen DVD tonight and I felt like it was cropped at the top and bottom. Tops of heads were sliced off and some scenes that would have been better as waist up shots were shoulder up shots. I really disliked it and the width to height ratio seemed much wider than a movie theater screen would be. Now I'm going to have to try and see it at the theater again to see if this top and bottom cropping was real, or if I was totally un-observant before.
Anyway, I am real disappointed.

[Aragorn*9]

That's how I felt two Mindy.

[ReadWryt]

I think what is being confused here is this, a large number of Letterboxed Television shows, and some theatrical movies, are often released in what can be called "Limited Pan & Scan". The aspect ratio gets changed to 16:9 to match the Widescreeen Television aspect of Digital HDTV, some of which (the hardware that is) can detect this and expand the picture to fill the screen. Shows like "Enterprise", "The West Wing" and "Stargate:SG1" as shown on Showtime and the SciFi channel are good examples of this, and many films I have seen of late on TCM are like this, though they tend to display letterboxed movies in the full width more often. After seeing letterboxed programing on Television in this aspect ratio I can see how one might get tricked into seeing a movie shown in full widescreen as being "too wide".

The idea that seeing something on the small screen lets the eye be more critical is a valid one indeed. I know that everybody who saw "Spider-man" in the theater looks at me like I'm from mars when I complain about the 4 or 5 times I saw the Microphone drop down into frame, but then I didn't see it in the theater but rather on a friend's monitor so it was more likely that I would notice such a thing at the top of the screen...

[PRH]

It's funny people are complaining about this when in reality the opposite is true -- it's not wide enough due to the overscan (on a tv).

The Pan & Scan version of the FOTR DVD will show more at the top and bottom; stuff that was matted out in the final theaterical presentation. But it will also cut a lot out of the sides. But there's no way this additional top and bottom stuff on the Pan & Scan would've been seen in the theater.