THE ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE!!! The Widescreen version is a cut up fullscreen version! You couldn’t even have guessed, since to be honest, the cut up widescreen shots looked better than the fullscreen ones… the back of the DVD says “theatrical release presentation” on it…

HOWEVER:

did Bill and Ted exist widescreen, get cut up to be fullscreen, then cut up again for the DVD?

or… was it released widescreen, had parts ADDED to BECOME fullscreen (you know how movies are shot with more than the aspect ratio, then edited later) because of the VHS format, and is now returned to its original widescreen presentation?

Like I said, the cut up version of Bill & Ted I have looks more correct than the full screen VHS.

http://www.mgmdvdsettlement.com

I asked if that means that some new fullscreen dvds actually have ‘more’ than widescreen ones, and he said maybe in some cases, but probably not. no guess why there.

bottom line: he says the people making these allegations are making comparisions to VHS copies, not the original theatrical presentation.

this reminds me of the Elephant DVD though… how the original version is full screen but theres a widescreen ‘chopped’ version available too..

You said that they are using a “pan & scan” version of the film with the top and bottom cut off. Does that mean that some of these widescreen releases actually still have the panning and scanning in them (ie. reframing the picture to fit everything in)?

I do know that in some cases widescreen DVDs coming out nowadays are showing more than they should be. I guess this is because they are using a different aspect ratio from the original theatrical release? I don’t know why they would do this.

A good example is in Peewee’s Big Adventure. There’s a scene where Peewee is pulling a chain out of the basket on his bike and the gag is that it’s an endless chain that would never actually fit in the basket. On the DVD you can see that the basket has a hole in the bottom and the chain is being pulled through from underneath.

the movie has not been ‘double cropped’. it wasnt wider, then cut to fullscreen or standardized, then cut again…

the MGM discs are standard versions (original negative) that have been cut for DVD back to their original theatrical presentations. IN my example, the VHS copy of Bill and Ted actually is showing MORE than the director intended, adding above and below the original theatrical cut, though the width of the feature is the same…

….this is hard to explain, if I had a pen and paper it would be easier.

hows this
theatrical cut: 1.85:1 ratio feature
vhs feature: keeps original theatrical cut width, adds to top and bottom, or doubles the bottom, or doubles the top, filling up the frame aka ‘formatting to fit the screen’ in a different way than we do today
the new dvds eliminate this extra stuff into the original 1.85:1 format, giving people the impression they lost something, even though the director never intended it to be there.

Now with new DVDs being released of older titles they are removing this stuff that has been put on VHS ‘formatted to fit your screen’ editions that were never intended to be shown. People unfortunately are noticing this extra stuff is missing and are thinking something has been taken from them that shouldn’t have been, when its just the opposite.

Lesson is: sometimes ‘formatted to fit your screen’ doesnt mean they cut stuff off the sides. Sometimes it means they added stuff to the top and bottom.