Sometimes I get disappointed when I hunt down an LD only to find out it was only released in P&S only. I never liked P&S movies even in the 90s. I remember growing up in the 90s my best friend hated the black bars on letterboxed movies. I always found P&S movies annoying, sometimes nauseating.

Anyways I'm kinda upset that the original Ninja Turtles didn't have a LBX American release. I know there's a Japanese version (which isn't hard to find), but the subtitles are placed within the picture.

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's dead also never got a LBX laserdisc release. I had this movie on VHS which was P&S as well, and the panning was unbearable. I don't think I'm gonna get the LD version.

well, if you look at imdb for TMNT the films negitive ratio was 1.37 which is very close to 1.33
and it was matted to a 1.85 release at the theatres.

SO if you do get the LD it should be an open matte, or it will be a cropped version of a cropped image.
only one way to find out, and that is to buy it.

I always wished Star Trek I: The Motion Picture (1979) (Uncut) [LV 8858-2A] had been released letterboxed. It's the version of the film I grew up with. I know you can get the anamorphic Director's Cut on DVD which is essentially the same thing but I dislike the CGI additions.

Little Darlings. It was released 2.35:1 theatrically (according to IMDB) but only released in a pan & scan version on LD. Plus it's not available on DVD or Blu-Ray in region 1.

The film I had hoped would be released in its orig. aspect ratio was the 1977 action/adventure film "SORCERER"
The film featured an excellent sound track as well. The music was scored by the group Tangerine Dream.
It was released on D.V.D. in Pan/Scan.

i've read somewhere that this film was supposed to be an open matte on LD, that's what the director wanted.
and it may be an open matte on DVD also if it's full screen.

Yep, it's a Scope film so it requires severe panning and scanning - plus all the music rights have kept it from ever getting a release in a new transfer. Sadly, the best way to see the film is the LD pressing - which luckily was pressed in Japan so it's not as 'grungy' looking as Pioneer's American discs were at the time.

Candyman. Actually I'm not sure if it's P&S or open matte on LD but either way I wish it was letterboxed.

If its an open matte transfer then you can just zoom it to 16x9 and have the correct aspect ratio and imagery. It will have the same resolution if it was letterboxed on LaserDisc since anamorphic encoding wouldn't have been used.

There have been a few titles I had wanted to have in a W.S. presentation since I first began collecting in 87.
At this moment the following titles come to mind: VACATION (1983) BULLITT (1968)

bullitt is an open matte, open matte is better than pan and scan and just as good as widescreen.

Yep, because you just use your TV's zoom function to make it 16x9. It gives you the same image as a letterboxed release would and with the same resolution too, since anamorphic encoding was not used on LaserDisc beyond a few experimental titles.

People now complain if the bluray release preserves academy ratio on old movies or tv shows. I heard there was a huge list of people who wanted to petition paramount to release star trek next gen in widescreen lol
I am all about original aspect ratio. Open matte is welcome if its the only option to see the film. Then there are some films cropped intentionaly by the director. The last emperor is cropped to 2.00:1 i.e in director approved cut. Robocop is 1.66:1. There is a new british film called the fish tank. Director approved cut is 1.33:1.
Star trek motion picture director cut was intended to be showed on tv so I would like to see it the way it was meant to view.

The directors cut of Star Trek couldn't be shown in widescreen until digital FX came along because there were many scenes where the sets or special effects were not complete and meant to be added to with matte paintings, etc - so for the directors cut on LaserDisc and television, zooming in a bit and pan/scan were used to hide those unfinished portions of the set and effects. So it's not that it was meant to be seen on TV, that was the only way they could show it. When it was released on home video, Robert Wise did an interview with Video Review magazine explaining why they couldn't release the special edition directors cut to theaters - it would have needed too much work that Paramount was unwilling to fund. But pan and scan allowed it to be done for home viewing because they could just crop off or zoom in on shots that showed unfinished sets or FX.

Of course, unfinished FX, temp shots and blue screens with no FX added didn't stop Universal from releasing Jaws 3D to theaters!

In the 90's (before DVDs) I worked in a second-hand video shop in West London. Many customers would refuse to buy letterboxed VHS editions because they hated to have "wasted space" on their television screens. I had to laugh about it because sometimes those same customers would complain if a few seconds were cut from the British video editions by the UK censors. For some reason they thought it was unacceptable to have a two-second edit, but it was fine if half the film was missing because of the pan-and-scan transfer.

Like you, I always want a title in its original aspect ratio. I've been hoping for a letterbox release of the Robert Aldrich film Twilight's Last Gleaming, but the Laserdisc release is panned and scanned, and there doesn't seem to be a DVD release at all.

I wish it actually worked like that

i don't have a widescreen set but my projector would do it correctly.
i'll have to post pictures.

as for twilight's last gleaming it's not really scanning from side to side, so i don't know
if there is that much image lost on the sides.
just bought a copy from mikey and watched it not too long ago.

It does work like that if it's a true open matte transfer and not zoomed in.

Most open matte transfers are done on a shot by shot basis. Sometimes or even the majority of the time there will be more picture on top and bottom, but lots of shots will be cropped as well.