Imdb doesn't usually state whether a 35mm non-anamorphic film in the 1.85/1 ratio is hard matted or not, is there another site that has this info? This would help in verifying which LDs are open matte.



I may be kicking a dead horse here, does anybody care about this information?

That info wouldn’t necessarily be proof of anything. For one, it would only matter for LDs made from theatrical prints and even then it would only be totally definitive proof if every print was the same which in reality they sure aren’t. By 1994 if anyone was making a ground up restoration they’d be making a new print for it in which case, considering 4:3 was the home video standard, they could very well have chosen to leave the whole frame visable even when it was or wasn’t on the theatrical release. The Abyss special edition, for example. Old LDs with weird aspect ratios are that way because they were at mercy of the best print they could find which may have been a cropped version dubbed in German or whatever. Personal prints are used a lot in the early days of home video and those could have all sorts of copying mistakes in them but if all the OGs are lost the seeing the original ratio listed on IMBD is going to do...what for you?

I sort of care about info like this but the more I look into it the more I realize that the hard data some of you guys are wanting may not exist definitively. The more you look the less there is to believe in. You have to believe in there being a %100 totally correct ratio and there really isn’t one on a lot of things.

That being said...does anyone have a correct list of which Looney Toons are supposed to be wide? That is super confusing to me because Warner sometimes crops things to wide and sometimes gives you a choice, some shorts look like they were designed to work either way. Year of release isn’t the same as order of production so when they go by whatever date in their mind marks the cutoff between wide and 4:3 Toons it’s often wrong.

In my collection I have both full frame and letterbox issues and when compared some of the full frame ones appear to be open matte, there being extra info top and bottom which I don't think would be possible with the matte. I hesitate to update the database without some other confirmation.

I was thinking of starting a topic on titles that appear open matte and let the consensus decide.

I was wondering also if any "scope" cartoon shorts exist.

Scope shorts definitely exist. Disney made a few, some Tom & Jerry shorts are in scope as well I think.


And then there's fun cases like Lady & The Tramp where the full frame and widescreen versions are technically different movies because it was shot twice, once for each. Except then Di$ney gets lazy and just crops the widescreen version for full frame home video releases, if they bother including it at all these days.

The JSC of Top Gun has a special feature about the choice to use full frame aspect ratio instead of widescreen, but it focuses entirely on the flight footage, whereas watching the movie, some of the character scenes do look a little bit cramped, but maybe that's just me.

All Loony Toons were scope after like 1956 or whatever. They seldom leverage it much, maybe they already knew they were TV bound by then and wanted to survive being cropped.

This is essentially the same as the "open matte" vs "hard matte" discussion on so many other threads. The original "Lethal Weapon" for example was shown in theaters at 1.85 and the composition on the film was a mix of both. Some scenes are hard matted (b-unit stuff if I recall) and others are open matte. The same is true for "Back to the Future", but in that case, VFX shots were hard matted while most other shots are open matte.

Thanks all, I have bin educating myself on this subject for a few days now. Maybe the best way to update an A/R listing would be to start a thread and let the consensus rule or just add what the possible A/R is in the remarks. Thoughts?