The Gang of Five
The Land Before Time => 1988 Theatrical Release => Topic started by: Justin1993 on November 14, 2011, 02:45:48 AM
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So I was messing around with VLC media player and while watching "The Land Before Time", I changed the aspect ratio to 2.39:1 and I was surprised at how much I liked the change. Here are a few screenshots with their 4:3 counterparts. The quality here isn't as good as what I was seeing when I was watching it scaled and in fullscreen. Also note that I reduced the image size of the widescreen shots because for some reason they were larger in comparison to the fullscreen shots.
(http://i44.tinypic.com/w7zd3l.png)(http://i41.tinypic.com/zjgwuw.png)
(http://i42.tinypic.com/s18c9c.png)(http://i43.tinypic.com/2diluti.png)
Oh the terrible quality of this shot. :x But I like the effect of it being widescreen, which I will explain after a few more shots.
(http://i39.tinypic.com/2rm445d.png)(http://i39.tinypic.com/ndwz8n.png)
Two more.
(http://i41.tinypic.com/fbch6r.png)(http://i43.tinypic.com/dlokna.png)
(http://i43.tinypic.com/1iiy6g.png)(http://i42.tinypic.com/29li9fd.png)
And done. Now on to my thoughts on each shot.
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Okay, so starting with the first two screenshots:
The "scrunched down" affect that is seen here actually favors well for the widescreen in my opinion. The fullscreen shot looks "scrunched in" and gives the crocodile-like animal the appearance of having a short snout.
2nd pair of screenshots: The quality of both sucks here. But I, again, prefer the widescreen shot over the fullscreen shot. It gives a bit more depth to the landscape. The mountains in the widescreen shot look smaller, like if you were at a vantage point that made it appear smaller. The fullscreen shot makes it look to large, as if it were seen from a not so far distance which is not a bad thing, I just prefer the "the mountains look smaller because they are far away" shot.
3rd pair of screenshots: This one I'm not sure about. The Sharptooth looks a bit elongated in widescreen, but the same elongation causes for a nice looking background and foreground.
4th pair of screenshots: This one, fullscreen wins in my opinion. This is one of those times when the "scrunched down" affect just doesn't fit. It makes for a weird vantage point.
5th pair of screenshots: My favorite, and I give this one to widescreen. When I was watching this scene in "widescreen" (and scaled) I loved the feeling it evoked. The widescreen shot sort of gives a better look at just how big the Great Valley really is. The "scrunched down" affect is the downside. It is prominent here.
At some points in the movie, the "widescreen" made the viewing experience better, while at other times it wasn't as nice.
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Original format? I was under the assumption that the original format of all movies is widescreen and that they were changed to full screen (the square-ish look) to fit a TV screen.
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What was the original format of the Land Before Time? If it was widescreen, then the left and right sides were trimmed when the movie was released for video. If it was 4:3, then the top and bottom were trimmed when the movie was released in theatres. I doubt a movie in 4:3 format would be simply streched to widescreen in a theatre. It looks too weird (no offense, Justin).
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It depends on what aspect ratio the original film was shot in. In an old film like the original LBT movie, the default aspect ratio was 4:3. In a newer movie like LBT 13, the default is 16:9 (otherwise known as widescreen). If you take a movie with a 4:3 aspect ratio and put it in 16:9 mode, all you do is stretch and contort the image. Conversely if you take a movie shot in 16:9 mode and play it on an old 4:3 aspect ratio (either through an old TV or through a video player like VLC), the image looks compressed. Either way, the image doesn't look like it should. That's why when widescreen first came out, old TV's would put bars on the top and bottom of the screen. Most old TV's wouldn't compress the image, but rather crop it, cutting out a good percentage of the overall viewing area. To avoid this, the bars were added. I remember being quite annoyed when this first came out.
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So, when showing an old movie like LBT in a theatre, the top and bottom would be cut off to fit the 2.35:1 aspect ratio? I never visited a real theatre in my life. The one I went to was a room with a digital projector running a movie from a DVD.
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I've only been to a theatre once or twice in my life, but I assume they use specialized hardware to optimize how old films look on a wide screen. Because stretching a 4:3 aspect ratio movie looks like crap, as the screenshots above show.
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I doubt a movie in 4:3 format would be simply streched to widescreen in a theatre. It looks too weird (no offense, Justin).
None taken. :smile
I guess really the only reason I liked the widescreen at first was because it gave me a more theatrical experience, seeing as I wasn't born when the movie came out and never saw it in theaters. But I get what you're saying landbeforetimelover and jansenov. Taking a second glance, it does look weird.
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I know this is old and I should probably put this in my other topic (HD vs SD or something like that), but the movie was definitely cut on the sides for the 4:3 format.
(http://i41.tinypic.com/6jm70p.png)
There's the "snap" that was only audible in the DVD and VHS release.
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I can't remember this scene for some reason... a cutted scene??? Or is it just because the sites are cutted??? :wacko
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It's the scene right after sharptooth nearly steps on Littlefoot and Cera.