Pinocchio Platinum Edition Discussion Thread

[Disney Duster]

I'm bolding Netty's name this time!

Maybe you didn't read my post to you on page 53 because...you were like ? But I wish you would read it...

I think the fire, chopped wood, and smoking does connect to Monstro, that was really good thinking there! I never thought that before.

Hm. It seems maybe Disney goes for more emotional and dramatic storytelling than logical all the time. There's nothing wrong with emotional, and I think Disney adding more drama to the stories, by making the characters more evil, or an empty cottage to be more scary and sad, or a falling note from the fairy more magical and mysterious, are all better for the experience. And audiences may have to use their imagination for things, too. Imagination to understand how something could happen, why something is the way it is. You think a lot of things are illogical, but can't you think that the characters, like Pinocchio, or Gepetto, are flawed? Or maybe there's reasoning behind some things, that you don't know of?

Bringing up Maleficent is very interesting. Me and PrincePhillipFan read somewhere something about Maleficent possibly having been part of King Stephen's court, and thought of favorably. In some book that was offcial from Disney, like whoever wrote it could have looked in the archives or something. There's obviously some past history that the Disney storytellers think of and reason out, and they just don't tell the audience because they don't think they need to, you're supposed to get enough from how the characters act. That's what I was saying before, the Disney workers work out all this backstory and motivation that is in their films but not really said aloud, stated directly or obviously, or explained in length to audience.

And Maleficent doesn't need to do all sorts of evil things during those 16 years, the curse is so terrible the whole kingdom is miserable until the princess is about to return to the castle! The narrator says that! That's Maleficent's power! Maleficent was probably going back and forth between enjoying her evil hold over the land, and worrying if she could find the princess to get a spinning wheel to her. Yes, Maleficent needed to get Aurora near a spinning wheel. The burning of all spinning wheels combined with Aurora being hidden with protectors really did prove to be a problem. As did the fact she would look different as she got older and people wouldn't recognize her as the princess, except Maleficent herself and possibly her raven. Why didn't Maleficent go herself? Maybe she needed to stay at her castle and watch over something. I can use my imagination! I've heard time and time again the Disney workers really, really worked hard on figuring out the rules of all the fairies' magic. They couldn't have too much, all-doing power.

And uh...you don't really need to know what an all evil, magical creature unlike any human was doing for 16 years...do you? Yea, people wonder what Aurora's life was like for the 16 years from baby to blonde bombshell but you don't need to know, do you? Really? Yes, knowing might make the film better, but only in slightly, it isn't necessary or important. Some other story problems would better be addressed...

But one of those problems isn't the curse itself. The curse did not turn out to be so bad, but that's only because of the fairies and the prince stopping it from being so! The curse was terrible until they stopped it, it's still worried over until the prince gets inside the castle. Yes, I do think the fairies helped just a little too much in the climax, it should've been a little harder to escape Maleficent and defeat Maleficent, and the battle should've been better. But also, some people think it's actually quite good as it is. The question is do a lot of people think it's good? Would the animators have been able to do more, what with the way they had to time the animation to the music, and remember, they couldn't animate princes the best, and there's only so much you can do in animation with time and money, etc.

Oh geeze now I'm writing a lot. Well, anyway, on the subject of how many people think it's good, enough people certainly think Pinocchio is great in almost everything, at least enough things.

By the way, Pinocchio's getting duped yet again is pretty cute, at least me and apparently others feel that, which is exactly what Walt wanted and what Pinocchio is supposed to invoke. And it's almost warming to see him happy with the other boys going to a place where he can do what he wants, it's actually kind of a complicated feeling of "oh he did wrong yet again/he's so naive, so innocent/aw, he's happy/he's so cute". And you said he didn't sound like he really wanted to go to school. Yea...well, he really wouldn't want to go to school! WHAT kid would?! So what if he only said he was going to school because everyone told him he should? Lots of people do things not because they really want to, but because they feel they should. That's real life, man. You do some things just to make others feel better. He was gonna go to school for his dad, the fairy, and his conscience, and maybe kind of for himself, to become real, I guess.

Oh, and there was you mentioning Beauty and the Beast as a fairy tale that was changed a lot to be a better film. Yes, exactly. It was changed so, so drastically. Disney's earlier classic fairy tale films were more faithful. And they were still good films. At least so, so many people think so.

Oh, and a last thing. Didn't you say something about wanting, or needing, or they should make, more complicated, adventurous fairy tales, with just...more, I guess? Or something? Well, fairy tales have probably worked and endured because they have just the essentials needed to be effective and enduring for so long. Fairy tales, and stories in general, don't need all this new extra filler modern critics and people like you need because you aren't satisfied.

Hm, one day...will the films we think are best today not be considered good because in the future people will expect even more?!

Still lova ya Netty!

[2099net]

Hi DisneyDuster

I wasn't ignoring you, but I really don't want to be diverted down the Sleeping Beauty path too much in a Pinocchio thread. I simply used various Sleeping Beauty permutations as an example of fairytales having internal cause and effect and their own story-logic. Of course, when it comes to fairytales there is no "definitive" version – but most versions I am familiar with have much more narrative cohesion than Disney's Sleeping Beauty. I used Sleeping Beauty because I am (still) unfamiliar with the original Pinocchio story.

I'll address some points you made roughly in order:

I personally don't believe Disney did go for emotional storytelling in their Sleeping Beauty because what should be the main two characters (Aurora and Prince Philip) hardly speak to each other (and for that matter, hardly speak to others). How can you form an emotional attachment to them as a viewer as a result?

The same is true for Maleficent (although, her constantly coming top or near the top of various villains polls obviously shows I'm in the minority) but we know nothing about this woman. Nothing, even at the end, what do we know about HER? Not what she can do, but why she does it? Frankly, it's not good enough to say we should know enough about her back story from the way people react, because basically all they do is gasp, apologise and (belatedly) send the guards after her. If a tall woman who you'd never met before appeared in an eerie green flame, wouldn't you gasp and (belatedly) send guards after her? I'm not convinced any of the populous actually know Maleficent.

Admittedly the King and Queen and Fairies are familiar with Maleficent, but there's no discussion before or after about her or her "snub" – in short, we can't come to any conclusion, the fact you can only say what you say because it's been written down shows how little information there actually is in the film.

Ambiguity can and does work in lots of storytelling, but in order for ambiguity to work, the viewer/reader has to have developed a relationship with the characters and or situations. They need to have put themselves inside the mind of one of more characters, and feel at the end of the story that they can (reasonably) predict what that character would or wouldn't have done, or be familiar with the situation (including it's relationships to other situations/events) to again, predict what may happen. Sleeping Beauty doesn't have enough information to allow the viewer to do this.

There's an interesting article about Ambiguity here
http://www.jonathancrossfield.com/blog/ ... ng-25.html

Which includes the following:

What Blade Runner tells us about scriptwriting is that exposition can sometimes be counter-productive. Why should every question be answered? Reality doesn't work that way, so why should our films? Of course, that doesn't mean we can fudge our plot-points by avoiding sticky exposition, we still need to show how our character got their hands on the gun he uses in the last scene or why our villain does what he does.

So now for my main issue – Life is full of random events and happenings. But behind most of them there's a story. You may be made redundant from your work – but it ties into a bigger picture – the economy, your relationship with your boss and fellow workers, how good you are at your job, perhaps your company is owed lots of money from another company, which has just gone bankrupt etc. etc. Of course, you're made redundant anyway, most likely without a proper explanation, but it doesn't happen in isolation. One of the most prized skills of storytelling is how well people can explain the reasoning and connections between events. Look at The Sixth Sense – in many ways it's a modern fairytale, but look how (had you not known it) how skilfully the twist ending was not only constructed, but in-fact sign-posted throughout the film. Look at how the best episodes of Seinfield had three plot-strands that eventually (and logically) met up at the end. Look at (as I said before) the original or slightly expanded fairytales and see how they have their own internal logic (even though I criticise the fairytale Sleeping Beauty for the co-incidence of having a Prince find the sleeping castle decades later, at least this "rule" is set up near the start of the tale).

So again I repeat my assertion, people only accept that fairytales don't have to make absolute sense, because the bulk of people today are more familiar with Disney's films than the original fables.

Oh, and a last thing. Didn't you say something about wanting, or needing, or they should make, more complicated, adventurous fairy tales, with just...more, I guess? Or something? Well, fairy tales have probably worked and endured because they have just the essentials needed to be effective and enduring for so long. Fairy tales, and stories in general, don't need all this new extra filler modern critics and people like you need because you aren't satisfied.

I'm not saying they need filler material. Beauty and the Beast (Disney version) doesn't need enchanted objects – in fact the enchanted objects really muck-up the whole logic of the story AND MAKE IT WEAKER (I don't actually think Disney's Beauty and the Beast is a better story than the original – I just said it was changed. You only have to sit-down for two minutes and the whole logic of Disney's version falls apart). All they need is internal logic, and as I said on the whole, classic fairytales do – its only when people alter them that sometimes flaws become apparent (and I agree, sometimes the fairytale is already flawed, but alterations only make it more apparent). But stories absolutely do need their own logic, be they fairytales, murder mysteries, romances or any other genre. I think you'd be very hard pushed to find a traditional telling of a fairytale that is as lax and loose as Disney's Sleeping Beauty or Beauty and the Beast.

For Disney to create a filmed Sleeping Beauty, with a run-time probably at least one third longer than if the story it took it's inspiration from was read out loud, and to use it to tell a story with less substance, logic and cause and effect than it's inspiration is – in my opinion – unforgivable; especially when arguably the three most important characters (Aurora, Philip and Maleficent) are so loosely sketched. Too much time is spent on non-narrative whimsy – why exactly do we spend so long seeing the messenger get drunk? Isn't the whole Fairies getting ready for Aurora's surprise party far too much screen time (although obviously required to some degree because their magic needs to be seen)?

Wouldn't it be better if instead of watching an unimportant character get drunk, wouldn't it be better to develop the existing characters and their motivations more? Instead of a prolonged squabble with the fairies, wouldn't it be better to cut to and from Maleficent and discover more of her motivation on the eve her curse was due to expire?

And the curse IS a problem in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, because at the end of the day, she's only asleep for a short time – I want to say 24 hours, but I'll accept up to a week. The curse is the ultimate red-herring. The fairies put everyone to sleep (admittedly they don't know if their rescue of the prince is going to be successful) but at the end of the day, with only a little encouragement, those fairies best Maleficent. Everything Maleficent does is shrugged off with little consequence. The curse is weakened, the Princess only sleeps for a little time, Prince Philip is captured, but rescued, Maleficent becomes a dragon, but is quickly slain. Don't forget, as you say, the kingdom has been miserable for 16 years – for this? Even the Princess being kept in the forest for 16 years is shown to have little consequence, because we hardly see/hear how the King and Queen feel about it – we have to project how we would feel onto them. Everyone in Disney's Sleeping Beauty seems to have no life, no character, no strong emotions… no consequence.

I've gone on far too long about Sleeping Beauty for a Pinocchio thread.

As for Pinocchio, you say its realistic he doesn't want to go to school, boys will be boys and all that. But look at him outside the door on what would have been his first day of school – he's almost hyper-ventilating with excitement about going to school. He may be a magical 12 hour old boy who has foregone normal development, but in order for the story to work, Pinocchio has to have a consistent character, or a character that develops.

When I pointed out Pinocchio only knows how to smoke himself out of the whale, I wasn't particularly criticising the film. In fact, it's something to be praised – it stops the rest of the film being just episodic, random acts, which they easily could have been. In fact, when I realised that, it did make me think about the film in a slightly different light.

But mainly, I was just pointing out how almost every single review, how all our received "wisdom" on the film is the moral is "listen to your conscience, ignore temptation" – which is rather simplistic, because if Pinocchio had done that, he wouldn't have the life experience required to save Gepetto. (Of course, he wouldn't have got Gepetto into that mess in the first place) but I find it very telling that almost everyone ONLY sees the simple, simplistic, obvious moral. It's as if they've decided already, it's "just" a fairytale, and isn't capable of anything more. I think the moral could just as easily be "learn from your mistakes and experiences". Pinocchio has its problems (in my opinion) but even then, the reading isn't as simplistic as most people see it. People are the result of their life experiences, and people make good as well as bad choices. To me, Pinocchio shows that while yes, ultimately you're better off making only good choices, if you make a bad choice, it can still make you a "better" person if you learn from it.


We probably need a Disney Fairytales thread

[ajmrowland]

As for Pinocchio, you say its realistic he doesn't want to go to school, boys will be boys and all that. But look at him outside the door on what would have been his first day of school – he's almost hyper-ventilating with excitement about going to school. He may be a magical 12 hour old boy who has foregone normal development, but in order for the story to work, Pinocchio has to have a consistent character, or a character that develops.

I personally have nothing to say about what you said for Sleeping Beauty.
But with Pinocchio, I stand by my usual defensive strategy: he's a day old, and is easily distracted/charmed into doing just about anything because he hasn't learned not to trust anyone he meets in the streets. And lots of people tend to make the same mistake in different circumstances all the time.

[Disney Duster]

Yay! Thank you Netty!

I don't wnat to talk about the off-subject Sleeping Beauty too much either, so I will try to keep all that I respond about it as short as it can be.

EDIT: Oops it got long. Please bare with me, I don't care how long you take to answer, I tried to keep it short but I really felt I had to say all this!

I actually read the original Pinocchio, or a lot of parts of it, when I was very little. It could even have been only a little while after I was first introduced to the movie! So I don't remember enough of it, but I read it.

Okay, well, I think Disney always went for emotional storytelling, although they also tried to figure out logic. As I said, they tried to work out the rules of the fairies' magic, but then Walt went for the quick suspense in the battle with the dragon, so the logic of how the horse got up the cliff was put aside! So, Disney tries for both, and I guess they sometimes consciously choose emotion over logic. But anyway, some might say the non-speaking of Phillip and Aurora was thought by Walt to be more emotional that dialogue. Sometimes dialogue can ruin a scene. Maybe audiences were supposed to project their feelings onto the characters or something, but Aurora hugging her mother silently with her mother crying was probably meant to be more emotional than logical! I just think Walt thought it would be more emotional the silent way. After all, Snow White and all her film's characters were ALSO silent after the witch in that film fell to her death, and the audience cried at that and loved the whole thing! Wait, maybe the Prince sang for a minute, or was that the chorus singing? But still, it was mostly silent.

If a tall woman who you'd never met before appeared in an eerie green flame, wouldn't you gasp and (belatedly) send guards after her?

Quite true.

I have to say I don't need to know all that much about Maleficent. I think she's like some purely evil demon from hell, and I know she just wants to do the worst things she can think of, and I know she has a big ego from looking at the "lower" fairies getting invited over her, and her "Thinking you could defeat me, the Mistress of all Evil" talk. I don't need to feel emotional for Maleficent. Yes, more on her character might be better, especially more logic with how she didn't find Aurora and all, but what can I say...I think I trust the Disney workers' unknown reasons.

This may nor may not help, but some guy on some site said he talked to Marc Davis about how Maleficent was very sexy, and she hated sitting in a castle with dumb short goons all the time, so she especially enjoyed breaking Phillip and Aurora up and keeping the prince in chains in her dungeon, and Marc Davis replied, "We were not naive nor innocent, you know" or something like that. That explains enough of Maleficent to me, but you see how that couldn't be said in a film children are able to watch? And it may have been thought as too extraneous, unneeded for the film. Yes, I wish I knew more about her but I know it all lies in the archives somehwere or the imginations of those who made her.

What you said about ambiguity was quite good, and I can't think about the whole film to see if it has any of that or not, so I'll just say it sounded pretty right and it is better for films to have that.

I actually figured Bruce Willis was dead early on in The Sixth Sense. I guessed it. And sometimes I thought, "Oh, maybe he's not dead" through the film, but kept thinking he was. Who knows how I got it. But anyway, Disney does indeed foreshadow things in their films. Maleficent's headress is a foreshadowing of her dragon transformation. If this is not the kind of foreshadowing you're talking about, maybe you mean specifically foreshadowing by having things that happen to characters have to do with later things that happen to them or things that they do? Well Pinocchio proved Disney has done that, too. Would you accept Aurora's shelter from the outside world part of why she touched a spindle she had never seen before? Or is the hypnotism too much?

I do think every story needs internal logic unless it's purposely not supposed to have it and it works for that film, but yes the Disney tales probably should have logic unless Walt was trying to say "life isn't logical" or "you will end up happy if you are just good, forget if it doesn't seem logical that things will turn happy." But I do believe they really try for internal logic, the DVD featurettes usually reveal how they try to make them so. But perhaps emotion replaces logic sometimes like staying in the moment over how the horse got up there.

In Sleeping Beauty's original tale, I think the old fairy was either forgotten or actually, they thought she might be dead or under a spell! In Disney's, Maleficent is not invited because she is an evil powerful fairy. She doesn't even have to have terrorized the whole kingdom before. They just know she is evil, either by experiencing it first hand or hearing it, they know somehow. All we really need to know is she likes to do evil. Lots of people in this world like to do evil, why aren't people complaining about the Joker in The Dark Knight? Because he gave different reasons for why he was so messed up? Maleficent isn't that kind of character, she actually lives for evil. Many people in this world are dark and or like being bad and can't think of the reasons why they are, they just are.

But anyway, they King and Queen didn't plan on her ego and actually wanting to go to the party, so they didn't invite this evil being who would try to do evil things there. I already explained Maleficent's making the kingdom miserable, but her power was limited to the curse not coming true unless she found the princess. So, to not get deeper into Sleeping Beauty, I'll just cut to this: what, what is wrong with the curse not ending up being a big problem because the heroes stopped it from being so?

Say the problem in some movie is that a guy, the villain, is going after another guy to shoot him with a gun. If the guy's friends stop the villain from shooting the guy, does that mean we didn't fear the villain or fear for the guy he was going to shoot, and get all effected by it, even though he never actually shot the guy?

And remember, after all the waiting, the King and Queen may have had a heart attack when they found out Aurora fell to the curse. Mere sleep or not, when you find out you're child's under and evil curse, you do get emotional and think of the worst. The fairies stopped them from finding out and feeling the pain, but the situation was sad until they came up with the idea to fix it. And then what if Phillip did get kept away from Aurora for one hundered years, as was threatened? We're to worry over that, too.

I liked what you said about Beauty and the Beast, hehe. I think I may actually like with what they did with the story if they did it better, it just bothers me how so many people think it's the best Disney movie ever when it was so changed from the original fairy tale, so treated differently from the other Disney films, or at least the fairy tales.

I don't think Disney gave their filmed version of Sleeping Beauty less substance or logic or cause. Because they had the prince and princess meet and fall in love before the sleep, they had the whole mixed up identity and not wanting to marry someone you don't love sublot, the fairies got great personalities and basically Disney added a lot, not really took away, except they took away, arguably, the princess being curious about the spinning wheel, the hundred years, and the prince and princess talking after the curse ended. Hey, here's something. If it stuck to the original tale, the good fairy actually changed the princess to sleeping for a hundred years. It could be said the prince ends the curse by arriving a hundred years later, but it could also be that the fairy simply changes death to sleep but it still must last a long time as the curse was still strong. The prince just shows up at the perfectly right time. Disney's version puts in the idea of Aurora possibly sleeping forever, or everyone she knows being dead or very old by the time she is revived. And if her true love never woke her up, she'd sleep forever, might as well be dead. It's not like the original's hundred years and it's over.

Also, Maleficent is not invited because she is evil, it's only different from being forgotten or thought dead, not less reason. I already mentioned some of her possible motive for being so involved with stopping the two hot young teenagers from hooking up, as well as proving she cannot not be invited somewhere and must be reckoned with. I feel all the fairy scenes are quite necessary and good for the film, they're good characters as well as the ones that move the story the most, only the drunk messenger is not and could have been lessoned to work more on the prince and princess. But human figures, especially princes, are hard and there has been talk of not being able to do enough with or have enough fun with the straight human characters, so they may have thought they couldn't do more with them. In Snow White and Cinderella, and all Disney films, sidekick characters are given more because they can be funny and can "do more" and may be easier, too. One time I think Marc Davis talked about human characters like...I'm sad to say I think he said Cinderella...being thankless because they don't get laughs. But Cruella DeVille was a human who could be funny, and he liked doing her more, and could do more.

But yea I totally know they could have done more with any straight human characters, it's just the ones in charge, especially Walt, thought they couldn't, or shouldn't, I guess.

Instead of a prolonged squabble with the fairies, wouldn't it be better to cut to and from Maleficent and discover more of her motivation on the eve her curse was due to expire?

Well, I would not want to see Maleficent listen to her bird tell her the news of Aurora, the mystery of not knowing how she's gonna get Aurora is much better, but perhaps more scenes with her generally would be good. The prince and princess needed more scene the most though, perhaps Aurora with the fairies or longer love scenes with more talking for the prince and princess. Hm. Maybe Walt thought talking got in the way of romance, was less emotional, or wanted the audience to project their feelings, etc. Thinking on it, so many people think the prince and princess were boring together, and their scenes are kind of long for just walking in the forest and singing! Maybe they just didn't figure out how to make these human figures in a meticulously detailed world be more interesting.

I do think in general, the obstacles are stopped too soon, especially in the climax, it's too quick and easy to escape or stop the evil. But they did say they wanted to go fast through bad thing after bad thing. And some people agree with it and think it's good. So...perhaps it should have looked like it was harder to escape or get out, but still have been about as quick?

We should have seen the King and Queen's suffering over their child more, I also agree with that.

I've gone far too long as well about Sleeping Beauty. Sorry.

Pinocchio was excited for shcool because his dad got him so excited. He was new to it. But then some big people told him something was better, so he got excited for that, and stayed excited because, honestly, acting in a theater and going to an island of all pleasure is more exciting than school!

I'm glad you think of it in a better light at least a little.

I think the moral of Pinocchio is be brave, truthful, and unselfish, not necessarily listen to your conscience. But if Pinocchio did listen, I guess none of the bad would have happened. Disney does say he think children should experience the scary and bad as well as the good, and see good triumph, so perhaps he did think Pinocchio should experience some bad, scary things, but be good in the end. And that's the message?

I would love a fairy tales thread. I have always considered Pinocchio, and Peter Pan also, to be fairy tales. I don't like how they say Walt only made three fairy tales (the princess ones). But this is part of why Disney is known for magic and fairy tales. They have a lot of fairies, but more than that, lots of magic, or at least fantasy, in most of their films.

[gl2686]

does the blu ray comes with an insert... i bought my copy in a pawn shop for 16.00$, brand new, but it didnt have any insert

[ajmrowland]

It comes with a couple booklets, but no chapter insert. The chapters are listed on the inside of the case.

[Spottedfeather]

Is anyone else mad about the blu-ray ? I am. There is no fullscreen option to make the picture fill an entire 4:3 tv. Instead, you have the picture in a little square in the middle of the tv. I put on the DisneyView bars, but it's still horrible. I sure hope they don't do this with Snow White and their other classic cartoons. Having a square in the middle of the tv is very distracting. The blu-ray is pretty expensive to spend 30 dollars on and not be able to enjoy it. The shrunk picture takes me out of the movie. I never thought that I'd say this, but.....I don't think I'll watch the Pinocchio blu-ray more than once. Okay, well twice to hear the commentary. Oh, well. I don't really expect much from Disney these days. I mean, they give us really great dvd sets, but never finish the run of the show.

[Flanger-Hanger]

Spottedfeather all Blu-ray's are encoded for 16x9 televsions. There is no non amamorphic Blu-ray (as the format is not meant to be seen on 4x3 sets).

[Escapay]

With Pinocchio being an Academy Ratio, it would have bars on the sides no matter what you do when watching the Blu-Ray (hence, Disney's "DisneyView" option for anyone who doesn't want dull black bars )



(Pinocchio screen cap courtesy of Luke's review. Black bars courtesy of me. )

Instead, you have the picture in a little square in the middle of the tv.

If you did what I think you did (hooked up a Blu-Ray player to a 4:3 TV), did you get an image like this?


(I made the top/bottom bars gray to differentiate what the 16:9 frame in a 4:3 TV looks like)

All Blu-rays, as Wire Hanger said, are encoded as 16:9, because they're meant to be seen on 16:9 TVs. What you've done is basically trying to fit a rectangle into a square, and so the image is shrunk down proportionately to fit. DVD players have the ability to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 displays, but Blu-Ray players are only meant for 16:9

(I hope I got this all right. Where's deathie when I need him again?)

albert

[KubrickFan]

The last pic is incorrect, Blu-Ray's aren't anamorphic.

And Spottedfeather, why are you watching Blu-Ray on a 4:3 television? I know it looks marginally better that way, but you should really buy an HD tv for the full benefit of the higher resolution.

[Escapay]

The last pic is incorrect, Blu-Ray's aren't anamorphic.

Thanks. I'll take it out.

albert

[Spottedfeather]

The last pic is incorrect, Blu-Ray's aren't anamorphic.

And Spottedfeather, why are you watching Blu-Ray on a 4:3 television? I know it looks marginally better that way, but you should really buy an HD tv for the full benefit of the higher resolution.

If you have the 1,000 dollars for me to spend on a widescreen tv, then fine, I'll get one. Not everyone has that much money to spend on something like a tv. We have bills, doctor stuff, taxes, etc. We can't all just decide to go out and get a new tv.

It should be an option to have the square picture fill the square tv if you have one. They wasted their time and money on that retarded DisneyView option. They couldn't have spent a little time to put a normal picture size on the disc ?

[Escapay]

It should be an option to have the square picture fill the square tv if you have one.

Yeah, it's called the DVD.

albert

[ajmrowland]

I'm not sure about regular Blu-ray players, but isn't there a feature on the PS3 that can be used to enlarge the image?

And SpottedFeather, I hear ya on the Tv. We didn't just pay money for ours. We used rewards points from AmEx. Owning a business really gave us the benefit, this time. I'm just saying there's an option of saving up long-term for an item you technically already paid for.

[KubrickFan]

If you have the 1,000 dollars for me to spend on a widescreen tv, then fine, I'll get one. Not everyone has that much money to spend on something like a tv. We have bills, doctor stuff, taxes, etc. We can't all just decide to go out and get a new tv.

It should be an option to have the square picture fill the square tv if you have one. They wasted their time and money on that retarded DisneyView option. They couldn't have spent a little time to put a normal picture size on the disc ?

Then why buy Blu-Rays at all? Just curious, but they cost more than regular dvds, and it's not like the difference in quality is staggering on a 4:3 tv. Also, HD Ready tv's can be bought rather cheaply, nowadays.

[ajmrowland]

Yeah, it's the ones with the tuners that are pricey.

[mvd24]

As far as I follow the UK-(and some other European countries)blu-ray has the missing lines on it's soundtrack, but the dvd has the same incorrect version as the R1 blu-ray and dvd.

Now, does anyone know if there is a country where the dvd has the correct soundtrack?
I would be very interested to know as I plan on buying the dvd.

[Spottedfeather]

With Pinocchio being an Academy Ratio, it would have bars on the sides no matter what you do when watching the Blu-Ray (hence, Disney's "DisneyView" option for anyone who doesn't want dull black bars ) All Blu-rays, as Wire Hanger said, are encoded as 16:9, because they're meant to be seen on 16:9 TVs. What you've done is basically trying to fit a rectangle into a square, and so the image is shrunk down proportionately to fit. DVD players have the ability to switch between 16:9 and 4:3 displays, but Blu-Ray players are only meant for 16:9

(I hope I got this all right. Where's deathie when I need him again?)

albert

There is a blu-ray of a tv movie called A Christmas Visitor. That is 4:3. Why couldn't Pinocchio be ?

[bradhig]

The blue fairy looked like ghost you could see through her at times. Why did she need that rope around her waist if she was a ghost?

[KubrickFan]

There is a blu-ray of a tv movie called A Christmas Visitor. That is 4:3. Why couldn't Pinocchio be ?

I don't understand. I don't know the movie, but I googled it and everywhere it showed up as being 1.78:1.
If it is 4:3, then it is the same aspect ratio as Pinocchio, thus having black bars on the sides.