List IW Movies that are in the wrong Aspect Ratio

[Alex Ricciardi]

I wanted to start a thread listing which movies up on IW are in the incorrect Aspect Ratio. I've updated this post with a list of all the movies people throughout the discussion have found:

Dirty Harry (1971)
Dead Ringers (1988)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Pale Rider (1985)
An Evening With Kevin Smith II (2006)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)
Ben-Hur (1959)
The Searchers (1956)
Electra Glide in Blue
Legend of the Chupacabra (2000)
Alien: Collector's Edition (1979)
The Avengers (1998)
Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Empire Records: Remix! Special Fan Edition (1995)
Enter the Dragon: Special Edition (1973)
The Eye (2002)
Godspell (1973)
Great Expectations (1974)
Hellraiser (1987)
Home Fries (1998)
Jack the Giant Killer (1962)
The Karate Kid (1984) (parts 2 and 3 are correct widescreen ratio)
Little Shepherd (2002)
The Marsh (2006)
The Mean Season (1985)
The Mechanic (1972)
My Giant (1998)
The NeverEnding Story 2: The Next Chapter (1989)
The Next Karate Kid (1989)
Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992)
Point of No Return (1993)
Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow (1994)
Red Dawn (1984)
Risky Business (1983)
Sphere (1998)
Stephen King's Cat's Eye (1985)
Strange Brew (1983)
Superman: The Movie (1978)
Superman III (1983)
Superman Doomsday (2007)
U.S. Marshals (1998)
The Marsh (2006)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
Ladyhawke (1985)
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Mad City (1997)
Logan's Run (1976)
Soylent Green (1973)
Above the Law (1988)
Out for Justice (1991)
Executive Decision (1996)
Jacob's Ladder: Vol. 2: Naomi, Ruth and Boaz [2nd part] (2005)
Curly Sue (1991)
The Mission: Special Edition (1986)
Hell in the Pacific (1968)
Man of the West (1958)
Falling Down (1993)
Southland Tales (2008)
The Terminator


I'll keep adding any titles as I find them, and I'd suggest you do the same. I don't know about you, but the difference between correct and incorrect aspect ratios is the difference between watching and not watching for me. Hopefully we can get this info to Netflix somehow.

[Adrian]

Yes, its helpful to have input on any encoding or movie metadata issues. We are re-encoding the whole library in a new format for the Silverlight player and other updated TV players and are also working through any issues that we find, so its still very busy in encoding land...

[Knaldskalle]

Tanks Adrian! It brings a little joy to my cynical heart... :-)

[MachZero]

My input is make sure all IW titles are presented in widescreen format and make sure the player is capable of changing it to 4:3 like set-top and software players are for those who insist on 4:3 and losing so much of what was filmed. In todays age of HD and widescreen TVs there is no exuse not to have everything in widescreen unless no copy of a film exists in widescreen. But that is rare if not non-existent if the movie was filmed in widescreen. In fact even the disc collection should all be widescreen too with the same exception for titles that don't have a widescreen format in existence.

[Knaldskalle]

make sure all IW titles are presented in widescreen format

Sorry, but if the original aspect ratio is 4:3 I'd prefer to see it in 4:3 and not an artificially created letterbox format (open matte or tilt & scan).

[MachZero]

That wasn't my point. See my earlier post. Almost everything is filmed and presented in widescreen formats. Only know exception to this are TV shows and some made for TV stuff that were presented in 4:3 even though they could have been filmed in widescreen. But due to tradition (or screen size for really old stuff) it would get reformatted. Though this is mostly older TV stuff. Practically everything since HD and even some stuff before was presented in widescreen and thus should be on netflix disc or IW in the same format. However as has been done with some TV shows they offered the widescreen filmed version on DVDs presenting a better viewing experience since we see everything that was filmed. However this is a rare exception as far as I'm aware. Movies on the other hand are all widscreen filmed and presented that way should also be available that way. Let the viewer use their set-top or software player to butcher the left and right sides off not the source.

[MachZero]

I decided to go back through my list of stuff I watched to check proper widescreen or not due to recent disapointment on a couple

titles not being in widescreen here is what I discovered.

IW selections not in widescreen but disc pages list widescreen:

Alien: Collector's Edition (1979)
The Avengers (1998)
Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Empire Records: Remix! Special Fan Edition (1995)
Enter the Dragon: Special Edition (1973)
The Eye (2002)
Godspell (1973)
Great Expectations (1974)
Hellraiser (1987)
Home Fries (1998)
Jack the Giant Killer (1962)
The Karate Kid (1984) (parts 2 and 3 are correct widescreen ratio)
Little Shepherd (2002)
The Marsh (2006)
The Mean Season (1985)
The Mechanic (1972)
My Giant (1998)
The NeverEnding Story 2: The Next Chapter (1989)
The Next Karate Kid (1989)
Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992)
Point of No Return (1993)
Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow (1994)
Red Dawn (1984)
Risky Business (1983)
Sphere (1998)
Stephen King's Cat's Eye (1985)
Strange Brew (1983)
Superman: The Movie (1978)
Superman III (1983)
Superman Doomsday (2007)
U.S. Marshals (1998)
The Marsh (2006)

I also created some lists using the list feature of the site:

Titles not properly offered in widescreen
Titles potentially not properly in widescreen
Titles' IWs are widescreen, disc page indicates not

Do let me know if I need to correct the list according to the descriptions I added to them.

[MachZero]

I guess I should have held off posting here are some more:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
Ladyhawke (1985)

[ewd76]

Hopefully they will get those fixed. When I used the old player those were wide screen.

[MachZero]

It has been recently pointed out to me that some titles are filmed in 4:3 and if those titles are made in widscreen format that similarly to making widescreen into 4:3 a portion of what is filmed gets chopped off. But in the case of 4:3 into widescreen its the top and bottom that get trimmed. This of course has me questioning which ones are the exception and filmed in 4:3. The titles I listed only point out which IW titles are in 4:3 but the disc page lists a different ratio. And doesn't take into consideration if any of them were actually filmed in 4:3. With that said I have decided to start checking up on what the proper aspect ratio titles are filmed in since I'm a fanatic of seeing everything that was filmed rather than a butchered version. In the mean time here is one more title seen on IW in 4:3 but the disc page lists a widescreen ratio.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

[MachZero]

Here are some more on IW as 4:3 but are listed in widescreen on the disc pages:

Mad City (1997)
Logan's Run (1976)
Soylent Green (1973)

[MachZero]

Here are some more IW selections (already expired) that were in 4:3 and the disc page says widscreen:

Above the Law (1988)
Out for Justice (1991)
Executive Decision (1996)
Jacob's Ladder: Vol. 2: Naomi, Ruth and Boaz [2nd part] (2005)
Curly Sue (1991)

[MachZero]

Is anything coming of listing which ones are in the wrong aspect ratio? Is it something in netflix's control? In other words someone screwed up in making the file used for IW? I've found a handful more titles and I'm wondering if there really is any point to listing them any more unless they indeed are indeed expediently correcting the titles to their proper aspect ratio.