Dark Knight BR Aspect ratio switcheroo

BlueFox

Last night I am watching The Dark Knight, and I noticed the aspect ratio was switching between 1.78:1 and 2.4:1. Once I noticed that occurring it became distracting while trying to watch the move. I grabbed the BR jewel box, and it says it switches between IMAX sequences.

What the heck. What is the purpose of that, other than to annoy me?

Another thing that was different about this BR is it just went straight to the movie. No menus, warnings, previews, etc.

Other than the aspect ratio switching on the fly, the movie and sound came out great in BR.

lanion

It is how the movie was originally shot. Some scenes in IMAX, which is 16x9, all other scenes in 2.4:1.

There has been a lot of debate about this choice.

Would you prefer the IMAX scenes to be cropped, as was shown on non-IMAX screens? That should be an option on the Blu-Ray I think.

Mike LoManaco

Yes, to answer the OP's question -- when I first did the review of this title on Blu, it bothered me as well. But due to Chris Nolan's unique storytelling, the switching aspect ratios don't bother too much. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it -- but after multiple viewings, you really do get used to it because you're so involved in the story. But yes, the IMAX sequences are supposed to switch aspect ratios with the 2.40:1 scenes back and forth.

Also, with regard to the OP's statement about the disc going straight to the feature -- this seems to be a Warner thing with their Blu-rays (most if not all); the thing that bothered me even more than this was the fact that the Blu-ray defaults to the LOSSY Dolby Digital track...NOT the lossless TrueHD mix. This was a real head scratcher -- it seems most (again, if not all) of their BD releases (Warner) do this, with the lossy track used as auto default. I complained about this when I did the initial review of Dark Knight...you actually need to go into the onscreen menu and switch the audio track, on the fly, to the TrueHD mix while the opening sequence of the film is playing. This TOTALLY takes you out of the experience, and it's something they need to work on for future releases.

Ron-P

It was a distraction to me at first too but I got used to it. Talk about a director that cannot decide which format to film in. I just hope that #3 gets a new director and a new Batman.

millerman 3732

Ron and I have flip flopped on this issue, Ron was haten on it in some other the other threads about TDK and I was one of those directors intent guys saying ''thats the way its supposed to be''. Now that I have a front projection set up and my screen masked down to 2.35.1 I hate the varying aspect ratios directors intent or not, and now I hear that Transformers 2 is going to be the same way.

BTW, seeing how TDK did over 1 billion dollars world wide, half a billion domestic, I doudt we see any changes in director or main characters any time soon.

millerman 3732

millerman 3732 wrote: »

, and now I hear that Transformers 2 is going to be the same way.

Just read over at AVS from a guy that got an early copy of Transformers 2 and he says that there is no aspect ratio change throughout the movie, 2.35 the whole way. Thank goodness!