last month before I saw the last Jedi I
wanted to revisit the force awakens I
have a stars subscription and I saw it
was streaming on there so I put it on
and within seconds I turned it off
because they weren't showing the whole
movie I mean they had two hours and 15
minutes of the movie but it was not the
entire thing what do I mean by that well
to explain we have to talk about aspect
ratios in case you're not familiar with
the term the aspect ratio is essentially
the shape of the frame of the film it's
always a rectangle but the aspect ratio
specifies the exact shape it's literally
the ratio of width to height so these
square TVs that everyone had until the
mid 2000s their aspect ratio is 4 to 3
and the most common aspect ratio as seen
on HD TVs computer screens and the
YouTube video player you're watching
this on right now is 16 to 9 this is
extremely close to one of the most
widely used aspect ratios for movies 1.8
5 to 1 so in a movie shot that way like
say Jurassic Park is shown on a 16:9 TV
it fills the whole screen but here's
where things get a little more
complicated a lot of movies are shot in
wider aspect ratios in particular 2.35 2
1 which is used for a ton of Hollywood
movies when a movie or video shot and
2.35 is shown on a 16 to 9 screen it's
scaled so that the whole thing will fit
on the screen and you get those black
bars on the top and bottom you've seen
this a million times and often people
making youtube videos will just put the
black bars on there because we've been
conditioned to view that as cinematic
but for some reason a lot of premium
cable channels and streaming services
like HBO are stars as I mentioned before
or Hulu have decided that they know
better than the people who actually made
the movies despite the fact that we've
been watching movies like this our whole
lives they apparently think people can't
handle the black bars so when they show
a movie shot in a wider aspect ratio
they expand the image so it fills the
whole screen which in the process cuts
off the sides of the frame so yeah the
whole screen is filled but you also lose
about 25 percent of the image so Star
Wars goes from this
- this last week I was rewatching part
of the nice guys on Cinemax and they did
the same thing so you end up with a
frame like this where Russell Crowe and
Ryan Gosling can't even fit on the
screen together for comparison this is
what the shot should look like what
drives me nuts about this is that with
every movie the filmmaker chose that
aspect ratio for a reason and they
framed every shot for that specific
shape so chopping off the sides of the
image is going against their wishes and
damaging their work the parts on the
side of the frame they matter
remember back in the early 2000s when
everyone had the square four to three
TVs and DVDs were sold in two versions
widescreen aka the normal version and
then full screen where they would chop
off the sides of the frame so it would
fill the whole screen this was a
terrible practice and it's crazy to
believe that studios actually sold
people these incomplete versions of
movies but once widescreen HD TVs became
the standard it seemed like that dark
time was behind us but just like twin
peaks'
because I'm a crazy nerd about this
stuff here is what I do if I'm gonna
watch a movie that I've never seen
before and it's on one of these
platforms first I go to IMDB and then
the technical specs I look up the actual
aspect ratio if it turns out they're
showing the movie cropped I just turn it
off and watch something else instead or
I pay the $3.00 to rent it on Amazon or
iTunes because I don't want to watch a
movie if I'm not gonna get to see the
entire thing now these cropped versions
of movies might be what is known as the
airplane versions as in the version of
the movie given by the studio to
Airlines to show on those little screens
on the backs of the seats
these are usually cropped but I don't
mind quite as much there because come on
it's an airplane I don't really expect a
high quality movie watching experience
there but why would HBO which prides
itself on the quality of at original
programming and unlike network and basic
cable channels doesn't edit things for
content choose to show these bastardized
versions of movies I don't know who
exactly is making these decisions
whether it's studios choosing to
distribute cropped versions are
companies like HBO doing the cropping
themselves but either way it's bad and
it needs to stop tons of people are
watching these damage in
complete versions of movies and not
realizing it and then there's nerds like
me who doesn't won't watch one of these
movies because we know what's been done
to it
this entire practice is stupid and
pointless it benefits nobody it's bad
for the filmmakers bad for the movies
and bad for the audience so I don't know
how to stop this from happening or how
to bring about this change but if you
agree with this then I don't know treat
this video at HBO and stars and Hulu and
tell them to stop because I think we can
all agree that watching movies is way
better when you can see the whole thing
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