[Help] The Ghost And The Darkness 1996 - Aspect Ratio?

[alleycat]

Anyone know what is the story with the aspect ratio on this? Theatrically it was 2:39:1 according to imdb, but on every home video release it has been either 2:10:1 or 2:09:1. I don't really get why they would change the aspect ratio like that? 

As a test here is a frame from the blu ray which is actually 2:11:1:



And here is the same frame resized to 2:39:1:

[MrBrown]

Regarding "why change AR": remember Apocalypse Now that was long only avaible in a cropped 2.00:1 AR, because the home video supervising was done by the cameraman who personally preferred the 2.00:1 AR all over.
Maybe something like this happened to ghost and the darkness...

[spoRv]

As a test here is a frame from the blu ray which is actually 2:11:1:
...

And here is the same frame resized to 2:39:1:
...

Try to find out a shot with something circular - sun, moon, or better a wheel - and see if, when resized, it's still circular or becoming oval.
I know, it's a rather basic test, but could help, maybe!

[PDB]

The 2.11 def looks stretched from top to bottom. The 2.39 looks more natural.

[alleycat]

Regarding "why change AR": remember Apocalypse Now that was long only avaible in a cropped 2.00:1 AR, because the home video supervising was done by the cameraman who personally preferred the 2.00:1 AR all over.
Maybe something like this happened to ghost and the darkness...

Never realised that happened with Apocalypse Now but sure it could have been something like that. Even the LD was like that. 

As a test here is a frame from the blu ray which is actually 2:11:1:
...

And here is the same frame resized to 2:39:1:
...

Try to find out a shot with something circular - sun, moon, or better a wheel - and see if, when resized, it's still circular or becoming oval.
I know, it's a rather basic test, but could help, maybe!

Good idea, I'll have a scan through and see what I can find. 

The 2.11 def looks stretched from top to bottom. The 2.39 looks more natural.

I thought the same thing, the heads look stretched to me.

[PDB]

It’s probably just a screw up on Paramount’s part.

Most of their early HD masters are screwed up in some way or another. Aliasing, vertical scanning lines and wrong aspect ratios were not uncommon.

[dvdmike]

I have the LD and the BD I will look tomorrow

[MrBrown]

Seems as if Shout releases an US Disc of this movie may this year. Maybe they'll have a correct AR on it.

[FreaQ]

On the other thread I posted some shots with different AR.

The Prime version is 1920*880 which results in 2.18

2.18


2.21


2.35


2.39


Based on that I would say 2.3x are definitely wrong.
The thruth is something between 2.18 and 2.21

To see the full picture: right click -> open picture in new tab

[MrBrown]

Yeah, I just saw the preorder up, and went to the firt GatD Thread here, to inform on upcoming release.
I totally missed that this is just the AR request thread, not the big discussion.