Disney to Release "Avengers: Infinity War" with Incorrect Aspect Ratio

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In roughly two weeks, "Avengers: Infinity War" - the undisputed biggest hit of the year - will be landing on UltraHD, BluRay, and DVD (it's available now digitally for those whose don't believe in full ownership of your movies).  As predicted, Disney and Marvel won't be releasing it in BluRay 3D.  This is despite the fact that it was filmed with IMAX cameras.  No, they'd rather release a gimped product to the public: No 3D and a cropped image.  For those who believe in the film makers vision, it will truly be a disgrace of a release.  Thankfully, there will be a European release of the BluRay 3D in about another month, so fans who want to buy the movie in its intended format should have no problem importing it and playing it on their American devices.  Sadly, this is where I have some bad news to report: Early disk specifications suggest that the imported disk may be a gimped version of the movie as well.

Oh, don't worry; it WILL be in 3D!  However, unlike the "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" release, it will NOT contain the 1.90:1 IMAX aspect ratio, of which the movie was filmed in!  Now...let that sink in, because this is astounding to me.  Disney and Marvel made a HUGE deal about the fact that "Avengers: Infinity War Part I & II" (because at some point this was no longer a two part movie...never mind, I need to focus on one lapse of logic at a time) was going to be shot fully with IMAX cameras!  This isn't a new thing, of course.  "The Dark Knight" was the first major blockbuster to incorporate select sequences filmed with IMAX cameras, with other movies like two of the 'Mission: Impossible' movies, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," "The Amazing Spider-Man," "Star Trek: Into Darkness," and "Black Panther" (among others) all getting into the act later on.

These IMAX sequences were usually big hits with audiences, and helped make the movie stand out in an IMAX setting.  The big problem is that the changing aspect ratio annoys/confuses people when bringing the experience home, which had led some of these experiences (particularly "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol") to not have their proper theatrical experiences preserved with home viewing.  It's a frustrating but (unfortunately) understandable compromise.  After all, it took YEARS to convince people that the black bars on the screen weren't evil, and now we're telling those same people that the bars will "sometimes be there and other times not?"  Movie buffs might get it, but the average consumer just walks away baffled by everything.  Thankfully, with "Avengers: Infinity War" being filmed exclusively in the IMAX format, the expanded cinematography could be preserved for home viewing without any of the confusion that would normally follow it.

So why the heck isn't Disney preserving it?

This makes no sense on a number of levels.  First of all, the movie was filmed in this format, so there should at least be an attempt to preserve it that way.  Secondly, since it can be preserved without anyone complaining about "bars coming and going," there is no reason not to do this.  Third, but not releasing it this way, you are actually cropping the image for no good reason anyone with half a functioning brain cell can comprehene.  And to be clear, this isn't even an issue exclusive to the imported BluRay 3D: This is an issue with ALL the releases!  Whether watching the film in 3D or not, there is a whole different aspect ratio that provides more picture, more scope, and more detail.  I can understand that in theaters IMAX wanted to have exclusive rights to that look to convince people to buy tickets at their venue, but at home this should be a non-issue.  Why Disney isn't doing this for all the releases is insulting.  Of course it's especially insulting that they won't be doing this for the 3D release (since that's the one that's going to benefit the most from the expanded ratio).

The sad thing is, we might be at a point where the average customer doesn't care.  I remember when the thought of losing DVD sales were so strong, that Disney delayed the release of "Princess Mononoke" a whole eight months when it came to light a lot of people might not buy it because it didn't have the original Japanese audio track on it.  Years later they made another grave error when they installed 'dubtitles' on BluRay release rather than the properly translated subtitles.  People complained, but the threat of lost sales were not enough to convince Disney to correct the mistake.  Once the disk was pressed they moved on.  I suspect that will be the case here.  If people are vocal they might change the aspect ratio for digital copies, but if "Avengers: Infinity War" makes it to shelves with the compromised 2.40:1 aspect ratio...well, we'll just have to live with it I guess.

2 comments:

  1. MaxFromQuebec said...:

    It was filmed with IMAX 2D cameras tho...

  1. Yeah, that was a mistake. I'm changing it now.

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