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| packmule | Apr 30 2006, 02:11 PM |
Site founder - Your best nightmare
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I can only guess that it probably was. Why else would we see so few VHS titles in widescreen format, during of course, the heyday of VHS? Example: for the most part when it came to shopping for VHS(before DVDs) I almost always went to Suncoast Motion Picture Co. at a nearby mall. Despite this store's absolutely marvelous collection of movies on VHS only one medium-sized rack was dedicated to letterboxed/widescreen VHS movies, and the rack was always positioned at the back of the store, almost as an afterthought. Store clerks told me many times that lbx and widescreen movies did not sell very well-many reason were given. For instance, within the "family" shopping unit the black "bars" visible in various widescreen variants are not popular with young children, and when a parent is shopping at a video store like Suncoast, are they going to buy a letterbox title anyway over the screams and protestations of their kids? More often than not, no. The lack of popularity wih these lbx'd films was also, I think, borne out of ignorance: I have met people who have actually argued that a viewer sees "more" with cropped full-frame imaged films, basing their argument on the fact that the image fills up the entire screen, and the letterbox film does not crazy ... Having shopped at(now defunct) Turtle's Video I can tell you that this store never had any widescreen titles available. "Pre-DVD Blockbuster Video" also offered few, if any letterboxed titles for sale on VHS. I have several old VHS movies in letterbox: Godzilla(1998), The Creature From Black Lake(1976...Jack Elam fanboy here  ) and Godzilla Vs Biollante(1989). My advice to anyone with widescreen/letterboxed VHS titles: hang onto them, because they might be a collector's item in 10-20 years. nod
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| Terror Of Mechagodzilla(1975) · Showa Godzilla Films 1954-1975 | |
7:19 PM Nov 25
