@Knixon said:

Has anyone found this anywhere in widescreen? All of the dvds I find - for any region - are full-screen. (1.33:1 aspect.)

It was a TV movie, why would it be available in a 'wide screen' version?

Lots of TV movies - especially those made after the mid or late 1990s, as this one was - were originally made in widescreen even if they weren't always shown that way on TV. And many TV channels have been showing things in widescreen/letterbox even before HDTV was commonplace. Including/especially on channels like SciFi.

Witchblade, which was produced and shown by TNT from 2000 to 2002, was shown on two nights for each episode: First in full-screen, and the next night (I think) the same episode was shown in widescreen/letterbox.

This movie is from 2003, and imdb shows the production aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which is the 16:9 aspect for HDTV.

As far as I can tell, all of the single-movie DVDs for this movie are "full-screen" but I just tonight found that the version included in a 4-movie collection "Water Monsters" has the original 1.78:1 ratio. So that's what I'm going to get. It seems they put 4 movies on a single dvd, so quality may suffer. But I guess I'll find out.

Also, ER first began in 1994, and yet

ER was filmed in 1.78:1 widescreen from the start, even though it was not broadcast in widescreen until the seventh season when it began appearing in the 1080i HD format. [citation needed] Since the sixth episode of season 7, it has appeared in letterbox format when in standard definition.

@Knixon said:

Lots of TV movies - especially those made after the mid or late 1990s, as this one was - were originally made in widescreen even if they weren't always shown that way on TV. And many TV channels have been showing things in widescreen/letterbox even before HDTV was commonplace. Including/especially on channels like SciFi.

Witchblade, which was produced and shown by TNT from 2000 to 2002, was shown on two nights for each episode: First in full-screen, and the next night (I think) the same episode was shown in widescreen/letterbox.

This movie is from 2003, and imdb shows the production aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which is the 16:9 aspect for HDTV.

As far as I can tell, all of the single-movie DVDs for this movie are "full-screen" but I just tonight found that the version included in a 4-movie collection "Water Monsters" has the original 1.78:1 ratio. So that's what I'm going to get. It seems they put 4 movies on a single dvd, so quality may suffer. But I guess I'll find out.

Well, I didn't know that. I guess we really do learn something new every day. I'm glad you found what you were looking for. I personally hate widescreen/ letterbox. It's fine for some things but in my experience, it sacrifices the tops of people's heads (just an example) just so you can see a tree way off to the right or left?

Only if it was made in full-screen and then "chopped" to be fake widescreen. If it was made in widescreen, the only reason a person's heads would be missing would be if the director was bad.

you should see this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m1-pP1-5K8

And, if a bad director "chops off" someone's head in a widescreen movie, seeing it in "full-screen" wouldn't bring the top of their head back. It's simply not on the film. Period.

@Knixon said:

And, if a bad director "chops off" someone's head in a widescreen movie, seeing it in "full-screen" wouldn't bring the top of their head back. It's simply not on the film. Period.

I am watching Kong: Skull Island (because I watched Godzilla vs Kong a few days ago) & the point I made above about 'chopping people's heads off' happens about 19 minutes in, during the first conversation between Weaver & Conrad. I haven't checked how it was filmed but you can't tell me that is what was intended? Especially since they are in the hold of a ship with nothing else that really needs to be seen?

It can depend on how you're seeing it. Streaming services might have their own way of doing things. But it certainly could be that a director made a scene with the top of someone's head chopped off. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but it still would have been made that way. Maybe it happened because some scenes were filmed with a "higher" screen, and others - especially large jungle scenes or whatever - were filmed in a "wider" screen, and when they were put together the "higher" parts of some scenes were cropped.

Regardless of all that, though, one thing for certain is you don't see MORE of a movie by "zooming" your TV or whatever, just to fill the screen.

@Knixon said:

It can depend on how you're seeing it. Streaming services might have their own way of doing things. But it certainly could be that a director made a scene with the top of someone's head chopped off. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but it still would have been made that way. Maybe it happened because some scenes were filmed with a "higher" screen, and others - especially large jungle scenes or whatever - were filmed in a "wider" screen, and when they were put together the "higher" parts of some scenes were cropped.

Regardless of all that, though, one thing for certain is you don't see MORE of a movie by "zooming" your TV or whatever, just to fill the screen.

It happens all through the movie. The only good part of this movie is the soundtrack.

I'm about at the halfway mark & I want to bail but I want to see Packard squashed like a bug, so...?

It's available through Amazon Prime but I have no idea if they show it in widescreen or not.