The weird VHS that taught me about aspect ratios

I found this old rip of 'The Thing' from some Korean tape where the whole movie was cropped weird. It took me 3 tries to realize I could just resize my player window to 4:3 and suddenly all the scifi chairs looked normal again. Anyone else ever fix a bootleg by just messing with the screen shape?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_hugo13d ago

My 1987 boot of Aliens had the marines looking like squat little blobs until I stretched it tall.

piperwhite13d ago

Tbh the Aliens one is crazy to me because I've seen that exact tape and it's honestly unsettling how bad the geometry gets. I almost trashed my favorite bootleg of The Abyss because everyone looked like they were underwater the whole time, turns out some old rental place in Thailand just cropped it to fit their weird TV. Ngl I think half the charm of watching these is the weird visual glitches you get from fighting with aspect ratios. It makes you appreciate how much work goes into properly framing a shot when you see how dumb a movie looks when it's squished wrong.