Dear Hollywood, You're Doing IMAX Wrong!

What's your favorite Aspect Ratio??? Which film uses it the best???

Nolan is for sure the best IMAX filmmaker today. When I first saw the 4K Bluray of The Dark Knight, which features the IMAX scenes in all their crisp and glorious quality, I was blown away and realized that this is the only true way to watch an action film. I never want to watch the cropped version on streaming ever again.

This is so interesting! Wasn’t Tom Cruise super mad bc Oppenheimer was cutting the MIP 7 IMAX run short? And it didn’t even need it?!

When Dead Reckoning tickets went on sale, I immediately went for IMAX cause the marketing made it seem like they had sequences shot in that format, I was a bit disappointed when there were none but it was still an absolutely incredible film.

A large factor as to why nolan is doing IMAX right is his DP for every single movie since interstellar, Hoyte. He has essentially pioneered the use of IMAX cameras with custom lenses to capture intimate close ups like the ones we see in Oppenheimer. But it’s something he’s been doing since interstellar.

wow..not just telling difference between normal and IMAX ratio..also explaining the impact on story telling..explained in the easiest way. very underrated channel. thanks for the great effort to make the video❤

Something you don’t mention, the reasoning behind the creation of the 1.78:1 (16x9) ratio was that it gives the exact same amount of screen real estate to 1.33:1 (4x3) and 2.35:1 (Scope).

I feel like you should have really mentioned James Gunn as an important figure here. The 3 guardians of the Galaxy movies use aspect ratio perfectly. To the point where even volume 3 uses 1.9 throughout for the IMAX version and the scope version is actually switching between the two with each shot clearly being framed for whatever aspect ratio is used. Edit: the use of switching aspect ratios actually started with James Gunn's original guardians of the Galaxy film and it took 2 years for the next mcu imax film to be made with civil war.

There is still the misconception going around that Zack Snyder's Justice League is an IMAX film because of the aspect ratio. This is not true. No IMAX cameras or film was used. They used traditional 35mm film camera, but with a more traditional aspect ratio of 1.33:1 on the negative with no anamorphic lenses. Therefore, the image you see on the 4K Bluray is the original 1.33:1 image on the camera negatives, without any stretching or cropping of any kind. It is not the same as 1.43:1 IMAX film (the aspect ratio is slightly different and the actual quality is vastly different).

One of the greatest tragedies of home video has been the release of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and Dune Part One (2021) on 4K Bluray without the expanded aspect ratio for IMAX scenes.

There’s some big details missing here. Firstly 4:3 started as the academy ratio, and was the standard for old Hollywood up until the fifties so it’s not just a tv ratio, and generally when movies use 4:3 it’s harkening back to the earliest eras of filming (silent films being around 1:1 until sound. Second the reason Nolan opts to use 1:90 for home release is that the expanded information for full iMax is purposefully negative space, because the screen is so large, and you are so close to it, the top and bottom of the image will not be visible without craning your head up or down. (The idea behind this is that it fills up your peripheral vision, thud immersing you) This means the compositions have to account for this. The DP for the dark knight, noted this, saying that in imax you can’t get a ‘true close up’ because the character must be framed toward the middle of the shot. You can see this with the release of the synder cut, there is a ton of dead space, and negative space in the movie, because the top and bottom of the frame are meant to be expendable, So it comes down to an artistic decision on whether the filmmakers want this stylistic choice to be in every released version or only the version that makes the most use of it. Also 2:35 films playing on a full imax screen are still incredible, such as ‘the batman’ or rouge one (both lensed by Grieg Fraser) it all comes down to how films are shot. Some imax films, like Shang chi and the legend of the ten rings, (all of it is 1:90) can look really bland, due to not using the negative space well, and the shots feeling perpetually wide, and never ‘close enough’ because of the expanded ratio.

What people don’t recognize is that dead reckoning was indeed shot with imax cameras with the intention for the aspect ratio to expand. But I’m assuming that was a last minute change due to Tom cruise having his window the format reduced due to Oppenheimer.

Dune was best IMAX experience I have had. cannot wait for Part Two.

Oppenheimer does this perfectly! It also utilizes B&W vs. color to switch the feeling of the film! 10/10 would recommend. I do wish Nolan took the sex scene out so that it could be rated PG-13 and just so more people could see the film because it really is a masterpiece.

Nicole Kidman seeing MI7 at the start was a nice one

Also the movies like The Dark Knight, Dunkirk, Interstellar, Tenet etc uses 16:9 (1.78:1) for the IMAX shots and not 1.9:1. A movie that made real good utilisation of the 1.9 aspect ratio is Top Gun Maverick

I remember when I was a kid and we got our first DVD player and it baffled me that those black bars where there when I was so used to the VHS being full screen. Obviously I don't care anymore, but it shows how aspect ratio can change the enjoyment of a movie for some people.

Nolan goes for 1:78:1 for Blu-Ray releases. 1:90:1 doesn't fill an entire home screen, but 1:78:1 does. Disney will never seem to understand this, but Nolan does. Mcquarrie also doesn't seem to get this either sadly. The only other movie that seems to take advantage of the 1:78:1 to actually fill out the entire screen besides Nolan movies, is Star Trek into Darkness.

Wowww you mentioned Catching Fire transition ✨️ That transition was so perfect and so smart. Make you more immersed to the intensity of the scene.

Great video. Dune impressed me too with its exterior shots on Arrakis being IMAX formatted. Seen MI7 in my IMAX theatre and noticed that the aspect was constant. Very odd considering the use of it in Maverick just last year too