Tron: Legacy

35mm film is natively 4K, and effects are never rendered at under 2K at the smallest. Parts of The Dark Knight were IMAX, so they had a taller aspect ratio to work with than the normal film, which was shot wider than the IMAX. My guess is that Tron Legacy had a similar setup- perhaps the 3d cameras were higher than 35mm? I know the 3d was only while inside the Tron world- perhaps the film they used for those cases happened to have a different aspect ratio, so they decided they might as well use all of it.

35mm film doesn't have a digital resolution to compare it to, you can theoretically digitally scan 35mm film all the way down to the crystalline structure of the film before there's any resolution limit. From what I've heard when 35mm film is scanned they do it at around 5k resolution and work from there since it's more than enough for any current format. RED cameras shoot at 4k - 5k natively straight to a proprietary RED digital format that doesn't take up a shit ton of digital storage. These cameras are the future of cinema, they also cost a lot less to run than 35mm cinema cameras in both initial and running costs.

Anyway, it makes sense that they used the higher quality stuff since they had it. But I don't see why the whole thing wasn't just cropped to 19:9 for the Bluray. I mean, I can almost guarantee that every shot they did had the required vertical resolution. Unless they got lazy doing the digital effects and never rendered the vertical resolution they needed...

Interestingly enough though, I'd say that switching back and forth worked well for TRON. Gave a few scenes a more "crisp" feel when in letterbox.

True, but 4K is the typical theatrical display analogue, so I used that as a general number example. As for why they don't just crop the entire thing, I have no idea. They technically could have done the same thing for The Dark Knight, but chose to keep the letterboxing for most of the film. My guess is that it comes down to the cinematographer. If he/she wants a 2.85:1 ratio, then the bluray will probably stay that way. With Tron it was probably an artistic choice during the blu ray manufacturing process. Either that or somebody is randomly hitting buttons and seeing how it looks.

Hmm pretty weird, like someone mentioned they did that with Dark Knight because the opening sequence (the bank robbery bit) was shot in IMAX.

Tron is a fantastic film though,cracking soundtrack by Daft Punk too.

There's letter boxing because if you crop it to 16:9, you cut out some of the picture. I don't know about you, but I would rather have the letterboxed 21:9 than have it cropped to 16:9.

Oh, true- for some reason I didn't think about that. >_< And the visual effects would have been rendered in that picture ratio anyway, so it would be impossible to display a fullscreen image without the effects just stopping where the black bars are currently. This leads me to believe that Tron's blu ray picture changes are a direct result of the 3D cameras, artistic choices, or both. I never saw Tron in IMAX- did it actually display in large-scale for the 3D? If not, this may be something visible only on the dvd/blu ray transfers.

I saw it in 2D three times and in 3D once...but the 3D didn't do shit for me because I wasn't sitting close enough for my right eye to pick it up.

E: I can't wait for that Panasonic 21:9 HD+ TV to come to the US. Then we can truly enjoy our movies without letter-boxing.

This is out on Bluray already? Probably should go get it.

I prefer 16:9 to 21:9 myself, just like I prefer 16:10 to 16:9.

I really doubt 21:9 will become a standard.

It won't. It's a niche thing. But unlike 16:9 vs. 16:10, you are not stepping down in pixel count by switching to 21:9. Same number of vertical pixels, larger number of horizontal. 16:10 has more vertical, same horizontal as 16:9.