AMC is committed to presenting Hollywood's greatest movies from the 1930s through the 1970s as they were originally intended to be seen, which is why we offer both widescreen and full screen versions of classic films. However, many widescreen movies are altered for television to fill the entire screen. Unfortunately, when the picture is cropped, you lose parts of the original picture, in some cases up to fifty percent. Main characters are removed entirely and performers hold conversations with invisible characters.
Battles appear one-sided.
The original grandeur of the scene is lost. And although most movies are not widescreen, AMC realizes that some viewers still prefer to watch the classics in full screen form, so we are currently working with movie studios to acquire both versions of the films so that we may air the two versions. Some of our viewer mail has been quite supportive of the widescreen format. As more and more letterboxed films are being issued on laserdisc, and some now even on videotape, I think the time has come to begin the transition to showing widescreen films on TV the way they were intended to be seen when they were filmed. I can see AMC playing an important role in educating viewers about this.