The ratio wars predate Millennials filming with their smartphone vertically. Indeed, the ongoing aspect ratio battle is never ending. Anyone who has ever watched a movie, a clip on YouTube, or any image on their phone has seen the black bars on the sides or top. But chances are you never thought much about it. Done right, you simply don’t notice a clip made in one aspect ratio forced into a completely different one. As long as the proportions aren’t distorted or the image manipulated or awkwardly zoomed in, we’ve come to accept this as a part of life. It only took fifty years of bungling to figure it out.
This isn’t a nostalgic reminiscing of pan and scan, but a chance to dance on its grave. To this day, it remains the worst atrocity committed against movie fans. The amount of destruction this lone idea has caused is (literally) hard to fully see.
