Can making films for larger screens be unfair to the average consumer?

I believe that the cinema can occasionally be unfair to the consumers. This can be seen as how movies are filmed and how they are shown in the cinema. An example of this would be the filming of the movie the Odyssey. Christopher Nolans ‘The Odyssey’ was filmed specifically for IMAX 70mm screens, using a 1.43.1 aspect ratio. There are only 40-45 IMAX screens this size in the whole world. With a majority of them being in the US. This means that this form of cinema is entirely unavailable for the majority of cinema goers. So, the average person who isn’t close to one of these screens wouldn’t be able to watch the movie as it was filmed, meaning they are missing out on parts of the scenes.

In Northern Ireland we don’t have a single screen that is large enough to see the entire filmed movie. To see the movie, we have to go to a normal screen which cuts off sections of the scenes. Even the IMAX screens in Northern Ireland that are available are not large enough for this movie without cutting out the screen. As seen above the normal IMAX screens in still cut off parts of the movie.

The comparison below shows the scene of the character Agamemnon; you can see the difference between the cinema screens as the top of his helmet is completely cut off as well as the bodies of the characters. I feel that this completely changes the tone of the scene, as it feels much more intimidating on the left and feels crowded and enclosed on the right. The screen on the left makes him the obvious focus as there is a lot of empty background around him which draws your eye to him. However, on the right there is not as much negative space meaning that the screen just feels crowded and takes away from the atmosphere.

However, if you don’t know about the differences between the different types of screens it is still very enjoyable. You don’t know what you are missing. When I first saw this movie, I wasn’t aware of the fact that it was filmed for a different screen. I really enjoyed the Odyssey the first time because of this. But when I went to see it a few days later for a second time I knew of the differences and knew what I was missing. This led me to spend the whole movie looking for bits that seem cut off. So, from personal experience having these differences can alter the viewing experience, if you know it is different. This can be seen as unfair to the consumer because the majority do not have the choice to just go to the larger screens. They need to just accept watching a cropped movie.