TWO TOWERS Widescreen/Fullscreen Comparison
This page is not intended to be primer on letterboxing or a defense of widescreen vs fullscreen (or vice versa) DVDs. I already know that widescreen (letterboxed) DVDs and/or laserdiscs are preferable, since they maintain the aspect ratio as was filmed and as was displayed in theaters.
However, that's mainly true with anamorphic movies. Movies shot in Super35 have a variable aspect ratio, and are not necessarily panned and scanned to fit the shape of a TV screen. Usually a full-screen Super35 presentation will lose picture information on the sides, yes, but it can show more on the top and bottom. There may usually be panning & scanning during special effects shots, since there's no point in creating effects that won't be show up on the screen; but, oddly, this is not true with The Two Towers. Even special effects shots show more on the top and bottom.
Hence my annual comparison. Pay close attention to the top and bottom of the fullscreen freeze-frames to see what I mean.
The above screen grabs were made from my full-screen and widescreen DVDs of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers using my newly purchased copy of WinDVD 5 Platinum. All rights reside with the original copyright holder, and I uploaded these images strictly for educational purposes.
I tried not to alter the images, but I did reduce all the fullscreen freeze-frames by 25% so that they would be equivalent in size to the widescreen freeze-frames. The only image I doctored is the fullscreen still of Saruman and Grima, which I lightened a bit to show off how the orcs are visible through the railing.