Star Trek tng was shot on 16:9 film, transferred to 4:3 video to be cut and turned into a final 4:3 video. When they did the blu ray remaster, they had to match and rescan every shot from the source film, re-edit each episode and recreate the special effects (when not produced on film). There was the thought to maybe scan the material in 16:9, but the scenes and crew only considered the 4:3 frame - in 16:9 there would often be crew or mics in the frame or even perhaps sets missing. So they kept the show in 4:3.

Apparently for later trek shows (ds9, voy) the film crews were more careful to respect the 16:9 frame, but those shows aren’t as popular and may never get the expensive blu ray makeover.

TNG has such careful framing too, even if they didn't have crew in the shot I bet it'd look off in 16:9 anyways.

What would any of these shots look like in 16:9 [0][1][2]? They really liked filling the frame to the brim with TNG, and any side-areas would just look empty.

[0] https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/3/37/We... [1] https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/3/36/Sa... [2] https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/9/90/Tr...

FYI, those images don't seem to open.

They don't allow hotlinking. Copy the URL and paste it in a new tab, and it works :)