Why Widescreen?

So I was wondering ... why are screens wide? Why not tall-screen TV? Or round?

I came up with a simple explanation. Our eyes are side-by-side. Which means that our vision captures a wide field. You can imagine some alien species with one eye above the other. Their vision would be tall--can't you picture their corresponding HD 9:16 tall-screen TVs?

But to take this back a step, why on earth are our eyes side by side? I think that it's because of gravity. For the most part, from our perspective, we're operating on flat surface that spreads long to the left and right. We scan left and right -- so our eyes are side to side.

Of course this beggars the question: why don't flying things have eyes one above the other?

Well, if you consider insects, they sort of do. But let's ignore them. You're left with things of flight that evolved from walking, crawling things. Birds and bats have side-by-side eyes because they evolved from earth-bound creatures.

And that beggars the question, didn't all the walkers evolve from swimmers? Why do swimmers have side-by-side eyes instead of up and down?

Well, again, I have to guess. It seems like fish bodies are mostly symmetrical across the Y axis -- that is, the left half is pretty much the same as the right.

It's been pretty well established that symmetrical outputs are a function of gene coding efficiencies, but the relevant question to our inquiry here is -- why symmetry along the Y axis instead of the X?

It seems to me that this happened because gravity pulls the fish down, so a simple bladder mechanism allows for up and down movement. You know--add air to the bladder to rise, release air to sink. So up and down movement seems "easy" to conquer. Left and right, however, require powered thrusts -- so fish have fins to control motion on the Y axis. Once you've got this need for symmetry across the Y axis -- of course the eyes would follow.

So, I suggest: we have widescreen because gravity left our concerns on the horizon, which led to binocular vision working best (from a spot-the-prey or hunter perspective) when scanning the horizon instead of the ... there's no word for it? ... the "vertizon".

Now, imagine what spider TV would look like ...