Disney may have officially dropped the ball on IMAX Beauty & the Beast!!! (1 Viewer)

[Sean Laughter]

I'm at work, getting ready to run a film with the B&tB trailer before it. From what I hear from co-workers who have already seen it though it isn't looking too hot. I'll report back later with impressions. Obviously this is talking about how the movie looks on the IMAX screen -- not the film content itself (as I love the movie to death!) I hope it's not as bad as I'm hearing.

 

[Chris Dugger]

Sean,
As operation director for 2 Large Screen Format locations, I can persoanlly tell you that any word you hear that the image is less than spectacular, are completely false.
I have been to see this TWICE with recuited audiences and they were ALL blown away.
Disney has done a GREAT job in re-formatting this for the presentation. All the problems with sharpness and grain that FANTASIA 2000 exhibited, are all corrected here.
The overall package is so good that Disney has slated LION KING for stepoff in Large Screen Format Jan 1 0f 2003.
Disney is evaluating this format for re-releasing of animated film every year on Jan. 1st.
Dugger
Dugger

 

[Sean Laughter]

Well Chris,
I just saw the trailer and I have no trouble with the way the image looks, it looks great, color, sharpness, lack of grain . . . awesome. My trouble is that the image in no way can be anywhere near the original aspect ration the film was released in. Granted I don't know what the original OAR was but still
I work in a dome theater so maybe the trailer just isn't using the print they'll use for the dome presentation (Fantasia had separate print versions for flat-screen and dome) but if it looks like that on final release I will be very dissapointed. It is practically 4:3 to my eyes, just a big square with nowhere near the width necessary to make me feel like I'm watching a film instead of a big screen 4:3 television. I can't tell if it's cropped, pan & scanned or what simply because I haven't seen the movie in its OAR since it was originally in the theater, but it definately looks more 4:3 to me than any of the wider aspect ratios.

 

[Sean Laughter]

OK, upon a second viewing it doesn't look quite as 4:3 as I thought originally. But it just looks "weird" for some reason due to the way they've matted it, something is just off and I can't quite put my finger on it. I think they've just been too liberal in shrinking the image in order to avoid distortion on the dome, it's really not all that much bigger than some of the local cineplexes around here at this point which kind of makes it pointless (aside from the glory of just seeing it projected on film again).
Fantasia2000 just looked alot bigger on the dome than this does at this point and that could be a distraction. I wouldn't guess it's taking up quite half of the available projection area. I do agree that the actual transfer looks amazing though.