Seeing movies in an IMAX theater (1 Viewer)

[Todd K]

Hello all,

I just came home for the holidays and I noticed that both Lord of the Rings and Matrix Revolutions are playing at the local IMAX theater.

Should I want to take advantage of this? What's the difference between seeing it at the regular theater and an IMAX theater? Next to the Lord of the Rings listing, it said in parentheses: "35mm presentation."

Thanks all!

Todd

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Make sure it's NOT a dome imax first.

The matrix was re-done for imax, so if it's that kind of showing, it should be awesome. (you may have to check)

LOTR was not, so it will be a normal film print, rather than a totally overhauled imax print as it would for the matrix.

 

[ChrisLazarko]

Anyone see the Matrix for IMAX? Too bad there aren't alot of IMAX Theaters around me... closest thing I got is Liberty Science Center... they usually play that education BS with the monkeys and all that.

 

[AaronJB]

I didn't see "Reloaded" in IMAX, but saw "Revolutions" in IMAX and the picture quality was quite astonishing.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I saw both Reloaded and Revolutions on IMAX (that used the DMX procress to port them to a letterboxed IMAX format), and both viewings left me awestruck by the sheer clarity and immenseness of the viewing experience, plus the sound system wasn't shabby either.

 

[Todd K]

Well, wheras the RoTK lists (as I said) 35mm presentation, I see the Matrix lists "An IMAX Feature," so I think it's the kind of showing Chris is referring to.

But I'm still not quite sure what I'll be getting if I go to this. What do they do to an IMAX feature that's different from what you'd see in a normal theater? I have never even been to an IMAX presentation. And what is a dome IMAX?

Thanks again,
Todd

 

[ChrisWiggles]

A dome is like a big circular dome thing, like an omnidome, or omnimax, or whatever. IT's very cool for films done in that format, like their nature things and all. You do NOT want to see a regular movie like the Matrix at a dome theater, it's all distorted because it's dome-shaped.

A regular imax just has a HUGE screen. It is curved, but it is not a dome.

The 35mm prints are just standard film being shone at an Imax theater, REALLY big, which is cool. PRoblem is, that THAT big, even film gets to be a seriously limiting factor resolution-wise. It's sorta like blowing up TV onto a huge screen, it looks like crap. So, the imax features that have been redone are transferred digitally, and processed to remove film grain, and increase sharpness, etc, so that it isn't so distracting, and looks much better blown up that huge. The film used is the Imax style 15/70 as well. I've not seen this first hand, but there were some threads a while back discussing all about this, with the guy who deals with this transfer/processing.

See: http://www.in70mm.com/lists/various/imax_dmr.htm

Along with: http://www.vasc.org/images/IMAX/DMR.pdf

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Also, if you're interested in past threads to this subject, i ran a search and pulled up some threads over at AVS on this subject:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/searc...der=descending


spiffnme works for Imax, his explanations are a good read.

 

[DennisF]

I love the sound and image on an IMAX screen. Unfortunately I kinda like my butt, too. The *seats* in IMAX theaters are "two hour" seats. Anything over two hours and you won't feel much like sitting.

For that reason, while I watched the first two LOTR movies in IMAX, I won't watch RotK there.

 

[Todd K]

Cool, thanks. It looks like this pdf file will answer a lot of my questions. I will try to see the Matrix by this weekend to find out first hand what this is all about.

 

[Mark Shannon]

IMAX definitely is worth your money. I saw Reloaded and Revolutions in IMAX, and was very pleased.

More importantly, the technology is Canadian

 

[Dave Nibeck]

Thanks for the spoiler protection!

 

[Mark Shannon]

Oh, no problem... Just figured some people may be offended. Wait...waht hte hell am I talking about...Ok, I'm just blabering now. Off to testy I go.

 

[Todd K]

Well, I made it Friday to the IMAX screening of the Matrix Revolutions.

I expected to be more impressed. It was certainly better than an average run-of-the-mill local theater, but I guess I was expecting something that was radically different from a normal screen. The sound was nice and the screen was large, but I'd seen screen sizes that big before in normal theaters.

While I'm glad I had this experience, it didn't have me yearning to return. Thanks to everyone for their input.

Todd

 

[Michael Reuben]

Moving this to Movies. A search there for the word "imax" will bring up several prior threads.

M.

 

[Sean Laughter]

Well, the smart studios (aka Disney, at least when it comes to IMAX anyway) make two different prints when they release a DMR converted commercial film. One print is for flat screens, the other is for domes.

The dome prints are formatted so that distortion is kept to a minimum, which means the bottom of the picture is flush to the bottom of the film frame and there is possibly a bit more cropping on the sides to cut down distortion (but seeing as how most commercial films are cut versions for run-time anyway you shouldn't be going to see the "original aspect/sound/etc." or anything when seeing a DMR IMAX film to begin with).

Other studios, Fox for example, only had one print of Star Wars made, so when it was played on a dome screen it had horrid distortion. It was letterboxed so the bottom of the image wasn't flush with the bottom of the film, so when projected there was a black "hump" at the middle bottom of the screen where the letterbox was, important image information ended up to close to the edges so it was distorted. It was just pretty awful to look at. If a studio takes the proper care to prepare a dome print though, it can look really good (though obviously a bit more of a compromise from the original print than a flat-screen IMAX would be).

 

[Kenneth Harden]

It was already said, but IMAX frames (film) are HUGE, while 35mm movie film is MUCH smaller. The quality doesn't seem like it could be there.