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Matrix Sequels To Get the IMAX Treatment
hondo77 writes "As if the two sequels to "The Matrix" weren't a big enough event already, it has been announced that both films will also be showing in IMAX theaters. "Although "The Matrix Reloaded" will open in Imax theaters two or three weeks after its general release May 15, "The Matrix Revolutions" will open Nov. 5 in both conventional and Imax cinemas..."."
Like the subject says, I don't want film, I want digital. Having seen several films (Akira (twice digital, once on film), Monster's Inc. (1+1), SW: TPM (1+1), etc.) on DLP and on film, I can say that the film going experience is a full order of magnitude better on DLP. The blacks are black. The edges are sharper, the film "jitter" is gone and the whole image simply kicks ass. Yes, I know that film is theoretically better. But the print you see in the theatre is 4 generations old if you're lucky and 6 or 7 if you're not. So forget nausea inducing IMAX, bring it in DLP and I'll go to see it 5 times.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
I've been waiting years for feature length films to show up in IMAX. Now that they've overcome the technical difficulties of it all, people can start to enjoy films that are worth the $10+ we shell out to see them on BIG screens.
I bet this won't be part of the Museum of Civilation IMAX in Hull though, where you can see all the IMAX movies shown in a year for only $35 Canadian.
Why slashdot? Why not?
True this will be "upgraded" but I can't imagine that wouldn't be anything more than Pan&Scan, which on a 5 story screen would probably make me sick anyway. When filmed for the IMAX screen the movie experience can be amazing, however this does not seem like anything more than a gimmick.
Wrong.
Unlike the Imax DMR releases last year of "Apollo 13" and "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones," "The Matrix" films won't have to be shortened, as Imax reel units can now support film lengths of 150 minutes.
I read the press release. Did you?
For more information, click here.
Where is the special "Matrix" icon? The standard movie icon just isn't the same...
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Last fall, a local (Portland, Oregon) science museum advertised a super-large screen version of Attack of the Clones. WOW! I wanted to see the movie again, and here it was being presented in 70mm format on a BIG SCREEN! Golly, how could I lose? I gladly paid the ten dollars and . . .
Cripes . . .
It turns out that the Portland OMSI theater had an OMNIMAX screen. Not IMAX. The latter is a gently curved, huge, conventional movie screen. The former is basically hemispherical.
There was NO correction for the curvature. Everything was BENT. Ships travelled in curved lines.
It was SUCKY experience. To rub things in, it was a CUT version of the film. Nothing crucial was cut, but it was noticiable.
My experience might have been totally different in an IMAX theater.
So . . . beware.
Stefan
You must be thinking of OMNIMax theatres. We have one close to me in Vancouver BC. It is just as you describe with a curved screen like the inside of a sphere. In the case of the theatre here, it is actually inside a geodesic dome that was part of Expo 86 but is now a science centre called Science World.
In reality, as I understand it, OMNIMax is just an IMAX file projected on the curved screen. Whatever it is, I like it way better. Much more immersive because it includes your peripheral vision.
but they just don't know it yet.
The projection system that does all the work is costly and as indicated in several postings on here, has their limitations and disadvantages in both pre- and post-processing of the film.
The projector itself can be replaced by several digital LCD projectors operated by a stagemaster system designed to keep the individual units in sync, showing digital quality movies that were either converted from the standard format, letterbox, or IMAX/Omnimax format to a DVD or similiar format that would go thru a electronic lens program designed to "shape" the projection for maximum effect and quality for the curved screen.
The added onus to this is the ability to hold massive teleconferences with several different locations, or showing events from several different areas at once.
The advantages of this setup is next to no upkeep at all by a trained operator, aside from a system admin that is really there just to keep the system in tune or to replace any parts on the projectors that fail, most often it would be the bulbs.
Just my 2 cents worth..
Oh, and if anyone from the IMAX consortium is reading this, contact me.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
A friend and I once had what tycoons describe as a shining glimpse of outrageous fortune:
IMAX Porn
"Like-you're-there", motion enhanced nakedness. The perfect format, the only route porn can take other than virtual reality. Theaters all across the country and after a tricky patent, the profits in hand. One might say with the gnomes:
1. Invent IMAX Porn.
2. Profit.
3. Profit.
4. Profit.
No question marks needed. But I have come to realize that the gains would be ill-gotten, so I hand the idea to you, oh world.
I saw Star Wars II on IMAX and I have to admit, it wasn't all that impressive. My main issues with this process of converting 16x9 movies to IMAX's 4:3 (or whatever it is);
- the films are basically getting blown up to Pan & Scan, like on TV, so you are missing a lot of the picture
- I guess the process is digital (or perhaps it was the Star Wars source material) so I saw a LOT of pixelization, to the point of distraction. Fleshtones and large swaths of color looked HORRIBLE depending on the lighting. It was like watching a poorly compressed MPEG--4 stories high.
- the films are not DIRECTED to be IMAX films. IMAX films tend to really immersive, one is often floating in water, in space, walking around the desert or the snow--the films use the format to create an experience, a realistic and true environment, where your eyes are tricked to see things "life size". Regular films are directed to be stories, the camera is usually an observer, not a participant.
- Your eyes adjust really, really quickly--the first few minutes of Star Wars were cool, but the whole IMAX effect kind of disappeared, again (I think), because the films are not designed to be IMAX films. Only a few other scenes (the meteor scene in particular) made me go, "oh, right! this is IMAX."
- The sound IS dope, but one must remember that the films need to be remixed--the vast majority of the sound comes from 2 speakers above and behind the viewers (they're super massive, though).
- One good thing, at least for Star Wars, is that the film apparently cannot be longer than 2 hours, so "Clones" was actually a LOT better in IMAX--a lot of the lamer scenes were cut and it felt like a much tighter film.
This will be cool, but mostly as a supplement to first seeing it in the regular theatre...
---mike
It does, it grows humans as crops and consumes their energy. Would it be possible to run a computer like the matrix off of human energy? Who knows, they even mention there is some sort of fusion going on, basically "future magic"", but as far as sci-fi plot holes go this is a very minor sin.
There are multiple reasons for this:
1) There are humans (children mainly) still inside the matrix they want to free.
2)Humans are at a serious disadvantage in the real world (as far as i've seen). They have to run and hide from 3 or 4 drones, let alone the entire machine army.
I think the real question is: How do they know the "real world" isn't just another abstraction to escape, and so on and so on.
...because the IMAX theater near me, in Branson, often picks a mainstream movie (usually the one with the best special effects) to show on its big screen along with all its specialized IMAX films. Even if this hadn't been announced, I would have expected it to show up there sooner or later anyway.
:)
Seems like a lot of mainstream cinematographers are going more IMAX these days. James Cameron and Bill Paxton's recent IMAX documentary on the Titanic, for instance. (I can't help but think I'd find that documentary a little nervewracking, though. I mean, Bill Paxton in a submarine at crush depth in a James Cameron movie? I'd keep expecting him to die a horrible death about 3/4 of the way through the film.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
It's happened to me. In at least one case, it was years before I had another chance to see the movie in some repetory theatre.