Slashdot Mirror
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..."."
...a technology that upgrades live-action 35mm films into the Imax experience.
I don't know if I could call it an upgrade when you have to use Pan & Scan. Sure it's bigger, and more exciting, but you're missing pieces.
Here's a mirror to the article:
Link 1
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Wow, that'd make Carrie Ann Moss' shoulder-blades big enough to sling a hammock... on...
(slips in to geek catatonia)
"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."
The more these guys try to hype the Matrix, the more I want to distance myself from it. Anybody else worried they're over-marketing it?
"Derp de derp."
Great. He just made a prequal.
"Derp de derp."
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
With Star Wars II film with a camera that had a resulation less than 35mm film. All three verisons of the film 35mm, digital, and IMax, looked bad and blocky.
If they did that here too... IMax and most big screen would be a waste of space.
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?
Sounds like something we joke about: getting to see Carrie Anne Moss in that dashingly dirty and hormone punishing leather outfit, stretching out in a leaping attack in slow and glorious "in bullet time".
Underwear Boy: Do not try and check the underwear. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Underwear Boy: There is no underwear.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Having seen Star Wars: Episode 2 in DLP, Imax and plain film, I'd greatly disagree. Imax was FAR superior in quality of the image, and overall cinematic experience than DLP.
Episode II was projected at 1280x1024, stretched to the normal aspect ratio by a 1.9X anamorphic lens to stretch the image back to its correct resolution...
Thats not a lot of pixels for a full-size screen. Pixelation was very noticable. Color saturation and consistancy was somewhat better, but not enough to say its superior to the Imax experience.
Given the choice I'd rather see any action movie in the Imax format, seconded with DLP, and then film... Dramatic movies, I'd probably swap DLP and Imax in favor of not pan-n-scanning, but one could just as easily use the 70mm IMAX frame with cropped images, or an anamorphic lens to get the full-size image as well.
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
I saw AOTC in IMAX, and it completely sucked.
Actually, you can remove the "in IMAX" from the sentence and it's still true.
GMD
watch this
Maybe I'm too picky, but my biggest complaint about upconverting 35mm movies to IMAX is the mismatched cinematography, not the technical gotchas. The whole idea behind an IMAX film is to give the audience a window into a different world. Think about the "native" IMAX films you've seen... rather than use a mixture of camera angles to project a story on a screen, an IMAX film treats the audience as a camera and the screen as window. Slow, wide pans... a large, detailed screen... conservative transitions. IMAX filmmakers want you to feel as though you're truly inside the new environment, actually being positioned to see the action in front of you... not just watching a story on a glorifed TV. A good, native IMAX movie does this -- it makes the audience feel as though they're truly hovering around the subject matter. A bad IMAX movie makes the audience tired, confused, or sick.
My other beef is with the public's misconception of the IMAX film format. Traditional (non-dome) IMAX uses 15/70 film. That is, 70mm film with 15 sprockets per frame. This is not plain "70mm film, which dedicates only 5 sprockets per frame. 15/70 IMAX has 3x as much film surface area as plain 70mm and nearly 10x as much as plain 35mm. (Plus other benefits, such as double the framerate and generally better audio. Though 35mm is catching up with some recent films being available in 48fps and new 7.1 channel audio from Sony SDDS and DTS).
For more information on the IMAX format, check these out:
http://www.superspeedway.com/eng/imax1.html
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/imax1.htm
That's because you probably saw an OMNIMAX (aka ""IMAX DOME") as opposed to an IMAX. The OMNIMAX has a round screen & more immersive experience, but there aren't as many screens or movies out there. Most OMNIMAXes usually just show IMAX movies w/o taking advantage of the larger screen. Same company though, and essentially the same technology.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
The new Matrix films, awesome...
The new Matrix films in IMAX... whoa... oooh... ahh...
I don't know, personally I wish films like this were given a chance to breath first. Hollywood puts so much wieght into financial success at the box office, it's almost like insider trading now. Bet on the success of whichever movie has the best marketing crew, and you'll get good returns on your money.
When the matrix first came out, it had very little fanfare. The experience of seeing the film itself is what drove people to tell thier friends and families. Word of mouth has always been the sincere means of measuring the value of a movie. The best thing to do with a film like this is wait. Maybe it doesn't belong on an IMAX screen because it's not worth seeing period. Or maybe, it's even better than the original. There's no way to know.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
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.