Star Trek Premiere Gets Standing Ovation, Surprise Showing In Austin

MrKaos writes "Proving that science fiction can still be great entertainment, J.J. Abrams appears to have impressed Star Trek fans at the official world premiere of Star Trek, who gave the film a five-minute standing ovation at the Sydney Opera House in Australia today. Meanwhile, mere hours beforehand, flummoxed fans at the Alamo Drafthouse theater in Austin, TX, deceived into thinking they were seeing a special, extended version of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, were pleasantly surprised when a disguised Leonard Nimoy greeted them and announced they would be seeing the new film in its entirety. ILM's influence on the film is reported as visually stunning, and lucky Australian fans are scheduled to see the movie first, as it opens a day before the American release."

Comments

Re:Wait...what?

[dietdew7]

Megan Fox

Better than a refund, and maybe not planned

[Chris Burke]

Those guys in Austin should demand a refund! They paid for a ticket for The Wrath of Khan, but that's not what they got. If it were me I'd be raising hell.

The story I heard via word of mouth was that they were actually going to play Wrath of Khan, with ten minutes of sneak-preview footage from the movie that hadn't been seen before as a bonus. However shortly after Wrath started playing, the old and damaged film caught fire and was destroyed. Then Nimoy revealed himself, and instead of showing the 10 minute teaser, they showed the whole film.

linky I found on a Drafthouse blog, btw.

I can't imagine (though I guess it's possible) even Spock himself would dare show the full movie without authorization. So that may have been planned. The destruction of a print of Wrath... probably wasn't.

The last time I had a film burn up (actually it was the projector bulb that exploded, side effect was the print was destroyed) all I got was a lousy refund. Getting to watch a world premiere of a movie I'd probably be interested in, rather than having my night out ruined, is way way better than a refund.

I seriously fucking wish I had been there and I may have been but I didn't even know they were running Wrath. Why do I not check the Drafthouse web page more often?!

Re:Better than a refund, and maybe not planned

[iluvcapra]

A lamp burning the film would only destroy about five feet of it. The damaged print can be prepared and the show completed (trust me, I've done it). You can't "destroy a print" in a projector, unless it's silver nitrate, and you need a special projection booth with fire suppression in order to run those legally (and the Austin Drafthouse doesn't have that kind of booth. Trust me, I've run films there).