JonathanLB
Jul 27th, 2002, 03:29:58 AM
I feel like I just saw AOTC for the first time, hehe.
I said I wouldn't be here to post much, but this deserved a mention because it ended up being pretty humorous/ridiculous.
First I'll just say that sitting in the Cinerama seeing Star Wars is just about the best thing ever. It's definitely one of the greatest theaters in all of the world, let alone just this area. It would make the top ten nationwide I'd say, given its age, capacity, historic significance, NINE channel audio, digital projection, 65 foot screen or something, etc. etc.
What I couldn't believe is how sharp everything looked! I had honestly not noticed many details about the movie until this viewing, despite seeing it 46 times before on film. For instance, what I considered a rather uncomfirmed "rumor" of there being a coke can in a scene on Naboo where Anakin and Padme are kissing for the first time, well that is true. Actually I had looked specifically for it for ages and never found it, no matter how hard I tried. It's impossible to see on the screen size and quality I was viewing AOTC on previously. On my FIRST digital viewing, though, I found it finally. It's like this quest has ended and I finally feel "in the know" about it, haha. It's great, even though it's kinda funny, it's a nice Easter Egg I think. :)
Plus the fact the ending to the digital version is slightly different.
Basically if I had to say what impressed me the most, it would be the lighting, all of it. The sun looks like a real sun, and appears so bright that it's like you need your sunglasses, and all of the other light, including reflecting light off surfaces, comes across as crystal clear and realistic. The people look like people, not like images of people. Essentially, if I had to describe it to someone, I would say every time they saw the film on a film print, including the first showing opening day, they watched it with poor vision. When watching the digital version, I felt like I had 20/20 vision compared to more like 20/5 vision, LOL. The film print is just plain blurry nonsense. It looks horrid compared to digital. I can't even believe I'll have to go back to that crap. I thought it was ok before I had been enlightened by digital, and now I'm even more frustrated at the lack of digital projectors here.
My friend and I made a point of talking to the manager at the Cinerama and saying it was the greatest moviegoing experience we've ever had, technically speaking (opening day TPM and AOTC were obviously better atmospheres, but is that the Cinerama's fault?! lol, no). The sound was rather overwhelming too, lol, I loved it. Compared to the sound I am used to, this was just incredible. I could definitely hear more than I had ever heard before and considering I've seen this movie tens of times anyway, that's saying a lot.
There was a single glitch, but I can't complain. Anakin stands up and Owen says, "Where are you going?" Glitch in the digital version, this specific digital version at this specific showing I mean (who knows, maybe this has not happened before even?), has the frame skipping a little, almost like digital static for about 1 second or less. Eh, whatever, compared to the film print quality, it's incredible. Even the first time I watched AOTC, it was not that impressive quality of film. I was mostly not paying attention but I did notice that the film print, for being 'brand new,' wasn't exactly pristine. Grr...
Anyway so we drove up there to Seattle super easily, it was great. We parked 2 hours and 55 minutes after leaving MY house and my house is not even in central Portland, it's way far away from most things. That was easy, and we went to a local mall, got some Chinese food, walked around a bit, showed up 45 minutes early and were first in line to this 4 p.m. showing of AOTC :)
Most people there seemed to have seen it before. The theater was pretty busy by the time it started. Well, I'd say 100 people and at $7 each, that's $700, and given the afternoon showings are not as full as the 7 (we saw the lines for the 7 and people entering), that means the theater is taking probably $3,500 to $4,000 daily from the film, at least on a Friday. That's probably 2% of the national total to be honest, or at least 1.5%, way, way ahead of its relative percentage (1 theater out of like 500?). That was my guess before we even went.
So we ate dinner after getting out of the showing (this is where it gets funny), and I had spent $15 on this shirt, really cool, that says, "CINERAMA SEATTLE," I had to get it :) My souvenir, besides my ticket stub (that's FOUR theaters in TWO states and EIGHT auditoriums for 47 showings of the same movie, lol, and I will at least make it to two more theaters before it is all over). Ok so we're walking back to the car, I am broke at this point ($11 for lunch, $7 for a ticket, $15 for my t-shirt, $10 on my VISA to park, $26 for dinner, yikes, we went to a nice place, and that was every penny I had with me actually). Well we were really, really being idiots.
Here, we drive to a city that isn't even in our state, it's so far away that we've never driven there before either one of us, 180 miles north. But we don't write down or remember where the friggin' hell we parked our car! I only knew it was on 2nd Avenue... He drove, damnit, he should have made note of that. But I should have known better than to leave that responsibility to him ;) So I deserve equal blame, lol.
For about 2 hours and 30 minutes, from 8:10 to 10:40 or so roughly, we wander the streets of Seattle attempting to find our car, but we go way too far. We get into a ghetto area roughly 19 blocks away from the Cinerama (!!!! 2100 is the Cinerama, we were on 200). You can imagine that walking 19 blocks, anyway, was not that easy. Well that was just the start. Then we meet this black dude who tries to help us find our car, but he's begging for money basically if he can get it, and he offers to sell us weed pretty soon after. Well we still let him lead us around for a bit until we don't find it and decide to pay him like $3 and call it good. He was nice, he was trying to help, but he was mainly interested in his personal benefit obviously, but you don't accept help from a guy for 30 minutes and then not pay him, plain and simple. Not unless you want to get mugged, that is. He had a lady friend who knew him pretty well come up and also ask us if we want to buy weed and he was like, "Noooo, they are just trying to find their car, sheesh, let me help them," haha.
Ok so we are rid of him, and by the way, we DID run into him later that night, but he didn't see us, lol. Well we wandered by the same places over, and over, and over, and over. About that many times, four times, for most of them. We walked back to the Cinerama once and then all the way back about 19 blocks to wherever the friggin' heck we were, and then all the way back in-between and all around again, and back to the Cinerama finally. Well we couldn't remember for the life of us WHERE this parking lot was near because it was a crappy little lot with 40 spaces that looked exactly like every other lot of its kind and there must have been about 25 of them all over, so that wasn't helpful.
After an hour of walking, I did remember we were right near the "Cafe D'Artes" or whatever, some French Cafe. I also knew that our lot was the cheapest of the bunch, unintentionally, it just happened to be the first one we found actually. It was $10 all day, not $12 like most and $15 or $16 like a few others.
So we walk all around for a lot longer and see a lot of people doing weed and even at one point asked a police officer if he knew where our parking lot might be from the description we have. This guy was a total dick, hehe, I figured he was going to mislead us. He told us it was a MILE walk the opposite direction and so we started walking but I told Erik it was total BS, no way was it that far, but we went quite a ways anyway because we had no clue really.
Well finally we get sorta near the Cinerama again and we find a taxi just waiting, not for anyone specific, just waiting on the curb. So we asked him if he could help and he was extremely helpful. He drove us to the Cinerama, two blocks down to 2nd avenue, and then we found the cafe and the lot immediately. $5.80 was all it took, hehe. We gave him $7, and it was just about the best $7 I have ever spent, hehe, ok that was Erik's money actually :)
So we get in the car by that point at roughly 11:00. We figured traffic would ROCK at this time of night on an interstate going all the way back to Portland, hehe. Friday or not...
Well in the first 15 to 20 miles we see about 6 to 7 cop cars, two were within 150 feet of each other, and all were making ticket stops, hehe. They all had sirens blaring, lights on, and we even saw a VW bug next to us get pulled over. That was the car directly in front of us one lane over, WAM, got nailed. We kept around the speed limit the entire way, about 5 over to 75 mph on the 70 zones.
So we got to Portland in TWO HOURS and TWENTY minutes, LOL, or about what it takes to get to the Oregon beach. In fact, I've had way worse drives to Lincoln City (The Oregon Coast). I had no idea how close Seattle is. It's really no big deal at all going to Seattle from Portland. You cannot get lost. It's 170 miles on I-5 and 10 miles total on anything else. I am familiar with all of the roads that lead to I-5 North anyway, so it was super easy getting there (wouldn't have needed to bring the Yahoo map after just looking it over).
Anyway, digital rules, coolest thing I've ever seen. Quite an experience. AOTC plays through August 1 and then Signs begins a digital run on August 2, which should be pretty cool. Wouldn't mind driving up again to see something there, like LOTR: TTT for instance. That would be worth it to me, if it were in digital, but otherwise, nah, forget it.
Quite a day, though!
PS: I did briefly meet up with members from the Seattle Star Wars Society, including a lady I talked to online who asked me in Seattle, "Are you Bowen?" (my username at TFN, hehe), and I was like, "Yup, that is me." Pretty cool meeting up with a Fan Force group from another city even if for a few minutes. One more meeting and Fan Force Portland is officially recognized. Not to mention Erik and I are really the main two members so far, which means either one of us (or both if it were allowed) could be the city representative. Considering Oregon has only a PDX Fan Force with members from all over Oregon, being city rep. would really be akin to being leader of Fan Force for all of Oregon. :)
I said I wouldn't be here to post much, but this deserved a mention because it ended up being pretty humorous/ridiculous.
First I'll just say that sitting in the Cinerama seeing Star Wars is just about the best thing ever. It's definitely one of the greatest theaters in all of the world, let alone just this area. It would make the top ten nationwide I'd say, given its age, capacity, historic significance, NINE channel audio, digital projection, 65 foot screen or something, etc. etc.
What I couldn't believe is how sharp everything looked! I had honestly not noticed many details about the movie until this viewing, despite seeing it 46 times before on film. For instance, what I considered a rather uncomfirmed "rumor" of there being a coke can in a scene on Naboo where Anakin and Padme are kissing for the first time, well that is true. Actually I had looked specifically for it for ages and never found it, no matter how hard I tried. It's impossible to see on the screen size and quality I was viewing AOTC on previously. On my FIRST digital viewing, though, I found it finally. It's like this quest has ended and I finally feel "in the know" about it, haha. It's great, even though it's kinda funny, it's a nice Easter Egg I think. :)
Plus the fact the ending to the digital version is slightly different.
Basically if I had to say what impressed me the most, it would be the lighting, all of it. The sun looks like a real sun, and appears so bright that it's like you need your sunglasses, and all of the other light, including reflecting light off surfaces, comes across as crystal clear and realistic. The people look like people, not like images of people. Essentially, if I had to describe it to someone, I would say every time they saw the film on a film print, including the first showing opening day, they watched it with poor vision. When watching the digital version, I felt like I had 20/20 vision compared to more like 20/5 vision, LOL. The film print is just plain blurry nonsense. It looks horrid compared to digital. I can't even believe I'll have to go back to that crap. I thought it was ok before I had been enlightened by digital, and now I'm even more frustrated at the lack of digital projectors here.
My friend and I made a point of talking to the manager at the Cinerama and saying it was the greatest moviegoing experience we've ever had, technically speaking (opening day TPM and AOTC were obviously better atmospheres, but is that the Cinerama's fault?! lol, no). The sound was rather overwhelming too, lol, I loved it. Compared to the sound I am used to, this was just incredible. I could definitely hear more than I had ever heard before and considering I've seen this movie tens of times anyway, that's saying a lot.
There was a single glitch, but I can't complain. Anakin stands up and Owen says, "Where are you going?" Glitch in the digital version, this specific digital version at this specific showing I mean (who knows, maybe this has not happened before even?), has the frame skipping a little, almost like digital static for about 1 second or less. Eh, whatever, compared to the film print quality, it's incredible. Even the first time I watched AOTC, it was not that impressive quality of film. I was mostly not paying attention but I did notice that the film print, for being 'brand new,' wasn't exactly pristine. Grr...
Anyway so we drove up there to Seattle super easily, it was great. We parked 2 hours and 55 minutes after leaving MY house and my house is not even in central Portland, it's way far away from most things. That was easy, and we went to a local mall, got some Chinese food, walked around a bit, showed up 45 minutes early and were first in line to this 4 p.m. showing of AOTC :)
Most people there seemed to have seen it before. The theater was pretty busy by the time it started. Well, I'd say 100 people and at $7 each, that's $700, and given the afternoon showings are not as full as the 7 (we saw the lines for the 7 and people entering), that means the theater is taking probably $3,500 to $4,000 daily from the film, at least on a Friday. That's probably 2% of the national total to be honest, or at least 1.5%, way, way ahead of its relative percentage (1 theater out of like 500?). That was my guess before we even went.
So we ate dinner after getting out of the showing (this is where it gets funny), and I had spent $15 on this shirt, really cool, that says, "CINERAMA SEATTLE," I had to get it :) My souvenir, besides my ticket stub (that's FOUR theaters in TWO states and EIGHT auditoriums for 47 showings of the same movie, lol, and I will at least make it to two more theaters before it is all over). Ok so we're walking back to the car, I am broke at this point ($11 for lunch, $7 for a ticket, $15 for my t-shirt, $10 on my VISA to park, $26 for dinner, yikes, we went to a nice place, and that was every penny I had with me actually). Well we were really, really being idiots.
Here, we drive to a city that isn't even in our state, it's so far away that we've never driven there before either one of us, 180 miles north. But we don't write down or remember where the friggin' hell we parked our car! I only knew it was on 2nd Avenue... He drove, damnit, he should have made note of that. But I should have known better than to leave that responsibility to him ;) So I deserve equal blame, lol.
For about 2 hours and 30 minutes, from 8:10 to 10:40 or so roughly, we wander the streets of Seattle attempting to find our car, but we go way too far. We get into a ghetto area roughly 19 blocks away from the Cinerama (!!!! 2100 is the Cinerama, we were on 200). You can imagine that walking 19 blocks, anyway, was not that easy. Well that was just the start. Then we meet this black dude who tries to help us find our car, but he's begging for money basically if he can get it, and he offers to sell us weed pretty soon after. Well we still let him lead us around for a bit until we don't find it and decide to pay him like $3 and call it good. He was nice, he was trying to help, but he was mainly interested in his personal benefit obviously, but you don't accept help from a guy for 30 minutes and then not pay him, plain and simple. Not unless you want to get mugged, that is. He had a lady friend who knew him pretty well come up and also ask us if we want to buy weed and he was like, "Noooo, they are just trying to find their car, sheesh, let me help them," haha.
Ok so we are rid of him, and by the way, we DID run into him later that night, but he didn't see us, lol. Well we wandered by the same places over, and over, and over, and over. About that many times, four times, for most of them. We walked back to the Cinerama once and then all the way back about 19 blocks to wherever the friggin' heck we were, and then all the way back in-between and all around again, and back to the Cinerama finally. Well we couldn't remember for the life of us WHERE this parking lot was near because it was a crappy little lot with 40 spaces that looked exactly like every other lot of its kind and there must have been about 25 of them all over, so that wasn't helpful.
After an hour of walking, I did remember we were right near the "Cafe D'Artes" or whatever, some French Cafe. I also knew that our lot was the cheapest of the bunch, unintentionally, it just happened to be the first one we found actually. It was $10 all day, not $12 like most and $15 or $16 like a few others.
So we walk all around for a lot longer and see a lot of people doing weed and even at one point asked a police officer if he knew where our parking lot might be from the description we have. This guy was a total dick, hehe, I figured he was going to mislead us. He told us it was a MILE walk the opposite direction and so we started walking but I told Erik it was total BS, no way was it that far, but we went quite a ways anyway because we had no clue really.
Well finally we get sorta near the Cinerama again and we find a taxi just waiting, not for anyone specific, just waiting on the curb. So we asked him if he could help and he was extremely helpful. He drove us to the Cinerama, two blocks down to 2nd avenue, and then we found the cafe and the lot immediately. $5.80 was all it took, hehe. We gave him $7, and it was just about the best $7 I have ever spent, hehe, ok that was Erik's money actually :)
So we get in the car by that point at roughly 11:00. We figured traffic would ROCK at this time of night on an interstate going all the way back to Portland, hehe. Friday or not...
Well in the first 15 to 20 miles we see about 6 to 7 cop cars, two were within 150 feet of each other, and all were making ticket stops, hehe. They all had sirens blaring, lights on, and we even saw a VW bug next to us get pulled over. That was the car directly in front of us one lane over, WAM, got nailed. We kept around the speed limit the entire way, about 5 over to 75 mph on the 70 zones.
So we got to Portland in TWO HOURS and TWENTY minutes, LOL, or about what it takes to get to the Oregon beach. In fact, I've had way worse drives to Lincoln City (The Oregon Coast). I had no idea how close Seattle is. It's really no big deal at all going to Seattle from Portland. You cannot get lost. It's 170 miles on I-5 and 10 miles total on anything else. I am familiar with all of the roads that lead to I-5 North anyway, so it was super easy getting there (wouldn't have needed to bring the Yahoo map after just looking it over).
Anyway, digital rules, coolest thing I've ever seen. Quite an experience. AOTC plays through August 1 and then Signs begins a digital run on August 2, which should be pretty cool. Wouldn't mind driving up again to see something there, like LOTR: TTT for instance. That would be worth it to me, if it were in digital, but otherwise, nah, forget it.
Quite a day, though!
PS: I did briefly meet up with members from the Seattle Star Wars Society, including a lady I talked to online who asked me in Seattle, "Are you Bowen?" (my username at TFN, hehe), and I was like, "Yup, that is me." Pretty cool meeting up with a Fan Force group from another city even if for a few minutes. One more meeting and Fan Force Portland is officially recognized. Not to mention Erik and I are really the main two members so far, which means either one of us (or both if it were allowed) could be the city representative. Considering Oregon has only a PDX Fan Force with members from all over Oregon, being city rep. would really be akin to being leader of Fan Force for all of Oregon. :)